To the Wire

I am well ready to be done teaching high school. If it weren’t for the fact that Turnpost is a tiny town and I can’t offend anyone as I’m soon going to be relying on every last member of the populace to support me by coming into my store and buying coffee, I would quit my sub job and let someone else deal with the crazies of high school kids in their last few weeks of school. I swear I might accomplish as much or more talking to an empty room. You can practically see my words ricochet off one thick skull after another as they utterly fail to penetrate the miasma of hormones and summertime daydreams muffling each kid’s brain. At this point I am just trying to survive.

I made an offer on my building and it was accepted, so now we are in seemingly interminable phase during which a lot of people look at the building and the finances of everyone involved and nod their heads and rub their chins and agree that everything appears to be in good shape. Travis has been counseling me to be patient. He says these things always take a long time. I am a little worried though, since my evictors are going to be arriving in two months and my new building is nowhere near livable.

But I did find someone to finish up the space for me. Chad is still coming to the kettlebell class and he recommended a builder named Casey who has done some work for a few people he knows. I called Casey and he sounds exactly like the salt-of-the-earth, straight-forward type individual I imagine would be good at building things. I even managed to talk my Realtor into letting me take him in to assess the amount of work that needs to be done. He said he will have to finish some of the downstairs before I can move in, because I should not breath in certain types of dust. He said he could probably get those parts done downstairs and the upstairs space habitable in four to six weeks. It could still be a couple weeks before I get keys to the place and the authority to start making changes. Yikes that’s going to be cutting it close.

Green Means Go

My initial plan was to fly to California after school got out and beg my parents for financial support immediately after telling them I intend to flaunt all their hopes and dreams for my future. But I wasn’t sure I could wait that long. For one thing, I have fallen in love with the funky building where I intend to live and work. I have been worried sick someone else is going to swoop in and buy it. For another, I am just not a patient person.

Besides, Travis pointed out it would be harder for me to stand up to my parents and seem like an independent adult while letting my mom serve me breakfast every morning and sleeping in a twin bed with a box of My Little Ponies underneath it. Travis also said flying home to ask for this might blow the request out of proportion. He reminded me I’m not asking my parents for money or permission. I am only asking them to agree to bail me out if I fail miserably.

So I called them at a time I hoped they would be home and in a good mood. Mom answered. We chit-chatted and she told me several unnecessarily detailed stories involving Sylvia and the state of her digestive system. Then I took a deep breath and told her My Plan. She listened to my entire speech without interrupting, asked me a few questions, and said she’d have to talk to my father but would call me back. I emailed them my business plan and spent the next hour in a cold sweat, pacing the living room like a caged animal. When Mom called back she didn’t sound happy, but she didn’t sound reproachful either. She said they would either co-sign the loan with me, or loan me the money themselves, interest free. But it was my choice. If they loaned me the money, they’d draw up a contract with a repayment plan to make sure it didn’t feel like a gift.

I wasn’t expecting that offer, although in retrospect I should have seen it coming. I thanked my mom and said the loan would be great, if they were sure. She said they were sure, that they’re proud of me, and that they’d like to come visit after I open.

Puff Pastry Dreams

I have spent the last several days deeply immersed in planning the Greatest Plan of my short existence. Travis has been helping. I am going to need all the help I can get.

And actually he’s a huge help. I’m more of an ideas type person. Travis is librarian. Which means he loves nothing more than to organize and classify and tidy. His lists are a thing of beauty. I’m all dreams and rainbows and ponies. He’s all nuts and bolts and logistics.

I’m thinking of opening a coffee shop, right here in downtown Turnpost. There is this absolutely funky building in between two other funky buildings on main street that used to be a general store. It is one of those awesome spaces with a shop downstairs and living quarters upstairs. It’s also in a major state of disrepair. For instance, part of the bedroom floor is missing. But the realtor who showed it to me assured me all the important bits are in great condition. Apparently someone bought it two years ago and had all the electric and plumbing redone and then got a divorce and moved away forever. The space has been standing vacant.

It’s actually pretty tiny, but it is all made of brick and it has huge windows and high ceilings and a charming, narrow staircase to get from one floor to the other. It wouldn’t take a huge investment to make it liveable and workable.

The major downside, though, is it would take enough of an investment that I could not finance it myself. And as I personally have no assets or income or anything to convince a bank I wouldn’t take their money and escape to Bermuda, I’d have to convince my parents to undewrite a loan. Which would mean convincing them I should stay in Turnpost and become a professional barista. There are few things in life that are genuinely impossible, but this might actually be one.

Career Conundrum

I have spent the evening sitting at home alone sipping wine and thinking about how I’m about to lose my job and get kicked out of my house. In other words, feeling sorry for myself. It would seem my life is being influenced by a few fundamentally different but interconnected facts that combine into my problematic situation. To sum up:

• Since college, all I have done is teach secondary education but I actually have very little interest in secondary education.
• My degree (much to my parent’s chagrin) is in French History. While I poo-pooed their objections to my choice as an undergrad, I must admit I am now unsure what I can do with my degree in French History other than study more French History.
• The only thing my parents like less than the idea of me studying more French History is the idea of me resuming work as a barista. I slung coffee all through college and, honestly, kinda loved it.
• Even if I wanted to study more French History, I could not do so here in Turnpost. But I do not want to leave Turnpost due to being madly in love with a sexy librarian.

Additional somewhat interesting realities:

• Turnpost does not actually have a dedicated coffee house of any kind.
• A lot of people in Turnpost do appear to like coffee.

If Mama Ain't Happy

We had all three of our middle-aged ladies back at the class last night. One of them appears to be capable of learning. I’m not sure what is going on with the other two. They don’t seem to be able to take working out seriously. Travis will get them started on something, they’ll do their exercise approximately twice, then stop and stand there looking awkward until he comes back and they can ask what they should do next.

Travis tells me I need to have more patience with them, which is particularly true in light of the fact that they are not actually my students. They are Travis’ students, and he has pointed out that if you are 45 and you’ve never used your body your whole life, it’s a big adjustment to start seriously using weights. He is most definitely right about this, but I am a lot less charitable than he is. My new strategy to is to ignore them as much as possible.

Chad was there today as well. He’s already out-lifting me. Jerk.

In other news, my sister called and told me our mother tried to enlist her to help in launching a full-blown “get Madison to move home” campaign. Fortunately, Bronwyn refused to participate on the grounds that I am an adult now and should not be pressured into make major life changes for the convenience of other family members. Translation: I sent her some photos of me and Travis and she has proclaimed him “hunky.” Her vision of how my life should go is I should stay in Turnpost long enough to get married (or at the very least, engaged) and then move back to California with my librarian in tow.

After I got off the phone it dawned on me that the primary reason I might be having trouble making decisions about my life is that other people have always been in the habit of making them for me.