Meh...
Cozy evening... I'm in bed, about to spend a second night in my new home. Moving is, as always, a flurry of activity: schlepping bags, boxes, and bins from one place to the next. My feet have never felt so sore! Thank goodness for nightfall, for quiet, for my new room...
My nightlight glows warm, spreading stars on the walls. The ceiling fan is too noisy when I turn it up high, so I set it and my floor fan on low. I'd keep my sliding door open for better airflow, but last night I heard some animals nosing around in the yard. Better to be safe.
I do want to blog, just for blogging's sake, but for now I'm just writing to kill time. There's no cell service at this place and there won't be internet for at least another 3 days. I joked earlier that I was going into Wi-fi withdrawal but I really am reckoning with my internet dependence. When I want to relax, make myself laugh, or learn something new, my instinct is to hop online. Right now, I most miss browser games, virtual window shopping, and texting my friends and family. Sometimes my phone catches a blip of data and contextless messages from The Groupchat roll in. But I can't actually read them and I definitely can't reply. Maybe, on top of feeling bored, I really am lonely.
Not much, though. Things have been so busy, I barely remember to feel. Every once in a while I'll realise I'm tired or irritated from nonstop packing, unpacking, fussing, and cleaning. Then I'll remember why I'm so busy and feel giddy and grateful, almost to the point of disbelief, that I've moved again... and I really, really love where we ended up!
The best part is the privacy. At my last place, there were always people around, walking and sitting and making noise right outside my window. I described it once as speed running agoraphobia treatment because I was bombarded with the presence of people from 8 in the morning to 10 o'clock at night. I got some cute curtains to protect my privacy, but they were sheer enough (to let the air and light in) that I still felt exposed.
Now... I'm alone. The yard is huge, surrounded by bushes and trees. For the first time in what feels like a billion years, nobody can see or hear me. So far, I've celebrated by walking around topless and belting my new favourite song: "Nothing's New" by Rio Romeo.
I don't know much about this woman, just that she's a butch lesbian who plays piano decently well. She's been serenading me at 1.5x speed for the past 36 hours. The morning I moved out, I woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep. This has been happening a lot lately (this morning I woke up at 2, for example) so I just rolled with it and made my own fun. While curating songs for my upcoming Sans playlist, I happened upon "Nothing's New."
I was instantly charmed by the piano waltz, the melancholy lyrics, the lonely little duckling in the official music video... I loaded a bootleg version on Soundcl*ud (the cover of which, to my delight, just happens to be a Bootleg Sans), and put it on loop. And now here we are, two days later. I did take a break to listen to "A Date With Demise" and the nighttime Toucan Island theme while going to sleep last night and, this morning, "Yeah Yeah Yeah (V2)" by Jack Conte. But that was only because the app refreshed and I couldn't load my song with no internet!!!
(Since writing, I've learnt that S*undcloud caches your liked songs! Yay!)
This is one reason why I keep all my music locally. I don't have any excuse for not procuring the .mp3 for "Nothing's New" before I packed up my computer, besides maybe laziness. I guess I underestimated just how much I'd love this song. I will learn to play it myself ASAP. Another exciting thing about privacy is that I can practice ukulele again, now that there's nobody to disturb. It's been so long since the peak of my skill... I stopped playing pretty much entirely because I felt so insecure over the noise I made. Years passed and now I only remember the basics. I've got to rebuild my callouses, regain breath control, relearn all those fancy strumming patterns... But my passion is still here! I love to sing! And I'm looking forward to creating truly joyful music.
My ultimate goal is to cover Corrine Bailey Rae's "Call Me When You Get This." God, I love that song so much. I'm a simple gal— the key to my heart are 7th chords. When I first heard it, I knew instantly it was a song I wanted to play myself, but my skills had already degraded too much to handle the quick chord changes. My voice needed more training, too. I'll get back to my previous level and have fun doing it. I know I can bring my skills to new heights, and not a single person will complain about me making a racket. Once I can look up chord sheets (on the internet), it's all over for you...
Other things I want to do on the internet: shop. I think I want some mats for my desk. I want paper to refill my journal and I want... Um. Okay. I got sidetracked making a giant list of things we need for the whole house. We are going Real Life shopping tomorrow and I'm confident we can procure most of the items on my list. As exhausted as I am from all this running around, I'm glad to go out. There's seriously nothing to do at home except unpack... I want time to pass as quickly as possible so I can have internet again. I'll have cell service in town too, so at least I can check my messages.
Things I can do without internet: read. I started The Heroine's Journey by Maureen Murdock this evening, though I've had the .epub for a few years. So far it's excellent. I find myself wanting to give a copy to every woman I know, so... here you go, woman or girl reading this. (If you insist you're not a woman or girl, you definitely need to read this.) As much as I like this book, it's nothing like the casual reading I'm used to. It's serious and thought provoking. I'm compelled to contemplate my life and relationships. What if I just want to turn my brain off and relax? What then?
How to turn my brain off without internet: genuinely, I have no clue. My first thought is yoga but... I don't want to. I guess, whether I pose or not, there's nothing stopping me from breathing deeply. God I just want today to be over... I want to go to sleep and wake up with wifi. Thank you God for my single bar of cell service. Thank you God for all the fun i had on the internet on other days and all the fun I'll have in the future.
...
It was too early to sleep so, even though my body is sore, I got out of bed and unpacked my suitcases. My closet is now full of clothes! And I even decorated things a bit, heheh. I feel accomplished and proud. I slid my desk over a bit more so, when I sit down, I'll be looking right at the rhododendrons blooming outside my window.
It’s a lovely house and it’s a great life. Thank you God for everything.