Mary

Apparently renting a home in Wisconsin doesn't actually make you a resident of the state. Because "renting is temporary, so a lease doesn't prove that you live here even though a documentation of a mortgage would." What a fucking bitch.

Fortunately I can take 2 hours off work another day and drive across town with any number of other documents I do have, but didn't have on me, which in no way prove that I live here, and use those to establish residency. Who would have thought that the documents they require for a drivers license are different than those they require to prove residency for registering a car, and in addition make no fucking sense.

Maybe instead of just offering tax incentives for home ownership, which just shift the demand curve, and don't actually make homes more affordable, we could help people achieve the American Dream by not making them feel less like people for not "having a home."

Yeah, and incidentally, I have tons of documentation that would make it easy for me to get a drivers license in Illinois, Oregon, or New York (if those states have such fucked up rules)... in spite of not living in any of those places. In spite of not ever having ever lived in New York.

Edit: Okay, so actually on closer examination of our papers we don't seem to have a document that will allow me to prove residency for a drivers license, since our pay stubs don't have our address on them (which is evidently required for them to work), and the only utility bill we have received thus far is in Josh's name and not mine... because a utility bill on a rental home is so much more permanent than a lease on a rental home. I've got 10 more days before I'm in violation of the law for living here 60 days and not changing my drivers license over. If I wasn't so pissed off, that would probably be funny.

Edit #2: And as if things didn't seem nuts enough before, get this: they mail your new drivers license to your home address... which really begs the question why they can't just take my word for it and figure that if I am lying about my address I wont ever actually receive my drivers license, so it's okay.

You know, while it doesn't feel like it, I've been here at NG almost as long as I was at Mudd. As long, I guess, if you subtract of the months of holidays from my time at Mudd.

I still have 2 more days after today, but one of them is after the holidays and will mostly be paperwork. My going away lunch was today, and it was nice. I feel strangely sad. It feels kind of like my last day since everyone has been dropping by to wish me well. Jim will be out my last 2 days and left a couple hours ago after coming by to give me a hug goodbye... my goodness I thought he was going to crush me.

My work is pretty much done, I just have to write up what I did this week (not much I assure you), and then go over it with Lisa and Elaine so they understand it all. I think I may sleep in tomorrow and then take vacation for whatever hours those tasks don't take up.

And that's it. I feel like I should feel sadder than I do. Mostly I think I feel numb. I don't really know what I think of the time I've spent here. It had it's goods and bads, ups and downs. I think I've grown a huge amount as a person in the past 3 years, and while I think a lot of that happened away from work, I think a lot of it happened at work too. I guess I should take the time to write a bit about the non-work things that I'm leaving behind with this move too, and the non-work changes I've had, but that will be for another entry.

One of the hardest things for me, in getting used like after college and married life, has been making good use of my weekend and evening time. For 8 years in high school and college, I pretty much always had homework to do on the weekends and evenings. I wont pretend it took up all my time (though occassionally it certainly did), but it did mean that I didn't really feel like I was master of my own time. Further, you wont be surprised when I say that I'm not really interested in all that many things anymore that I was interested in 10 years ago before I started high school. And finally, when I lived with my parents, of course they planned things for a lot of my weekends, and at college, there was almost always interesting stuff going on.

Well, now, not so much any of that stuff. I leave work at work. I am married to the biggest home-body I know (not that I'm complaining; it's just part of who he is). I don't really know my way around the new responsibilities associated with co-running a home... I'm getting better certainly, but I'm not real comfortable with it yet. And as I said above, I'm not even interested in most of the things I did back in the day as a pre-teen. Furthermore, I seem to have all these time-killing, homework-avoidance habits that aren't serving me at all.

I had anticipated the transition from college to the real world to be difficult, but not like this. Everyone talks about job and rent and paying bills and generally making ends meet... arguing with your spouse about money and chores and sex. These are the sort of things I had anticipated struggling with after college because I thought these were the things everybody struggled with after college and after marriage. But I haven't been struggling with those. I've been struggling to find enough fulfilling ways to fill my time off, since I'm not the sort of person to be content doing the same thing every day or every weekend. Additionally, I've completely surprised myself by having developed a strong desire to live in a nice, clean, relatively clutter-free home... something I never would have guessed I'd grow up to want, and something I am having a very difficult time accomplishing. I have a long list of cleaning and organizing, building and purchasing projects which I hope will help me accomplish this goal.

This weekend, Josh is spending getting ready for quals, which are in a week and a half. I've been working on my projects. So for today:
- I've cleaned the kitchen... twice.
- I've cleaned out, organized, and vacuumed my closet.
- I've cleared off the top of my dresser for the first time in as long as I can remember.
- I repaired one of my wedding earrings, the one that broke.
- I varnished and hung a bar on which to hang my necklaces.
- I baked rhubarb pie (with Josh).
- I watched my garden grow for a little bit (exciting, I promise!).
- I brought a load of stuff to the second hand store, including our old kitchen table (this was with Josh also).
- I bought a book from 1970 entitled "The Handyman's Do It Yourself Around the House Encyclopedia" and two Modern Physics books (1920s and 1950s)
- I accompanied Josh running because he is concerned about his health and doesn't like to go alone (I still hate running as much as I ever have)
- And I've frittered away the rest of the day avoiding the homework I always forget I do not have anymore...

Guess who's getting married in 15 hours?

The rehearsal was actually a great deal of fun. I'd been afraid that we'd all be at each other's throats, but we really had a lot of fun. And then dinner was fun too.

I'm still worried about rain, but mostly I'm really pleased with how everything seems to be coming together. People really seem to be coming out of the wood work to help get everything done, which is really fantastic since I've been a bit of a wreck due to lack of sleep.

Last New Years we arrived a few days early for my cousin Dorothy's wedding and did a lot of helping. I almost didn't see Dorothy, and when I did, she just looked exhausted... now I understand why.

Tomorrow is going to be a big day. I feel like we spent too long planning, not so much in the logistics end, but I think two years to be engaged was kind of too long to be envisioning the wedding. On the other hand, it has been two years with really a lot of growth for our relationship. When I think about the possibility of getting married this time last year like we originally planned... well, I think we weren't ready yet. So much has changed since then.

I should see about doing the things I need to do before I go to bed.