And now for a musical interlude that will explain all the tension/silence of the past few weeks...
NENIE
Lawrence Kansas
Center of nowhere
Times are shitty
But I'm pretty sure they could get worse
NENA
I hear that
NENIE
It's a comfort to know
When you're singing the "Hit the Road" blues
That anywhere else you could possibly go
After KAAAANSAAAAS
Would be-heee...
An improvement
NENA
Now you're talking
Well, I'm thwarted by an em-ploy-ment puzzle
And I'm sick of working at Ottawa
That I know
And I'm shouting in my sleep
I need a muzzle
All this misery pays no salary so...
Let's move our whole familia down to Santa Fe
Oh sunny Santa Fe'd be so NICE
Let's move our whole familia down to Santa Fe
And leave this to the Fundies and mice
BOTH
OH OOOOH
We'll move our whole familia down to SANTA FE
And save from devastation our brains
We'll pack up all our junk and fly so far away
Devote ourselves to projects that sell
We'll move our whole familia down to Santa Fe
Forget this cold Mid-west-ern Hell
That's right folks. We're outta here. How outta here? So out of here it really pains me to even think about it. We're moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
How did this happen? Let me tell you a little story.
You know how Nena hates her job? You know how graduate school at KU ended up being a wrong fit for me? Well, last fall on a plane ride to Chicago for a friend's wedding, Nena turns to me and says "I'm tired of flying here. Let's just be here for good. Let's move to Chicago."
"Are you serious?" I asked
I had no idea how serious she was.
As the plane made its descent into Chicago we started to think through the move and by the time we were at baggage claim we'd come up with a list of three things that were keeping us in Lawrence:
1) Our house
OK, we love this place. Any of you who've visited it (if you haven't NOW'S the time!) know how hard we've worked to make it our own, and how much we really, really like living in it. But, it's just a house. Houses can be sold because home is wherever the three of us are. In all of this misery, it's as if we'd forgotten that part. It was time we started to remember.
2) Our friends
Who here in Lawrence are mostly graduate students who are planning on leaving when they finish school. Corn, La Madre and Das Nibblet's hasty retreats from L-Town have really driven this home. Looking down the road and seeing the next batch of departures coming up made us understand that we have great friends EVERYWHERE and that no matter where we are, we're going to continue to know and meet even more amazing people. So really, staying someplace just because of the friends we have, well, it's less silly than staying for a house, but...yeah
3) Our love of this great town.
I know I just tore into this place up above, but we really, really love living here. There's just something about Lawrence that makes it an incredibly special place, perhaps it's that it truthfully is what Northfield wants to be when it grows up. Thing is, it's this third thing that brings the problem with the first two into specific relief. As much as we love Lawrence, our friends and our house- we really don't love the things we have to do to continue to live here. Lawrence is an Edenic mirage. Everything is so much more expensive here than anywhere else in the area, yet no one feels compelled to pay you enough to make it here. Yes, Lawrence believes in a living wage, but the longer we live here, the more we realize that the Living Wage movement in town is really a way of distracting the masses of underemployed individuals who came here for a degree and ended up staying for a lifetime. The massive overeducation of the populous here means disastrous things for our employment futures.
The past year has consisted of Nena applying for secretarial job after secretarial job in this town, because she doesn't have the Master's everything else requires. Oh, and she hasn't been getting any of these secretarial jobs because she's overqualified. That's her issue, let's not even get into what it's like for me to try and find a job here. Yes, I have one now, but it's contract work that ends in June. And as much as everyone says that they're going to renew my contract, I don't think my boss is as in love with me as others are. So really, when we look down the road we're staring at me being wickedly unemployed again and Nena continuing to hate her dead-end job with no chance of getting out if we stay.
So last fall she said "Chicago, this summer. We're there."
We began to explore the idea of moving to Chicago, sending out feelers, getting a few nibbles, when out of nowhere her dream job opened up. Dream job?
Yes. A few years ago, before we were even engaged, we had that talk every couple that's thinking about marriage and isn't from remotely the same geographic location needs to have. It's the "under what conditions would you move home" talk. In that talk it came out that I'd move to Chicago to flip burgers and Nena would only return to New Mexico as a conquering heroine. Translation: there was only one job she'd go back for, but that people never leave that place so there's no way she's going to even get a crack at it.
This December, it opened up.
Wanting to stick to her original Chicago Pronouncement, and believing she'd never get the job, Nena decided not to apply for her dream job. Realizing this was an enormous mistake I tried talking her into at least applying for the job and when it looked like I might be barely not enough to convince her, I called out the big guns. MaModz, my othamotha and one time holder of Nena's dream job.
Fast forward a few months and guess what. Nena got the job, because that's how she rolls.
Now, we're packing up our junk and moving back home. Nena's home, and a place that I've always felt amazingly at home in. There's a lot more to say here, but I've already rambled on enough for one post. Over the next few days/weeks/months I'll continue to process what's going on and I'll spit it out in drips and drops. But for now...yeah.
NENA
Do you know the way?
NENIE
To Santa Fe?
NENA
Yeah. Green chile, prairie dogs....