Nothing Doing

Nothing doing in the sense of interesting, exotic, cool picture, blog-worthy Japanese stuff. In all other respects, my life is firing on all cyclinders at the moment. I'm as busy as all get out between work and all things new house, but at the same time I'm finding that I have tons of energy. It's good. I'm doing good things more (reading, drawing, guitar playing, yard working, exercising, studying Japanese), and not so good things less (drinking, sitting in front of the computer, tormenting small children, worshipping demons).

I'm surprised at how big a difference in my mental health moving into a house has had. There's just so much more space here, physically and mentally. I look back on the apartment we lived in for two+ years, and it seems so claustrophobic and cramped. Combined with the concrete surroundings and generally crappy environment, I suppose it makes sense that I'm so much happier here. I love the fact that we have a small yard to deal with, that I can wash my car in the driveway, that our neighbors actually talk to each other (and us), that the first thing I do in the morning after turning on the coffee pot is go back upstairs and look out the window at the mountains, that while I'm waiting for Chieko to crutch her way out to the car in the morning, I can take a few minutes to walk through the yard and see if the spiders have moved at all, or check how many weeds have sprung back up. These are things I would take for granted living in the States I think. But after being cooped up in an apartment for several years, the novelty of it all has done wonders for me.

And the place is definitely starting to feel more like home. Now that we're getting a feel for the neighborhood and who lives here, and we've gotten the place decorated and set up a bit, it's more familiar. I know that even though I wake up at 6 every morning, the old ladies who keep up the community garden behind us will already be at work; that the kids who live across the street play basketball rediculously early on the weekends; that another neighbor's infant daughter freaks out on a nightly basis, and that if I go to another room in the house I can't hear her; that we do have barking dogs on our street, but they bark AT things, rather than just bark. You get the point. Life is good here, and I'm happy.

It's funny because I've felt this good before, and something inevitably turns and I get in a funk and things piss me off, usually shortly after I proclaim how damn happy and great things are. And I'm sure that will happen again, probably starting tomorrow the way these things work. But for now, I hope this trend of me being pumped continues. Forever, actually.

I started to write some things about work here, but I'll refrain. Not bad things, but work is work. Everyone does it, who cares. It's not why people read blogs, and writing about work on blogs never ends up well, even if you aren't bitching and moaning. So I'll end this ramble the way I probably should have a paragraph ago. I hope this trend of me being pumped continues. Forever, actually.