A post from Thursday? But no connection until today...

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I find two things a little strange about this new house. One, it is so quiet. I don't hear my neighbors at all; unlike Fishtown, there's no one yelling outside of the door or drag racing down the street. This will most likely change when summer rolls around. I imagine marichi music and children playing outside, but maybe that's racist. Secondly, I stand a lot. I can sit down on the sofa if I want to read or watch one of the two channels I get, but to use the computer or to smoke a cigarette, I have to stand. The laptop is perched on a bookshelf near the window because it's the only way I can get a connection. This weekend, Liz and I will use my lovely Ikea gift card to buy some things. A desk maybe and perhaps a chair and a different tv stand so that I can fit my stereo on it. This morning, I decided it was okay to turn on my stereo while getting ready, but even that felt too loud, like I might be disturbing my invisible neighbors. Neither Ernesto nor Henri make much of a peep, though Henri's fatness will on occasion cause the hardwood floors to groan.

There I have found my wind up clock and wound it and now there is a ticking noise, fast, like a cricket or a baby's heartbeat. I can't do much more with this place until I figure out where things might go. I can walk around and put things in different areas, but it's a waste of energy until I know how everything will fit.

My friends have been so great--Zena has called more than once, and Hasana has tried to reach me and Amanda and Kelly check in often, and Carrie always invites me places where I would undoubtedly meet new people, but I'm not quite feeling like people yet, only Sim people. I have so many things to decide--pay for Wireless so that I don't constantly have to be hoping for a connection or restarting my computer again and again, hook up phone service in case some one tries to break in and I can't find my cell phone, buy an alarm system for the same reason, go next door to the Hispanic people to the right of me and introduce myself with paella in hand?

And then there's work and the feeling like I should stay as late as Ingrid does. She's there even if I leave at 6 p.m. and she's back again in the morning before 8:30 a.m. We have so much to do and I tried to write talking points for the inauguration this afternoon and they turned out something like, Welcome to the new President! She is so great. We are happy she's here and we hope she will accept this crown jewel as a token for our appreciation. Long live the Queen! Really, it's that bad. Ingrid is a patient editor and she looks at you over the top of her glasses and makes eye contact and you don't feel like a total fuckhead even as the things she suggests would be obvious to a second grader.

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