Reelin' In The Year

So, hard as it is to believe, my tenure with AmeriCorps is over. It hardly seems like a year already -- or rather, 11 months, which is apparently the AmeriCorps year. We had graduation last Tuesday, and already four of the service members (including Dave) have bid adieu to the West Palm Beach area. It's a little sad, and a little not: fact is, I think most of us are really anxious to get on with our lives, whether that be in Florida or elsewhere. The fact that some of us (such as myself) already have jobs lined up also helps cushion the blow a bit. The biggest concern for me right now is to try to secure housing for myself by the end of my lease, on August 31. Right now it looks like I will be rooming with Krystie, which I honestly have no problem with: I fear that, were I to get a single-room apartment, I would withdraw completely, like how I was before this year happened. Isolation is sort of my comfort zone, and for the time being, I can't trust myself enough to socialize independently.

Ray and Daron are also living together in WPB, and already have a place lined up, as well as a lot of used furniture stored in the living room of our apartment. They both have jobs, so I will see them occasionally. Mary and Renata might be staying in the area as well; it is possible I might be living with both Renata and Krystie, but we'll see how that develops.

Meanwhile, I am actually in New York: the morning after graduation, I boarded a Jetblue plane, feeling not too good from overconsumption of celebratory Natty Ice the night before, and I flew to Rochester to visit my parents. Ostensibly this was to sort through my things, and determine what I would like them to bring me when they drive south in the Fall, but so far I haven't done any of that. Yesterday I went with my cousin to St. Catherine, Ontario, to watch a regatta that some girls that he coaches were rowing in (they lost, apparently from a problem with the steering in the boat itself); then, last night, we recorded the latest "hit" by The Spendrick Hogsbottom Experience, which you can expect to see posted very soon. Then today, my mother and I crossed into Canada yet again, this time to go to the Shaw Festival in lovely Niagara-on-the-Lake. We only saw one play, since the exchange rate isn't what it used to be, and the tickets are not exactly cheap. We saw Cole Porter's High Society, a musical based on Philip Barry's "The Philadelphia Story", which happens to be one of my favorite movies. It was very good, although because the songs were not originally written for the play, but rather retrofitted into it, there was a sense of trying to hard, if just a little bit. The cast was wonderful, the staging was imaginative and fluid, and the songs themselves were, naturally, wonderful. I am a little disappointed that we weren't able to see Noel Coward's Design For Living, but this was quite good in its own right.

I suppose tomorrow I will have to start getting to work, sorting through my belongings and whatnot. Most of my cousins have now left for Monticello, IN, for their yearly vacation in my mom and uncles' hometown. Once I get back to West Palm, I'll have a few days before I have to start working, so I will be looking for a new home then.