home away from huh?

i'm staying a while longer in california, people. i am thrilled. the situation, as yet officially unofficial, is that come fall i'll be working at hrdag in a shiny new capacity, i.e., i'll be actually working at hrdag as opposed to simply leeching skills, office supplies and python manuals. (there will still be some of that, of course.) plus the dissertation will go zooming right ahead, which is key.

also, did i mention that i am thrilled? i'm thrilled for people reasons, food reasons, Work-Life Balance (TM) reasons, health insurance reasons, professional reasons, you name it. (i will refrain from mentioning the confiscatory housing market or the strange audition process required to enter said market; i will refrain from mentioning BART's horrific underbay squealing or the untrustworthiness of the 51 bus. because i'm thrilled!)

it's been hard to come up with correct language for the bay area's relation to me. case in point: this afternoon i had a moment of ah, california, my home away from home which segued quickly into but which home? and from there on to do i have a home? somehow, it's impossible that "home away from home" is the aptest phrase for "the place i'll stay for about eighteen months, which is not the other place where i was for twenty-eight months, during which time i occupied three separate apartments, only one of which ever had my pictures on the walls." somehow, the brand new solidity of my plan to stick around here has made me feel my (past and future, fieldwork and writeup related) itinerancy incredibly keenly -- and, as it turns out, i am not someone who appreciates the sensation "unsettled."

partial solution: damn the torpedoes (and the expense)! send the books and the pictures and the bedclothes from the east! (also possibly some kitchen supplies. can i send sharp knives bulk rate?) in keeping with a feral hat's recent "in three to five years" consensus, the correct long-run view is ah, california, my home, full stop. after everyone has moved here, i won't have to be updated on breakfast-time drug policy reforms by telephone.