my milk issues

I don't like living alone for a number of reasons, but the worst reason is the problem with the milk. It goes sour so quickly, when I've only had 1/4 of it to drink. I buy another milk and then leave the old milk in the refrigerator because I don't want to dump it down the drain if I'm not taking the recycling out anytime soon. And I wonder if I just shouldn't start eating cereal for dinner, maybe.

Or other solutions would be--well, drinking more milk. Or just buying a cow, which would solve both the milk and living alone problem.

I've cooked for myself once, if you don't count macaroni and cheese or cheese bread with sauce, which I don't. The pecan chicken I tackled a couple of weeks ago. (Although I made it to use mushrooms in the refrigerator; when I cut the mushrooms, I found mold and reek.) It was great, but the chicken was $6 and I was mad that I had all that extra, and now I just have this piece in my freezer, and I never know when to really unthaw meat, or when I'll be home the next day.

I haven't hung things on my walls yet. In fact, I think it's gotten to the point where I just won't hang things on my wall. I'm comfortable in this little mess, now--the books in piles on the floor because I don't have and can't afford bookcases, the photo frames that need newly ordered photos that I can't afford yet hiding under my end tables.

I can't stop eating tiny candy bars in my classroom left over from treat day.

I don't want to buy a mop.

It's only 7:00?

It still is hard to come back to Hutchinson after letting myself escape for a couple of days. It's hard to say goodbye to the dog when I leave, it's hard to come home to only the sound of the TV. Snack packs for dinner. Saturday was an amazing day with my dad. We went to a car auction--to find the Intrepid's replacement--and even though we didn't get anything, the rush of an auction was fantastic. The men making football jokes, the bidder numbers, the fast-talk-fast-talk-fast-talk-talk-talking. A hispanic man named Angel with blue shoes and pleated pants running up to the bidders to help them get heard in the National Gaurd garage. The cars we came close to owning, the hundreds of dollars they went up after we pulled our bids out.

Next week, again. There's a state auction, my dad has graciously found a way to help me get the new car (which has caused me to feel as though I've digressed as an adult, but still find myself with no other options), and we're going to get a car. For cheap. Low mileage. Either one of the 170 that the state needs to get rid of, or from a private seller.

And so, the last week with the Intrepid is a bit bittersweet.

Am I going home too much. It's what I look forward to in the week now. I keep my cupboards a little more empty. I feel like I stay here and live there. Is this bad? If it gives me something to look forward to, if I like the warm house and the fireplace and eating dinner with other people, is it bad? Should I stop going? Can I keep going?

Will Rochester happen next year? Should it? Can it? If not, can I just get a job in the cities? I think I'd just like to go back to Minneapolis. I look through the Sunday paper, and I see all of the literary readings I'd like to attend. From Hutchinson, it's too far to drive for a Thursday night. From, say, Minnetonka, I can join books and bars and drink and talk fiction with probably awesome people. I can drive to St. Paul and go to Micawber's for a Graywolf reading, or to Minneapolis and Magers & Quinn so Kling can sign his second book for me. I see seeing Keillor at Common Good Books on a Tuesday night. I see this. I see this happening. I see drinks with a friend on a school night. I see a life. I see towing Darren along. I see 5:00 dinner and 6:30 movies and then just that little bit of grading I have to do and then going to bed. I see a small apartment, just Sundays at home and Friday and Saturday nights with a life, and entertaining friends in the city, and familiarity and driving just a small way to be at home, and wanting to stay, and wanting to cook. I see the start of some possible dating life. But is it just easier to imagine those things. Would I be in the same place. Would I just be back here but somewhere else.

I did nothing Halloween night, save grade papers while my sister answered the door for trick or treaters.

God, I don't know what to do with this loneliness. I watch TV, and a serious program comes on with an interview with a man named Mike Cox, and there's nobody to laugh with. How much easier it is to watch TV when you're here, when we make fun of it all, when it becomes comedy hour. When we make dinner and we drink all of the milk before it goes sour.