Between Past and Present Tense

About a week ago we drove to LA for the night to see The Weakerthans. They played in this really small club in Hollywood and we ate and hung out at my best friend's restaurant for a couple of hours before the show. Once we got there we kept pointing out people in the crowd who are our versions of our own friends. I tried to find one of my best friends who introduced me to The Weakerthans in college. Because they always remind me of him and getting take-out and eating it on a hill with three crosses. And just driving around Boone where everything was right there.

We got up early the next morning so I could be back in Las Vegas to help conduct a group interview for my new job. I was tired, and attended my last Bikram yoga class for awhile. I've decided to explore other types of yoga because of this new job. Because doing that is actually part of my new job.

I can see why, aside from the many excuses that I seem to come up with, people don't want to go to yoga. It's basically like striping you naked and saying, "see? this is how you've been treating yourself". With all these changes I would have thought I made some healthy ones, especially with this new job, but that hasn't been the case. A lot of my energy has gone towards adjusting. Getting used to everything being a 20 minute drive away. Getting used to football on Sunday and Monday nights. And just two chairs that will eventually go out on the porch once we get a couch.

We found a local bar in a strip mall (Vegas is the land of strip malls) with $1.50 beers and 50 cent pool tables. And it's in walking distance. It's open 24 hours (like everything in Vegas) and seems like somewhere we could frequent for cheap pool and the baseball playoffs.

It's incredible what we get used to. I've used up almost all of my savings to move out here, and these next few months should be interesting. He says we can eat really cheaply and just wait to get more furniture. I still want to take trips to Whole Foods and shop around so that we can be more comfortable. Our books are lined up against the walls, waiting for him to make bookshelves. There's something so nice about living like this, but I can't contain it in any sort of way. It's like even when it comes to giving myself time for all of this, I've set some kind of expectation. My life in Charlottesville wasn't what I wanted, but there are things about it that I guess I'm not ready to let go of. Because there was something simple about it, too. Going to yoga after work and just being by myself, thinking about the next day and sometimes how to survive it without yelling at someone awful I worked with. Because some days were just awful at my old job.

At my new job there's a manifesto that lives and breathes the company culture. Do one thing a day that scares you. Friends are more important than money. And the people who work here live by this manifesto. They take it to heart, and in what would seemingly be a set of opinions that just influenced or had no affect on people's lives, does. It's authentic.