yesterday, as i sat down for a sandwich at the ravenwood cafe, i had a bit of a loveburst for my little city. the ravenwood is new transplant in staunton, and the best way i can describe it is what i imagine edgar allan poe's kitchen would be like - a little dark, but very southern, yet progressive, as well.

anyway. i have such acute aches for new york sometimes that they are practically physical. but now that i have been in staunton for a year and a half, it's found its own place in my heart, and i love that.

i have "my" things in this town now - my routines and places and things. i've realized this sense of belonging is crucial to my comfort in, or with, a place. when i poke around at celebration!, the owner asks me how my crazy german relatives are doing. when we greet the door guy at clocktower, we talk about what's going on with big boots. i order my usual at blue mountain without glancing at the menu. i have my nice little artsy movie theaters, my crunchy veggie-friendly grocery, my favorite route to walk at the park.

i might not wear a staunton, VA shirt with the feel i'd have advertising my brooklyn pride across my chest, but at least the idea of wearing that t-shirt doesn't seem quite as foreign as it once did.

patrick dempsey, paris hilton, and goldberg are going to be in little ole staunton monday night. no shit!

i wish i could be cool enough to say i didn't care and not be feverishly making sure my path crosses some celebrity itinerary, but i am so not.

of particular mirth to me is the inclusion of staunton as "ONE OF THE PARTY CAPITALS OF AMERICA."  holla.

staunton has a wooooonderful new bar/restaurant, zynodoa.  how much am i in love with a place that's open past midnight, serves liquor, looks and feels like a chic NY bar, has cool bartenders that can make me have drinkgasms, and has a head chef who used to be the catering chef at tavern-on-the-green?  i want to live there, sitting at the bar drinking espresso-tinis.  mmmmmmmmm.

i'm walking a weird line here, having been in staunton for a week. there's been no epic flipout like last year; no tears and no tipping into the xanax bottle. i'm leaving the townhouse and running errands and functioning like a normal person. this is a world of difference from my last move.

but -there always has to be a but, right?- yesterday and today i've felt slightly on edge, perhaps finally digesting the actuality of this move. i didn't have gus with me until tuesday when my dad brought him down, and somehow something in that has caused being here to feel more like the Real Deal and less like a vacation.

orientation for my new job begins on monday, and i'm glad. over the last week i've gotten into a little housefrau routine of cooking and cleaning craziness that is kind of like junk food - all well and good in smaller amounts but not true sustenance - nothing to live off of.

many people who care about me have cautioned to me about falling too much into todd's life, rather than carving out my own niche here. well it's kind of weird to see that i'm not sure he really has that much of a niche here. he's a lot less of a people-person that i am -how i am i forever matching up with these introverts?- and doesn't really have friends here who are close. i guess he's really been doing the loner things, but people to hang out with are exactly what i need and crave.

so i am again confronted with that particular dilemma facing the post-college young adult - how do you meet people??? the most hopeful i felt about making friends so far was last weekend when we went out and got drinks at baja bean company - one of my favorite hangouts from richmond whose staunton outpost is basically the main nightlife spot here. but i hesitate to let drinking facilitate my hanging out, too. i'm glad that over the last year in new york i was able to get away from the whole drinking-as-focal-point-of-social-life thing. and i'm reluctant to return to that.

i met our next door neighbors last night, another young couple (how old do i sound saying 'young couple'?!) and they seemed cool and it was all i could do from metaphorically flinging myself at their feet and hugging their ankles.

to be continued…

well, here i am, stealing a few minutes at todd's computer. i have moved. i am surrounded by boxes and boxes of my shit and am acutely aware of the fact that i have far too many material possessions. i also need to learn to shake the feeling that i am invading todd's space, and that this is our place. can't help but feel like i would be a lot more territorial if it was my townhouse he was moving into. it's hellacious to look around and see how much work there is to do, but so lovely to be able to nest to my heart's connect. twitter. chirp.

one of my great joys working at the bookstore is getting to, for lack of a better word, subject the general public to my music choices. it hearkens back, i guess, to my days as a DJ. i'm also enjoying bringing older CDS with me to work and "redeiscovering" them. today's picks are moby's "18″, fiona apple's "when the pawn…", beth orton's "central reservation", and nirvana unplugged. a very nice mix and a reminder of how much i love each of these albums, particularly the last. i have definitely been one of those slightly scary people who is sining/humming slightly louder than under their breath tonight. i wonder if it's scaring people away, but don't really care too much if it is.

i've been really clumsy today. i keep dropping books and knocking into things. i feel as though my equilibrium is a little off. funny to feel that way now as for almost 2 weeks i think i had water trapped in my ear from a swimming pool excursion. i didn't feel particularly off balance then, though i did feel slightly elderly when i kept having to ask people to repeat themselves. then one day i woke up and it was gone, although i did not notice it immediately. i wonder how all that works.

i find myself strangely and perhaps uncharacteristically enamored with the quaint little town of which i will soon be a resident. staunton has cute little stores, two movie theaters (one first-runs one artsy), a drive-in, lots of little coffeehouses and cafes. it has its own playhouse, a gorgeous park (with pool - yay!), and tons of hills for excursions with one's dog. i wish i were already there.

i hate that i have been away from the site for so long. suddenly my life has been taking up so much of my time that i haven't had the time to sit and reflect on it. i don't know whether that's definitively a good or bad thing.

well kids, the times, they are a-changin' as i make plans to haul my tail out of the big apple and follow my heart back home to virginny. nothing is set in stone, and i really need to gods-of-jobs to smile my way, but by the end of the summer i hope to be sharing a townhouse with my beau in staunton, VA. i've been playing some hard D on this one since i made this decision last week, but my hardest critic has of course been myself. the bottom line i guess though is that i have spent far too much of my life waiting for things -both good and bad- to happen, and this past year has taught me all about truly doing my own thing.

i finally feel as though i hit my stride in nyc, and that gives me a pang or two as i think about leaving. but deciding between a place and a person i love isn't really a huge toss-up.