things i don't miss:

1) too much snow for too long.
2) the price of cigarettes. (mine were $7.50 there, here they're $4.20.)
3) not much of a radical community to speak of. (asheville is kind of a punk/anarchist hotbed.)

so, the thing i'm getting at is that even though i love it down here, i've been getting homesick for grand rapids lately. i can't afford to come visit, because it's expensive to live here and hard to find jobs, so i'm barely scraping together rent each month. hopefully i'll be back for christmas, but who knows?

i'm thinking of y'all.

but now! life! i live in asheville!

these are my roommates.

this is my awesome bedroom.

this is aiden loving the back porch.

these are two of my friends and our back porch.

this was part of our may day festivities.

yeah! it's really awesome!

my dreams have finally been fulfilled: i'm moving to asheville!

a month ago, a friend and i found the perfect apartment. three bedrooms, hardwood floors, clawfoot tub, gas stove, front porch and back balcony that span the entire house, with the most amazing view of the mountains. the top floor of an almost-all female punk house where three of our friends live downstairs, right on the edge of downtown, with an empty lot next door turned into an enormous garden. we found a third person to live with us, who was moving down from new york, and we were ready.

then it was taken by some women who had looked at it before, and we were heartbroken.

but while i was out there this past week, we found out that the women had backed out, because it's not done being remodeled yet, and they needed somewhere to live immediately. the original friend who had planned on moving in had already found a place, but i took rae (the new yorker) to look at it. she loved it, so we signed a lease and paid the deposit. but we still needed to find a third person.

the next night, i went bowling with one of the women who lives in the lower level of the house, and met her friend courtney. the first thing she said when i got in the car was, "so, i hear you might need a roommate?" she turned out to be absolutely wonderful, an anarcha-feminist vegan who loves to cook and is super pumped about our idea to have a weekly craft night. we talked to her for a while, and told her: definitely. you can move in.

so over the course of 36 hours, everything came together perfectly. we got the apartment and then found a wonderful housemate to join us. the apartment will be ready sometime in the beginning of april, and we all have places to stay until then.

we're going to put a little table on the back balcony, the one with the view of the mountains, where we can sit with our typewriters (we all have one), drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. we're going to have a housewarming tea party with vegan finger sandwiches and mini vegan cupcakes when we move in.

i'm finally moving to asheville, the only city i've ever been to where i knew immediately: this is home. i belong here.

has anyone else ever felt that way? to leave somewhere, make a very satisfactory new life elsewhere, and then return to the first place? it's unsettling. i can't keep things straight in my mind. someone asked if i'd ever been to mojo's (the piano bar) and i said, "oh, the burger place?" i kept comparing things in my head - common ground is like cup a joe, whereas four friends is like third place. i would be sitting in my parents' family room and think, "i want to read that book," and go upstairs only to remember that my books were all in raleigh.

and now that i'm back, everything is unsettled again, thrown back into this life that i was used to, feeling strangely as if i had never left. granted, i was gone for less than two weeks, but those two weeks felt like a long time while they were happening. now i walk into the house and people are cooking dinner, some random kid is sleeping on our couch, attila's building a fire in the fireplace. i simultaneously feel like i never left, and like i've been gone for months.

i can't keep going back. it confuses me too much.

so, i haven't written in here since june. i feel guilty. i've been trying to immerse myself more fully in life here, because when i think or read too much about grand rapids, i start to miss it. and since i'm not moving back, it's rather useless. but i will be back for the holidays! probably 12/23 through 1/2.

so in case anyone is interested, things are going relatively well here. it's finally cooled down! i got a scooter at the end of august, a honda metropolitan, and i don't really drive my car anymore. it's awesome, and really fun. work is hard, but i think i'm going to survive. the house is good, we had two new housemates move in at the end of july. we've started a radical mental health collective, and an eastern north carolina earth first! chapter. i quit smoking last month. i got my septum pierced a few weeks ago, right before i went to the southeast women's herbal conference, which was amazing. i'm probably going to move to asheville in january, or shortly thereafter, to live with two really wonderful friends that i have there.

and i guess those are the highlights.

and even if i can't find a decent job there, the vista position at warren wilson will be available next july. so i could just do another year of americorps... except instead of a tiny women's school in raleigh, i could do it at the most badass hippie college in the south.