things you wish you didn't know...

I came home last night after being out all day to get my life back in order before starting another week, putting things away, digging out some of the Christmas decorations, and doing the dishes that had sat in the sink a few days since I hadn't planned on being gone this weekend.

I get stressed out at the start of the Thanksgiving season, having the existential life crisis that comes with marking another year of being alive combined with having to hear "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" every ten minutes when I venture into any place of commerce, or finding myself veering near trouble at social gatherings when politics are discussed. I just got texting last year and I don't know what's in the theater or on tv or what the kids are listening to these days.

I straddle this gap of relative affluence (full time job, functioning car, and extra income due to a low standard of living) compared to many of my neighbors and peers, while those I grew up with are buying apps for their iPhones, eating out at places where I can swing food or a drink but not both, going on vacation, living in places that people aren't afraid to visit after dark.

And I'm content and honestly happy, but sometimes I feel embarrassed when some see where I live or it's awkward when I hear people stereotype neighborhoods or certain groups and those places and people are friends and places where I've hung out.

I'm wondering why I feel so okay with most of my life except when I'm faced with feeling out of place in places where others feel so comfortable and so at ease in places and with people that others avoid.

And then...
I wasn't expecting to see a cockroach last night, a pretty big one, and the only thing I had on hand was the bottle of Ajax dishwashing liquid and I drowned it the best I could before calling my landlord who's going to call an exterminator.

Of course, one roach always means there's more. The people who lived there before me weren't the cleanest and my landlord had told me that there had been problems in the past but we also found one the same week I moved out of the old apartment.

And just to be on the safe side, I'll be buying some plastic containers, boric acid, and all manner of other fun things tonight. I'm not really freaked out, I just want the damn things gone. When I was living in Kent, I was the go-to girl in dorm rooms and apartments to kill vermin because I'm good at it and don't get freaked out.

My mom says that out of the three of her kids, I could live in a third world country most easily. Sometimes when I drive through the surrounding neighborhoods where everything's falling apart and there's this sense of hopelessness and impending violence and look at the mansions just around the corner, I feel like I do.