it could truthfully be said that i am very bad at waiting.

it's probably still the memphis teen in me.  although a lot's happened since then, it wasn't really that long ago.  i sat in my room, on my fluffy rose-printed lace-lined comforter and fretted.  i wanted to get out, to see new places, and to make a career out of my art.  i could not see an art career happening for me in memphis.  i played bush and garbage and rage against the machine on my little plastic boombox and fretted.  i wrote in my diary and stared at the ceiling and tried to come up with a plan - a way to get what i needed without the money that i didn't have.
obviously not much has changed at all.

money and i have never gotten along, and i doubt we ever will.  the thing is, i don't give it the respect i'm pretty sure it thinks it deserves.  i do not genuflect in front of the concept of a universally-agreed-upon unit of trade that has no value in itself aside from the potential of what it might trade for.  when given the choice between spending a day earning money and spending a day on an adventure, guess which i choose.  i tried the five-day-a-week-eight-hours-a-day job and it took four years of my life away.  no, thank you.

and what would be worth that loss of time? 
i don't really want an ipad enough to go out and buy it - heavens, no.  (what would i do with an ipad?  read books on it?  while there are still actual books with actual paper pages to turn and absentmindedly caress and dogear and spill tea on?  no, thank you.)
and yes, it would be nice to have real glasses that i could actually wear outside my house, or around roommates without feeling embarrassed...but i'd rather spend my money on a good meal or a trip home or (now) getting the hell out to la than on a "vision center" where i have to stare into a mirror trying to decide what style flatters my bone structure and unusually large eyes.  ew.  no thank you.
and yes, it would be quite spiffy to have a fancy car that is gut-achingly fast and that parallel parks for me and that looks fucking cool - but i'd rather a somewhat sporty car that gets me from point a to point b with the smallest risk of blowing up.  fortunately, cars with manual transmissions are cheap, and that's really all i want.

and i would really like that car right now.  right now.
but i have been doing too much adventuring and not enough time-sacrificing and this whole move to la thing is still quite new and honestly i'm still just trying to get on other jobs' schedules so i can sacrifice the next three to five months on getting the hell out there.

but the waiting.  oh, the waiting.  business is slacking off at one bar, and the ones that i'm trying to convince to put me on their schedules are taking their time doing so.  i think it will happen.  i'm pretty sure it will happen.  but november's getting closer and closer and every day not working is another hundred, buck-fiddy lost, and this gets me anxious.  i sit in my room and fret.  then i get stir-crazy so i go out with my friends (and refuse to spend more than ten bucks) and fret.  my friends think i don't like the club (which is somewhat true - it really was a bizarre place) when i'm just fretting, and perhaps fretting is better when i'm resigned to sitting in my room, on my blue bed with mama ruth's crocheted afghan, playing the rolling stones and lo-fidelity allstars and tom petty and, yes, bush and rage against the machine on my computer, and fretting. 
because have i done all i can do?  don't i have to rely on someone else's kindness/sense of timing for this to work? 
and i want it to work.  i really do want it to work.

so please just fuggin' work.

i've been back to doing t'ai chi every day after breakfast - in fact, in a second i'll be pushing all the living room furniture out of the way, finding my feet beneath me, sinking to a floating position, and going through the warm-ups, the first section, and about halfway through the second section until i can't remember what's next.  this has been going on for about a week, after i'd slept fitful sick sleep for two days straight and was stir-crazy but too weak to go outside yet for reasons other than work.  (i do believe that i'm pretty close to all well now.)  in all the uncertainty, i'm clutching to some sort of routine.

i know that if i have to wait, i'll wait.  if the move gets backed up to february, it won't be the end of life as we know it.  i love new york, and it wouldn't be the worst kind of torture to stay here another couple of months.

although it would be because i've made up my mind, and i am already saying quiet goodbyes to the beautiful moments that the city still gives me without regard to my changed situation.  that poppy new york song still plays in the strange club and everyone still goes nuts.  i quietly bike from the subway stop to my house at that ridiculously late/early hour that i've come to know the city so well by, and the breeze that kisses my face at the red lights smells of warm baking pastries and mysterious foliage and other faraway things teeming with life.  i say goodbye to the breeze and i know that new york really doesn't care if i leave or not.  but i do care.  i will miss it immensely. 

if anything, i hope to leave sooner than later because i appreciate a fast goodbye.  on the morning when i left my cozy bedroom with the flowery bed, when i turned out the light on my childhood without a look behind me, and when i dragged my suitcase down to the garage and loaded up my car and let it coast down the driveway before i started it up so my mother wouldn't catch me leaving, it was a devastatingly fast goodbye.  but it got me out.  it got me here.  and hopefully (i hope and hope and am hoping)  it will propel me all the way to los angeles.

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