Up for Adoption

Just as I thought I was settled and ready to unpack, I found out once again that I might not live here. I had even bought some furniture for my room and enlisted the help of my very nice lab-mate Madhu to help me move it in.

On Friday night, I got a call from Carla saying that Beth had called wanting to talk to me. Carla was already on a train to Chicago to visit her girlfriend for the weekend. I asked Carla if it was good news, or bad. She told me she wasn't sure, in a tone that connoted potentially bad news. She knew that Sailor was coming after all and she wanted to talk to Beth before I did so she could lobby for me. I gave Carla Beth's number and she called me back several hours later.

"So?"
"It doesn't sound good. I tried my best but I don't know what is going to happen."

I felt worse than I've felt for a long time. I hadn't felt that bad since I was involved in all the bad things associated with the divorce of my parents back when I was in middle school, I told Lyndsay later that night. I may have leaped to some conclusions, but I was an emotional wreck. I decided to wait until Saturday to call Beth back.

I spent Saturday feeling mostly unhappy. I spent the morning talking to my mom and Lyndsay about not wanting to be here and my plans for reapplying for grad schools and how to get out of here. I realized that I think I've spent the majority (more than 50%) of my waking hours here unhappy. I'm thinking of making a new Google calendar to keep track of my time spent happy or unhappy, because I might just be exaggerating. Anyways, I called Beth later and she told me something like this:

"Sailor is coming. Instead of making any executive decisions or pretending like I know the best way to deal with this situation, I think we should all just sit down and talk about who should live where. I will be back late Sunday night, Sailor will be here sometime between Tuesday and Friday."

I said OK but wasn't really.

Yesterday I was very confused. I would go back and forth between being really pissed off and being excited about something like planting flax in the front yard or getting a truckload of wood chips for mulch and mushroom growing. Beth so far is not a person so much as a force of nature. I haven't even really had a conversation with her, so its very confusing to me. At this point, I'd almost rather just hate her without knowing her.

Today is Monday, and I think I finally realized how bad this whole thing is effecting me. I'm a nervous wreck. I sleep too much and wake up feeling exhausted. My stomach twists and turns every time I think about leaving my office to go "home." I decided I need to not live here, or at least find out very, very soon if I can live here.

I decided I would simultaneously tell Beth that I need an answer in 24 hours (she needs to be a landlord, not a mediator right now) and secure a room at a house I looked at previously. This way, if she decides to kick me out, I can perhaps guilt her into buying the furniture from me (I wouldn't need it in the other house). I know, this sounds unethical--I was worried too. I called my mom and she confirmed my actions. I think its not really that bad, because even if she said "you can live here!" and then I said "too bad! I'm not going to!" she wouldn't really be effected. Beth would then just tell Sailor "never mind! you can live here!" and all would be well.

So I'm sorry all you've heard about this place so far is about my housing crisis. It's not so bad here. I'm finding some restaurants and good asian markets. You can buy a dozen eggs for 50 cents from the school! I can get cheap meat too from the animal sciences lab. I saw a restored prairie area, and got frozen custard too. I'll tell you more about the good things once they occupy more than 50% of my life, which will hopefully be soon.