Slant Homophones

I moved to Columbia, Missouri this week.

In case you did not catch my not-so-novel pun, that lifechoice was the stimulus for this blog.

In the last year, I took a year off graduate school to write my memoir and try my hand at teaching. The writing did not come until late in that year, after I made the decision to move because teaching 8 sections of community college introductory sociology every year on shit part-time instructor pay did not match my career goals. I loved living around my friends again, being there for the weekly gatherings, sharing a home with some of them.

So it seems I can never be fulfilled in every aspect of my life. I have intellectual and political passion in graduate school, but I am plagued by terminal homesickness OR I live amonst my dear friends, only to become sickened by the horizontal trajectory of my career.

So, because it is work's turn, I have dedicated the next 3-5 years away from home. That is life-altering, guys. It is possible that by the sheer momentum of such a decision, I may never reclaim what I lose in the process. I don't cry often, but the night before I moved, while everyone gathered as we usually do, and Tony was back from New York before his permanent move, I snuck away to cry four or five times. I don't think anyone noticed. It's changing and its drastic and the most important things in my life may never recover.

Enough with the complaining for now: I'm here. Fortunately, I convinced one of my friends, Matt Humphrey, to move along with me, but he will not be here for another 3 weeks. Classes do not start for another 3 weeks. I am alone in a strange place with no structured activities for 3 weeks. It is these sorts of conditions that force a person to blog for the sake of their sanity (when I should be working on my memoir).

Now four days here in Missouri, I have built a desk, two bookshelves, put up curtains in all the rooms, unpacked my shit (haha), and tried to install World of Warcraft for two days (which doesn't bode well for the "casual play" promise I made to myself). The power went out, and I freaked (blaming Matt for not getting the utilities in our name before I realized it was the whole neighborhood). I thought my recently purchased food would go bad, and then I assumed that someone would break into the apartment (maybe the junkie who knocked on my backdoor yesterday to ask if she could borrow a spoon) and kill me because I didn't have a flashlight. No one would find my body for at least 3 weeks.

I took a walk around town. It's really a remarkable community....a small 100-150k population where the university is right downtown and lots of local business peppered all around. It's a progressive city in a conservative state, which is a delightful and familiar contrast to Western Kentucky. The walk reminded me that when lonely, I walk. I've not been lonely for a while now, and so I've gotten fat. When alone, I also blog (if you look at my MySpace blog history, this also coincides with my last move home).

Long story short, I'm kind of excited about living here, about participating in the community, about intellectual stimulation, and yes, even about the time alone. I am also terrified, and I need a way to keep in touch with home (aside from the few who play Warcraft). That's what this blog is about. I'll probably mix it up with traditional style blogging, rambling, pieces of my memoir (acceptable and otherwise), poetry, and silly stuff. I don't know why anyone would be interested in all this....but I hope you'll humor me because I miss you so much. :)

-Mike