A Month Away
You know, I wasn't too excited when I first arrived at my would-be Summer home. The house is very small, I don't even know if where I'm sleeping qualifies as a bedroom. I wasn't upset about there being no TV, because we had movies galore, but the television itself wasn't all that great. The screen on my Inspiron mini is larger than the one on the TV, but no disc drive. During the first few days, I couldn't get my laptop to play music through the stereo, and I've heard all the CDs we had so many times already. Eventually I figured it out, I just had to plug one of those input chords with the red, yellow, and white, you know, into the back and plug red and white both into my laptop, that made me a little happier. I was also happy when our neighbor let me use his wifi, he's a nice guy. I'm not dependent on these things, not at all, but you can only take so many walks in the woods. And I can't drive, so I can't just go on into town. The other day I bought a few books,
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami and
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert Camus. The house I'm in was already jam-packed with books, but they weren't my thing. They were the kind of books you find at the front of a supermarket. Countless novels by James Patterson, Clive Cussler, and Dean Koontz. Anyway, I was a little more optimistic about things with these additions, that was the first week.
Another thing to keep me busy was working with my grandpa as a painter. I was getting paid ten dollars/hour, higher than minimum wage, at least in Nevada. I put in forty hours on one house, we had to do the whole thing. I got paid after two days, a hundred dollars. We started another job, painting a deck, after we finished the first house. In total, I've got about eighty hours in two weeks working part-time, I haven't got the rest of my pay yet. This was my first job, and I found it rewarding and almost fun. The best part was getting finished, and taking a step back to see what you've done, I felt like I did a good job.
It wasn't too long, and all the negative thoughts I had about staying here were gone. I started to feel right at home, working, going to local shows in Cannon Beach, walking on the beach, and hanging around. I got to know everyone who worked in town, and many other people since it's such a small area. I ate my weight in freshly picked raspberries everyday, and stuffed myself with a glut of other fruits. My grandparents are great cooks, so dinner was always wonderful. When I first got here, my grandpa could see that I wasn't extremely happy, he told me "You just gotta learn to relax", and so I did.
I do however genuinely miss all my friends from Reno, and every day I wonder what kind of shenanigans they're getting into. But if I learned anything from Playtime Posse, it's that a lot of things change, but the game stays the same, nawmean? I know exactly what he means. Besides, it shouldn't be much longer before I'm on the move again, I'd say another two weeks at most and I'll be gone. I'm not moving back to Reno, though, I gotta adjust to another new area and start another new life, even go to a new school. I'll be moving to South Lake Tahoe, and I'll be staying there. It's what? A thirty minute drive to Reno from there? There's even a bus that could take me, I'll be seeing the old gang again pretty soon. We've got a special kind of bond, my friends and I. I know that's how everyone feels about their friends, but each relationship is personal. We have a tight group, about eightish people, and it doesn't grow apart, at least not yet. Though I honestly don't think it ever will. Sometimes people come and go, but at the core it's always the same. But yeah, it's gonna be all systems go when I'm back down there, I just feel it.
I was thinking during school that this was finally gonna be an awesome summer, we had so many plans to do this and that, but of course, something like this happens. But it's been a good time for me to take it easy, take a break from doing crazy things and life in general. It's too bad that it's almost gone. I need to enroll in a new school before the year starts, but I have no idea when that is, it's usually late August. So my Summer away is slowly coming to a close, but I desperately needed it, stay tuned and I'll explain why!