Lunch Counter of the Illuminati

On the one hand, it's really nice to be back in Seattle. The air is clear, the light is beautiful, the water tastes good, and I have all my nice familiar systems of tea and food and internet.

On the other hand, I hate a lot of Seattle. We tried to go out this afternoon to run some errands: stop at the bank, pick up some art supplies, maybe get some lunch. This was the Professor's last free afternoon for months, because the new quarter is starting. We got as far as the bank, and somehow it sent me into complete crash-and-burn mode. I don't really know why. Maybe because it was much colder outside than I was expecting. Maybe because the bank guy was a flawless example of the kind of supercilious hipper-than-thou jerk that I hate the most. Maybe it was the dude with the gasoline-stinking leaf-blower on the sidewalk between the bank and the car, that blew a lot of grit into my eyes and made me cough.

At any rate, I ended up having a complete freak-out breakdown, and we just came straight back home, without doing any of the other stuff that was supposed to get done while we were out. An almost entirely wasted trip. I felt completely like a useless loser asswipe. Something about this town convinces me that I am utterly worthless. I don't think I was quite so overwhelmed by that idea when I was in Pittsburgh.

I miss having people around to talk to. I feel so impossibly far away from everyone.

But I like having all my normal tools and supplies available. All my pliers and hammers and mat-knives and bits of copper leaf and tiny drill bits and spools of wire. All my carefully sorted boxes of beads. All my proper kitchen knives.

So, obviously, the thing to do is move all my ten thousand pieces of heavy, fragile, specialized crap back to Pittsburgh, where there are people I like to see. And where the winters are cold and snowy. And where the summers are thick with haze and pollen. And where my skin completely freaked out during my two-week visit, such that there are huge weird rashy patches up both my sides.

Arrgh.

Adding to the complication is that there's a branch of the community college that's really close, right up the hill, and the Professor has been trying to get a class there for at least a year now. They always contact him at the very last minute before the beginning of term, and so he's always had schedule conflicts with the other classes he's teaching. But this time they needed somebody at an hour when he's available. And they're paying extra because the class size is large. And he gets to have an office. And the reason this class opened up was because the guy who used to teach it, and who was full-time, was also very old and died suddenly. Which is sad, and all, but it means that the college might conceivably be looking to hire a full-time person to replace him: death or retirement of existing faculty members being the only allowable exception to the current hiring freeze.

Arrgh.

I really can't even tell, at this point, if I'm all pissed off because I hate it here and am desperate to leave, or if I'm all pissed off because I'm clearly not doing so well here, and feel like my only option is to give up and leave. Or if I'm all pissed off because the Professor's job prospects seem pretty decent here, and I'm worried that I won't get to leave.

Arrgh.