Fanmejl

Sometimes I wonder “For whom am I writing?”

Then I get stuff like this in my mailbox at the university.

Though the question was repeated – with slightly altered intionation – when I flipped to the message’s other side…

Growing up, becoming responsible, taking control, being proactive, choosing wisely, etc, etc… is perhaps what I have been struggling with this past week – and will, no doubt, be struggling with throughout our current decade. Right now I’m in the middle of moving to my very first own apartment. I’ve never rented an apartment before, not in Sweden, not in Russia, and most definetly never before in the United States of America. I’m trying out this new role of being a responsible adult, but I’m not sure I’m all that good at it. At the moment, everything’s a mess. For example, I ordered personal checks from my bank only a week before I will need them and so far they have not turned up in my mail – how I will get my new landlady her money remains a mystery to me. Plus, Critical Companion is still at large in Russia and has not yet been able to transfer her half of the money to my account, thus I’m not even sure I can pay my new landlady even if I through some kind of miracle do get the checks in the mail before moving out on Monday. Only today did I make the call to set up an account for electricity and gas at the new apartment – didn’t know this had to be done at all but now it has luckily been taken care of. I’m still not quite sure how one gets internet to one’s new apartment; a part of me wants to simply wait for Critical Companion to get back to the country but then there’s this other part of me that is growing stronger and bigger and more influential with every day and this part keeps telling me I need to get myself together, grow up, face the facts, and take control of my life and my fate and my internet connection. The other day I bought moving boxes but I wasn’t aware that American moving boxes need to be sealed with tape in the bottom so when I tried lifting one up all I got was this huge pile of Fasmer and Nabokov and Brodsky and some five pairs of heels on the floor… Today I will buy tape. This at least solves the box situation; exactly how to get the boxes from point A to point B remains unclear. I do not have a driver’s license, i.e. I cannot rent a truck and do it myself. Also, now I am the owner of a queen size bed which needs to be transported but which is bigger than me and it remains to me unclear as to how this should be done and also why in the world I chose to aquire furniture that much larger in size than myself. I’m getting a seven foot bookcase from a colleague – she said to “keep it in the family as it were” – which seems to further prove the absurdity of my thinking. At the moment I would gladly offer up a kidney or a liter of blood for the opportunity to be transformed into a large man…

Yesterday I went into ‘the city’ [San Francisco] for the first time since I got back to Berkeley – I know, I know it does appear like I never get out of here – and bought Gulnara’s something blue at Victoria’s Secret before going to a splendid dinner in Pacific Heights with The Contemporary Housewife [and future graduate student at Berkeley], her husband, and this other very pleasant guy.

As I made the horrible [alas, well-calculated] choice to share my blog with S. the other night, I’m not holding my breath for any fifth date to materialize. Perhaps one day a man will enter my life who will accept its presence and perhaps even like it, but so far this blog has a perfect track record as The Relationship Slayer.