It was one week, yesterday, since I arrived in Virginia, and I have yet to unpack. My suitcases are no longer full, to be certain, but my clothes, books—the possessions that I deemed important enough not to leave behind in the huge bags that went to the goodwill—are strewn around the room, wrinkled, dirty, piled high. My room sits just at the top of the stairs, and my mother says the mess is making her crazy and that I must remedy it. I’d like to. Really, I would. But somehow packing those clothes away into drawers means I’m staying for the long haul, and I am just not ready to accept that yet. Certainly, clothes in drawers are no contract, no precursor for signing one’s life away. But when I’m transient, I act it, and don’t pretend to set-up “home away from home” by folding my clothes and arranging my things in nice little piles; I never use the drawers in hotels. Granted my house here is less a hotel than home primo, but really, at this point, out of college, I want it to be a stopping point, not a final destination. And even though all parties agree that I am only here until I regroup and get a job somewhere else, the fact that this could be months from now makes me a little bit crazy, and a little bit scared.

Tonight at dinner there was a showdown: mom and dad think I am disrespecting the way they run things (I am), and are offended by what they perceive as ingratitude about staying here (it is). It’s true: I don’t want to be here. But I have no money, no job, and no health insurance, so this has to be the place, at least for awhile. I am having a revelation here. I am living at home out of necessity, not because I am lame. And this doesn’t have to be a horrible thing: it offers things like free food, a bed, a puppy, and medical care should I have an accident while eating chocolate-covered almonds. And, though I hate, hate, hate to admit it, it offers another chance to hang with my parents, and to learn from them, because it seems that maybe, at least sometimes, they are right.

I didn’t end up going to NYC, but stayed the weekend in Northern Virginia with an old friend. A lot of quality television and bad football was watched during the day while at night we went out and met up with friends from school who are now saving the world—or making a fortune—in DC. Was somewhat the antithesis of a weekend I would have had in LA: I recognized people wherever we went (and because I knew them, not because they once guest-starred on Felicity or similar) and it rained—nay, poured—all weekend.

I walked around the city by myself on Friday in the rain, and decided whatever dreams I had for public transportation and walking were ridiculous and convoluted and that I really have no interest in ever taking a metro ever, ever again. And that walking is nice until it’s pouring and you’re soaked. I went to the Museum of the American Indian but promptly left when I remembered that I don’t have the attention span for museums.

Anyway, weekend was fun and fine, and I don’t think I want to live in DC, though I didn’t think I wanted to live in DC before this weekend, so really, as far as developing life plans, etc. this weekend was pointless.

This week I will: Apply for a lot of jobs. In a lot of cities. And a lot of fields. And if I get one, I will know that all this time I really just wanted that job, in that place. Yes. So this is the plan.

Am home. First night was all, um, I’ve made a huge mistake. But now has been some days and I’m happy to be here in my lovely, (relatively) clean city with family and puppy and, perhaps most notably, bed.

Have spent past few days waking late, watching movies on TV, and half-heartedly searching for jobs in as-of-yet-undetermined fields and locales. Tonight I met a friend for coffee. She is in grad school and is getting married. We’re in very different places, obviously, but she is good evidence that there are indeed creatures my age who are adults.

While she is on track, I have brought my chronic state of indecision down to the most micro level, forgoing meals for not knowing whether I prefer soup or PBJ, going barefoot because there is no real winner between flip-flops and slippers. I’m about to stay home this weekend and watch more marathons of Law and Order, etc. if I don’t get my act together and figure out what I want to do. The initial plan was to take home-friend group trip to NYC this weekend, but as various participants had to drop-out due to collegial obligations (pshaw), groupness of group-trip was suspended. I told my friend in the city that I was going to come anyway; then reneged due to laziness in face of the journey; then flopped again and said would come; then chose just to go to DC, not NYC; then decided, yes, shall go to NYC; then read of bomb threat and decided against trip; then realized if I didn’t go for that reason, terrorists had won, so now I am bloody going.

So. Goals of trip are:

1. Catch-up with old friend


2. Have fun/be active/get out of daytime-TV-watching funk


3. Connive friend into providing analysis of my talents, perhaps also my goals, perfect career, etc


4. Not get blown up


5. Eat a cupcake from Magnolia Bakery

This is, of course, assuming I don’t change my mind again by morning. And this isn’t just a cute ending, because I probably will.

Soon after discovering I wanted nothing to do with movies and television except to watch and talk smack about them, I accepted that there was little reason for me to stay here. Certainly I have lovely friends here, but just as friends couldn’t be reason enough to hang around home after grad, they cannot be reason enough to stay here.

When one dreams of writing screenplays or acting on camera, it’s easy to justify retail jobs and sleeping on the floor. But when one has no such dreams, if one has about as much an idea about the direction they want to take as they did when five years old, then perhaps LA isn’t the place to be finding oneself. Certainly, there are lots of opportunities here. But there is also lots of ugliness, lots of sprawl, and lots and lots of city. It is whelming.

So. I have sold my car. And finished up my work at the store. And given notice at my internship. And, once again, bought a one-way plane ticket. And maybe not quite as spontaneously as I decided to come out here, I have decided head back.