Redirection.

The Awkward Show ended last May. Now the Awkward Blog ends as well. It's a new chapter in my life; this semester, I take a break.

Follow my new blog. It's called But Finally, Jellyfish Appeared.

http://inkjellyfish.blogspot.com/

Thank you, everyone, for reading The Awkward Blog. Writing is one of my favorite things to do, and these blogs are where I have a place for it.

When you spilled the milk, did it look like the moon? I love milk.

Potential.

I am freaking out about leaving Boise.

I spent this morning at Dawson Taylor. I left Casey off her leash and she wandered around and all the patrons smiled and petted her. The air was warm. Tess and I sat and sipped coffee with our tattoos and our dogs. She just got a Great Pyrenees puppy, cutest thing in the world. Everyone comes up and talks to us. Asks us how old our dogs are (I lie and say eight) and what our tattoos mean. And I love love love it here.

We went back to her apartment, across the street from Boise High. There's an extra room. It's adorable. Rent is $425. Split between two people, that's nothing.

Austin and I are becoming quite close. We walked around the zoo yesterday. We watch public access TV and make fun of it. I'm always laughing. We eat Thai food and are kind of Buddhist.

My dog rides shot gun. She's the love of my life.

I get so worried about money. NAU costs 10,000 a semester. I am worried that the journalism program is no better than Boise State, but a hell lot more expensive and away from what is becoming my favorite place in the world. Flagstaff has no river. Flagstaff has HIM.

The night we stayed there, we stayed with a girl who just finished the journalism program at NAU. Did I tell you that? She ranted and raved at how awful the program is. How the newspaper just went bankrupt. How one of the Lumberjack's headlines made it onto the Tonight Show when Jay Leno makes fun of newspaper headlines. "Lady Jacks off to a great start." $20,000 a year. Four years. $80,000. No Greenbelt. No Tessa. No Dawson Taylor. No Boise River. No Casey. No Mom. My mom and I are closer than ever. Same with my dad. Same with this city.

But this is the choice I made.

Your flight is gonna leave without you.

I stood in line at security, boarding pass and driver's license in hand. The line inched forward and I started wondering if it was silly to leave right then. Just before I hand the officer my paperwork, I dip out of line and wander back into Sky Harbor. It's the experiences we're supposed to be living for.

With this abrupt change of plans, we pack our bags and head to Flagstaff. The drive is quick, familiar. The temperature drops twenty degrees. The altitude raises to 7,000 feet. For the first time, I am there without him.

We wander around downtown, and there is live music. I eat a crepe and visit my future work. The Barnes and Noble there is small, cozy. They tell me to start the transfer paperwork immediately. A music seller is leaving at the end of the summer. I have a place.

We go back downtown and it's alive like Boise. Everyone is out with their dogs, chatter, one million conversations buzz in the air. The live music is good.

I look down at my phone, surf through Facebook. Pictures come up. I stop dead. Everything around me seems to just shut off. Pictures from the lake. New ones. His family has uploaded them. I don't want to look at them, I don't want to see them, but they are there. And he looks so happy. Part of me is glad he looks so happy. I don't feel resentment and I don't feel anger.

But I also don't feel like talking.

We go to the apartment where we're going to crash. Samantha, the girl who lives there, just made cookies. She's watching Friends. The things that make me feel better. Make me feel okay.

This morning, we met with Andrew Madden, the general manager of KJACK. We talked for a good hour over coffee, plans and suggestions and ideas to make KJACK one hell of a radio station. It'll be a project. It'll be exciting progress. I'm excited that other people are excited.

Driving into Flagstaff, I felt in my bones that I was in someone else's territory. But driving out, it felt a little more like my own.

There was a reason to dip out of line at security. Hopefully there will be a reason for this nerve-wracking adventure as well.

I remember how we used to be.

"You're not old enough to drink that."

I laughed and looked down at the bottle of root beer on the counter. It's good to see people from high school again. I smiled and paid for the soda.

I remember running with a cup of Turkish coffee across downtown to where I could find a parking spot. Trying to get the timing just right. Just before five, so it doesn't get cold, but so he doesn't see me.

I taped the note to the car door. "Hi there! Look under your car!"

The sharpie hearts all over the green coffee cup. The note about keeping him up until five.

I set the bottle on the ground, and hoped it wouldn't roll away.

That the coffee cup wouldn't tip over and spill hot coffee all over his windshield.

That no one would see the bottle on the ground and take it.

That the coffee wouldn't be cold by the time he got to it.

That the soda wouldn't be hot by the time he got to it.

I got a text from him. "You are a complete bad ass. I was just thinking about Henry Weinhard's on my way out."

