Binary Orbit

I feel good today--no, GREAT today. I mostly attribute this to the rearranging of furniture, which is taking place in my bedroom at a glacial pace, but is allowing me to feel rather accomplished when I complete small steps of the project like, say, filing things I should have filed months ago, or putting away laundry or moving a few items from one end of the room to the other.

The next greatest factor in my improved state of being is the microvacation that marked the end of working on Long Movie Job, but with the promise of Quick Unit Shoot around the corner. After a nice weekend hanging out with Cheshire Cat and his friends, spending a little time with Thinky Face and revisiting my roommates I spent a couple days upstate with Helicopter and then a day at home to dick around and do nothing. Now that I'm all rested and recharged I feel like a million bucks! I'm ready to take on the world...or at least my new job, which starts tomorrow and (bonus) pays a living wage.

While upstate, Helicopter's fiancé and his father and brother were re-siding her cute little suburban home, and they spent a lot of talk time telling me about all the other "improvements" they plan on making to their house; stuff like moving walls and additions and roofing and renovating the bathroom. Hardly just cosmetic repairs. The sight of the dumpster in the front yard and the good-natured but high-volume din of power tools was enough to make me never want to buy a home again. I can't wait to get rid of the one I have.

As part of the overhaul the front door had been replaced, but without a latch so the fellas were pretty much land-locked at the house. I quickly noticed Helicopter's role took on the very traditional female role of gatherer/chef, and we were often sent on errands to pick up things like fried chicken (lunch), or plastic bottles of sugary lemonade beverages, which seems to be what people drink instead of water in that part of the country.

Admittedly I'm no fried chicken expert or even enthusiast, but after standing in the chicken shack for five minutes I could feel the grease seeping into my pores and knew it would be a cold day in hell before I ate anything from that place. When we returned to the house I said I wasn't hungry, I'd only eaten breakfast a few hours before (which was true), so I opted for a midday run instead. Four miles of gorgeous mountain views beats a bucket of fat-dipped chicken and mayonnaise-drenched cabbage any day, as far as I'm concerned.

On my return I spent some one-on-one time with Heli, basking in the sheer joy of being with my best friend after a long absence. Coupled with the relief of her returning safely from combat it caused a great wave of calm and comfort to pass over me. There she was, right in front of me, MY Helicopter. We've been apart too much over the last few years and now, finally, she's just a short train ride away and she's gonna stick around for a while.

It's amazing how the lives of two people will converge and then suddenly shoot away from each other in opposite directions. When she left for basic training my brain went on leave while I developed and honed my drug habit. When I finally came back to reality we reconvened with no love lost, all forgiven. Then I fell in love, dropped out of school and moved across the country. She lived the college life, went on spring break in Jamaica, and graduated with honors as a lieutenant in the US Army. She moved to L.A. on her own while I was getting engaged in Louisiana. While I was grounding myself in France and realizing my need for independence she was learning to fly in Alabama and falling for a fellow pilot. I realized domestic life wasn't for me and took off my ring within weeks of her committing for the first time in her life. For a brief hiccup she was there to catch me when I fell, terrified and excited, into the waiting hum of New York, and then she was gone to war, her man at her side, living in what she calls a dreamlike state while I was flung facefirst into the harsh reality of the City.

Now that she's back I wonder if our lives will ever be in the same place at the same time again. She's so happy with her little house and her big man with red state politics and her spoiled dog and brand-new cars and pickup truck and meat and potatoes diet and market-stimulating consumerism and TiVo and quaint little rural town. Just a few days with it all and I'm reminded that it's just not for me, that I don't even want to want it. The trees are nice.

At first glance, nobody would realize this is the same woman I once kissed passionately in a baby pool before an audience of hundreds, slathered head to toe with the chocolate pudding in which, moments before, we had wrestled one-another to a draw. But maybe they wouldn't recognize me either. We've both come a long way.

kyle the girl
(via BlogPress)