random North Carolina musings

• a surprising number of people stopped me to tell me they liked my Bernie muppet shirt
• holy shit, the bugs here are huge
• I feel like I will never be not covered in sweat again
• the buses are lovely and free and air conditioned to the max but, damn, why is there only one an hour?!
• EVERYTHING is uphill
• people are polite and most of them will just have a chat with you
• air conditioning is pretty much the greatest thing EVER
• the neighbors will introduce themselves and will ask how you're doing every time they see you (not just because you accidentally made eye contact)
• there are only 5 grubhub restaurants here
• the produce here is really nice
• the sweet corn isn't as good
• I am not constantly being overwhelmed by sensory overload, it is very quiet
• unemployment is way less awful than I thought it would be
• rain does not make things cooler, it just makes them wetter (it's like a sauna)

Big Changes, first week in NC

Part of me feels like the past three weeks have flown by and another part of me feels like it's taken forever. For the next two years, I will be writing from North Carolina while I work on my master's program. Moving to Chicago seven years ago was hard but I had a car, many good friends in the city already, and I was only three hours from my family, it didn't feel quite so isolated. Even so, I spent great parts of the first year sitting alone in my apartment, chain smoking, drinking wine, watching the Food Network with my dog, and crying myself to sleep because I was so lonely. Leaving Chicago was nearly impossible. Chicago is the only place that ever felt like home to me and the people there are family who I would do anything for. Leaving was full of panic attacks and tears and emotions that I was really not ready for. I have been in North Carolina for six days and, aside from going to check the mail, taking boxes to the dumpster, or letting my dog out, I've only left the apartment once. Last night was my birthday and I forced myself out of the door, walked over to Starbucks for my free birthday frapuccino and hauled my cookies in awful humidity the mile and a half walk to University Mall where I grabbed a burger and saw The Secret Life of Pets at the movie theatre there before walking back home. I have been very spoiled living in Chicago. Though the buses here are free, they are not very frequent and it is not very well set up for walking. At times the sidewalk just ends and you have to go a longer way around to not be walking down the side of a major thoroughfare in the grass. I may need to look into being a car owner again. I haven't remotely finished unpacking (my living room is still more boxes than floor) but I finally caught up on Game of Thrones and Doctor Who and I admittedly spent most of the daytime hours of my birthday playing WoW to my heart's content. People here seem to be very polite and friendly and I've gotten a ton of complements on my purple hair so hopefully I'll be able to stop being such a scaredy-cat and get out into the world soon.