I am approaching the bridges I said I would cross when I got to them.

If you've ever driven west on the crosstown, right after France Ave., you may have noticed the sign that says Hwy 100, 1 mile. Then, you may notice that about 1/8 of a mile later, there is another sign that says Hwy 100, 1 mile.

As you may have guessed, this drives me fucking crazy. Which is it, MnDot? Which of the two same signs is exactly 1 mile away from MN 100?

You may think that one of the signs is 1 mile away from the North exit, and the next sign is a mile away from the South exit. But they are not clearly labeled, so if you think this, you're wrong. And this is especially unnerving in gridlock traffic. I creep along MN-62. I'm under the 1 mile sign. I'm like yes. I'm almost home. Then 15 minutes later, I'm under another sign that says Hwy 100, 1 mile. It's a sadistic Groundhog Day-esque experience.

***
I'm stressed. I'm stressed even when I'm not stressed, and there is a little part of my brain that screams stress!-stress!-stress!-stress! and flashes red lights behind my eyes when I'm trying to think about not being stressed. It's just the work, and moving this weekend, and the boxes in my living room and the pages in my website writing queue, and an interview tomorrow, and money, and my typical obsessive thoughts about where furniture goes in rooms, things I need to buy, and accounts I need to cancel.

Luckily, I've taken off Friday this week, but instead of being a real day off it will instead be a day of re-packing all of my things into boxes and driving them to Minneapolis. Then on Saturday, I will officially move, and then clean, clean, clean, and then instead of unpacking and feeling comfortable in my new home, I will spend the night at the Good Doctor's new place because Liz is gone and I'll be scared to be alone. Then Sunday, I will spend the day at the fair, eating, eating, eating, not unpacking, not writing sites, and also probably wondering about the results of the interview, and on Monday I will go to Ikea and spends hundreds of dollars and hopefully finally unpack and feel like I live somewhere that I know I'll be living for awhile. Plus, Liz and I have already painted the walls cream, and my room a brown color exactly the same shade as chocolate pudding.

***
At work today I got a mini-lecture from an editor regarding my run-on sentences and overuse of a word that was consensually voted as "just not it" by other editors. I find my roles of writer and editor interesting. As an editor, a teacher, I'd be thoroughly annoyed by comma splices. I might say something like what the fuck, dumbass! Of course you don't use a comma in a non-compound sentence! Get your poop in a group! And as a writer, I'm like: don't have time to proofread, don't care, fuck you, you fix it, that's what editors are for. I, can you believe it?, am not even ashamed. I think it is near impossible to be a successful writer and editor of your own work. I am good both at being anal and being creative, but never, ever at the same time. It's like mixing white wine and red wine. Individually, delicious! But together? At the most, you'd get a really nasty blush.

Soon this split-personality summer will come to an end. School started in Mankato this week for old students, old colleagues. For the first time in 19 years, I didn't have to be there. For the first time, I had no obligation, no notebooks, no night-before-school anxiety. And nobody cares that I'm not there. Nobody showed me a syllabus, nobody asked me about my attendance policy, nobody invited me to sit in a semi-circle of dirty plastic desks in a too-cold room, only to come out into the humid August air wishing for a tall beer and feeling so-ready to talk about the happenings of the upcoming year, nobody needed me to console them about their first-day teaching jitters, nobody talked to me about any poem or prose or book.

Nobody said hey, where's Jean? Doesn't she belong here?