I got a text from him. "No one has ever done anything like this for me before, that's so sweet."

But now we don't talk anymore. And I've changed drastically, but not at all.

Do you want to see the world, do you want to see the world?

Do you want to see the world a different way?

I get nervous for next fall, breathing, preparing, knowing I will have to sprint smiling through the animosity and resentment. The place I no longer belong. A place where I will already avoid eyes. When he offered me a seat in government almost a year and a half before, I had no idea I would have to avoid his eyes a year and a half later.

A different way.

A different summertime.

The more people I get to know, the more I want to know people.

I've spent a lot of time listening in the last few days. Listening to everyone's stories, piecing together their lives, their pasts, their families, and who they are.

Tess and I sit together outside Dawson Taylor's where everyone pets my fat dog and compliments our tattoos. I smile at the way her life has fallen into place. A sweet boyfriend, a good life in Boise, a good new boyfriend for her mom, an upcoming rafting trip.

Austin and I sit at Camel's Back on a blanket in the sunshine and he explains music to me, the way it works and the people involved. His life about to change, a move back home, a close family, a potential to save up some money.

Michael and I sit outside Pie Hole with greasy cheap pizza by the slice, with soda. He tells me about moving to Boise a few weeks go, about marriage of his parents, of himself, of people he knows. I try my hardest not to notice Brian's good friend Kate sitting at the next table over.

When I talk, I feel like the words are rushed and lately, it just feels better to sit back and listen. I realize how everyone are in different places in their lives, just trying to figure out each passing moment. Tess has lived in Boise for almost a lifetime. Austin prepares to leave it in a month. Michael arrived three weeks ago. And here I am, in the mist of all these people. Listening. Anymore, when I talk, I feel like I only have a vague idea what I am talking about. A brief, but accurate explanation of Brian. Recited facts. Maybe I am just emotionally drained.

Two and a half miles of walking without shoes, a cell phone, keys, or money, wondering why things are sometimes fucked up while it rains will do that to you.

But my mom and I eat milk duds and watch TV and she makes me laugh. I get letters in the mail and they make me smile. My dad and I make plans to go out on the boat and float the river and that makes me glad. The air is warm, and that makes everything a little more bearable.

Melody is blind.

Jazz.

There's nothing quite like it. It's calming and relaxing and sexy and makes me feel lonelier than most things. While listening, and I realize I have no one to think of in that way. In that sexy jazzy you-are-mine-and-perfect-for-me way.

When I hear jazz, my mind's eye sees a small apartment and a city view of night lights. It's a solitary picture. Another scene of my own isolation. Something calm and rejuvenating and lonely. The same self image I have of myself alone, hidden from the world, in the quietness of jazz. And at the same time, lonely. The examination, thorough. The dichotomy, fascinating.

Barnes and Noble sounded quiet until I started working there. Now, I hear all the sounds my ears never picked up before. People being paged, phones ringing, PDTs beeping, same music, the constant hustle of the store being run. I was ignorant and unaccustomed. Now I sit in the overstuffed chairs and I hear two separate worlds. The quiet, undisturbed peace of a customer surrounded in books. The busy, hectic, noisy business of an employee running a bookstore.

Tea and jazz, the ultimatum of a quiet, lonely night.

Lonely isn't always bad.

I ramble on and on.

I said I needed a project.

I got one.

Something to consume my thoughts, my time, my energy. Obsession. Until I am touching a lip ring that isn't there.

My expression turns focused and my concentration narrows in and I'm no longer aware of time lapsing. And when it's over for a bit, my mind feels pleasantly blank.

Lately I surround myself with people. Catch the eyes of the regulars at the Flying M. Sometimes being around people just makes me feel more lonely though. I watch them smile at each other and laugh and talk together. Share their lives, their experiences.

And I'm flying along the freeway, it takes seconds for me to take off in my car. I don't unlock the passenger door for anyone. Don't wait for them to sit down and get comfortable. Don't wait for them to buckle their seatbelt. It's just me. It's alright, with the windows rolled down and some nostalgic Death Cab for Cutie.

And it's like this is how it has always been, like he never existed. Until I am cleaning out my email and see a message sent on April 12th.

"Hi, B." Look at this that I wrote.

I delete it before the memory surfaces. The mind is still blank.

This weird and totally different feeling I get deciding to take the longer drive home, driving down Harrison and having just been told that something I wrote was good. I see Tegan Ren out there walking her cat and yelling at people in their yards. We're both lonely as hell.

I spend a lot of time to myself.

But on the bright side, I'll be back in Phoenix in ten days.