Hello dear readers!
Have you missed me yet? I’ve missed y’all! The blog stats are through the goddamn roof this month so far (as of 8:25pm PST, we’re looking at 6,554 unique visitors, 240 comments, and a whole schwack of shares on Reddit, Pinterest and Twitter), and I’d like to take a minute to say a huge THANK YOUto every single one of you who take the time out of your day to read my ramblings. It truly means the world to me, and I’m so excited that if the metrics stay where they lie now, we should hit 10,000 visitors by the first EIB-anniversary! You guys rock my fuckin’ world, seriously.
Alrighty, so. Update on my life. So much has happened lately that I barely know where to start! I suppose where I left off would be a good place, no? Freelancing, that’s where I was at. I was ghostwriting a bunch of (rather uninteresting) articles while I was hunting for a job, and that was good practice for a professional writer, let me tell you. It also kept my sanity (somewhat) intact while I underwent the seemingly fruitless and hugely frustrating task of hunting for a job for the first time in a year in a new city. Whoever said that looking for a job is a fulltime job in and of itself was painfully correct. Anywhore, it was a semi-frustrating, semi-badass couple of days writing for 12 hours straight about automotive insurance and pallet racking systems…can’t say that I wrote anything I’m spectacularly proud of; however, I can now officially say that I’ve been paid to write. One step closer to the dream, right? One day. One day I will be an author. At this point, I don’t even care how long it takes; but, that’s a tangent for another day.
Where was I again? my brain is just everywhere today. OH YEAH – job hunting. So, can’t lie, this whole finding employment after not having had to have done so for a year was intimidating, frustrating, and pretty much awful. That said, I did find a job – a mighty sweet job – completely by fluke. I’d stopped into a coffee shop in Chinatown on one of my (many, many, many) “let’s hand out 50 resumes today and see where we get” adventures, and offhandedly left one with the barista after downing my quad short Americano. Lo and behold, the very day I had decided to just give the fuck up, they called me in for an interview! I got the job (woo!), have now passed my probation (WOO!), am learning to use the espresso machine (Woohoo!), and have received my first raise (WOOHOO!). It’s a great little joint in a super eclectic and interesting part of the city, my coworkers are radballs, and I’m officially worth something (monetary, anyways) once again! Such a relief! It’s also 2/3 of the reason why I’ve been failing to update here – it’s been busy. But, I’m working on it, and slowly (but surely) my schedule is once again falling into place. Life is (once again) falling into place. And my habit of using superfluous parentheses is still intact.
Also exciting, my passport finally arrived! I am so unbelievably fucking stoked about this I can’t even. Literally everything about the acquisition of said documentation was stressful as all hell – from getting my documents back from my parents, to the fact that I waited until the trip was 8 weeks away, to the seemingly endless waiting game…BUT – it all worked out, I am passport-clad until 2023, and I must say that my photo is rather spectacular (I look skinny, my hair is rad, and I don’t have my convict face rockin’). I feel so free having this in my hands it is insane! As somebody who used to mean the world to me used to say, “if you do what you’re supposed to be doing, things will fall into place.” She was wrong about a lot of things, but that one was on point. Its these things that make life feel right somehow in a way that very little else can – I mean, the day to day of being with Vega, of being in the 250, that much is easy to see. The bigger things take proof these days for me to accept, and I got a big dose of reassurance that I’m on the right path today. Seriously, I’m just fucking thrilled. And I’m all of an hour from Seattle…I see many a roadtrip in mine and Vega’s futures!
While we’re on the subject of Victoria and all that jazz, I thought I’d take a minute to express my utter glee at being an official resident of the 250. It is spectacular living here, and I draw that distinction because although I made many a trek down here during my club days (that’s a story for another day but whatever), I never got to experience the city for all it’s worth. In the past few weeks, Vega and I have:
-gone for a hike to a gorgeous lake with his coworker on a Friday afternoon (where we said hello to Mary Jane and went for a swim)
-seen a floating symphony orchestra perform during sunset on the harbour, which was a magical and beautiful and wonderfully romantic date night
-discovered the most wonderful path to get to the local grocery store, which takes us through a gorgeous forest (and also, multiple blackberry bushes and plum trees)
-seen a metal show at Lucky’s bar (Torrefy, Vesperia, Crimson Shadows, and Unleash the Archers)
-fallen in love with the vibrant, eccentric, lively, and ever-shifting landscape (both the people and the nature)
Basically, we love it here (I shouldn’t speak for Vega but I’m taking the liberty to do so anyways..haha love yoooou!), and I foresee many a happy day spent here for years to come. There’s something to be said for coastal life!
Hmm, what else to divulge… OH YEAH. So Vega and I are into our third week of a Whole30, and I’m pleased to announce that I’ve definitely lost a couple inches! I miss beer, but that’s okay – I’ll be able to imbibe a little on the 31st for the UFC fights. I’m thinking that watching the fights at the 4-mile might be a good usage of my time and calories for the day haha 🙂 All the same, it’s been a good few weeks of eating right and moving more. That’s the key folks. A calorie’s a calorie, no matter how small. Healthy mentality + healthy food + move more than you consume = weight dropped. I promise I’m not getting all freaky deaky again; however, I also made a pact with myself to be comfortable in my bathing suit by the time we go vacationing in September. Attainable goal, check. Insert minor freakout induced by pending vacation excitement—>here.
Also in the “things that Mia is way too excited about” category is this upcoming Saturday. Why, you ask? Welp, it turns out that Mddchild is playing at the Victoria Tattoo Expo (tangent: “Lawnmower Man.” Download it. Right the fuck now. SO GOOD!!). And I’m not working. And I’m going to spend the day ogling tattoos, AND SEEING MY FAVORITE FUCKING CANADIAN ARTIST EVER. I have also become privy to the knowledge that the deposit on my tatt with the artist I want will be max $100.00, so we can all safely assume that come November, my sleeve will be done. We can all also safely assume that I am entirely too excited about the coalescence of these two magical and happy-inducing things. Insert overexcitement—>here.
Besides all of that, I believe that’s a fair 1300-odd word summation of where I’m at and where I’ve been lately. Life’s legitimately good, and that’s still super weird. Slowly though, the fog is lifting–the scars of my past (both mental and physical) are beginning to fade, and things are starting to make sense again. I find myself lost in this strange sense of peace – something that my dear friend MJ described in Endure perfectly – “…peace, like I’d never felt before. I understood what the word meant academically, but I’d never felt it like this.” Truer words, never spoken. I used to find solace in the insanity, and I’m learning with every passing day here on the island with my Vega that it is an entirely possible and attainable thing to find the same solace in sanity. Perhaps this is the cusp of the BHAG finally taking hold over the bullshit. To quote Bukowski, “what matters most is how well you walk through the fire,” and I believe I have made my way through Hell relatively unscathed. If 13 year old me could see how 23 year old me turned out, I think she’d be a little bit more than proud.
Gratuitous cute:
For now,
Wallace, out.