Seven weeks of reading papers, seven weeks of feeling guilty

This summer I have a job that is lucky but at the same time boring and annoying. I guess that's how it's been with all my summer jobs, but this time there are no friends to bet on horses/sing karaoke/eat tapas with... just co-workers who gather once a week, when we're all in town at once, to eat nachos and drink pinot noir and complain about students.

The job is in New Jersey, and at first I was planning to stay there for the whole summer, but after one weekend in an empty dorm building, having ghost-y nightmares and irritable days (possibly fueled in part by the new antihistamine I was taking), I realized I couldn't handle a summer of silent contemplation in the Garden State and became a weekend commuter, staying with my dad or friends and toting my laundry around to wash for free in the basement of the dorm, right next to the university's radio station.

I thought it would be relaxing not to have to worry about having an apartment, but it's annoying. I feel like I'm forgetting something, and I kind of feel like I've already forgotten something. My stuff is stored in four places, so I'll probably never know for sure. When I left for Paris, I was in a hurry. Last week I looked for my mom's wedding ring and couldn't find it, but I didn't really get too worried. I'm sure it's in some other jewelry box inside some other carton in some other closet. I found my French press instead, and made some coffee.

I'm staying at my dad's this weekend and I've been cleaning out the kitchen. High up on a stepstool-accessible shelf is cookware that my mom packed up in plastic bags, to keep away the greasy kitchen dust, and labeled: juicer, ice cream maker, ceramic dishes, birthday napkins, espresso machine. I think she always imagined that someday she'd have a kitchen big enough. Now, my juicer is up there next to hers, unbagged, gathering dust and I'm using a vegetable brush to scrub the smudged fingerprints my dad never notices off glasses and plates, scrape the tea stains off spoons and mugs.

The disappointing unremarkable-ness of this summer is a letdown. I was hoping it would be something that it's not -- I was hoping I'd get swept up. I keep hoping for something really fulfilling, maybe even amazing, but I keep ending up on the train, by myself.

If there's such a thing, I'm an expectation addict. I love to dream about the future -- it makes me feel creative and focused. I like to believe that someday I will have a big enough kitchen, or even if I don't, that someday after that, I will. I like to think that everyone will get along in the future -- not, like, worldwide, just the ones that are around me. I've been trying to live in the moment, on the couch, out of a suitcase, not knowing where I'll be in one month or six months or a year, but I don't think like it. It scares me. It bores me. Spontaneity is rad, but is it really spontaneous if it doesn't interrupt some plan that you thought you had?

On Wednesday I bought a plane ticket, out of New York. The idea is, I'll be gone for the year. The idea wasn't mine, but the plan is mine now. My plan is, I go away to Europe for a year, and when I come back, maybe I won't come back to New York at all. Maybe I'll go to Los Angeles, or New Orleans, or some pond upstate. Maybe I've got it even more than that all figured out already, but I'm just not going to tell you. It's all gonna go down the way I figured it out, or maybe something else will happen. I will try to keep you posted.