When you start dating, you realize there are a number of things you don't necessarily want the other party to know about — at least, not at first. Habits, tendencies, things you're mildly embarrassed about, things you're not sure will go over well, things that didn't go over well with the last partner. They're small, yes — not really that big a deal in the grand scheme of things — but you're not necessarily eager to share them.

I mean, you can love and trust someone and still not want to them to know you have a really, really hard time peeing when you think anyone can hear.

Since we're in a long distance relationship, when Mike and I see each other we stay in each other's apartments. This means we're together a lot of the time. This means he's figured a lot out already.

And no, I can't pee if I think anyone can hear. Or if I think someone's waiting for the bathroom. Obviously, this had to come out into the open early on. He hasn't stopped rolling his eyes, but he has let me pile pillows on his head before I head to the bathroom.

He's found out how I feel about jammies. In that I like them — a lot. In that I tend to come home from work, put them on, and stay in them the rest of the day. In that I avoid getting dressed as long as possible over the weekend.

He knows the house kind of revolves around the cats.

I've had to admit, recently, that I have a number of friends I only know through the Internet.

He knows I smoke sometimes.

These things have all come to light. None of them, of course, have been a big deal, but all of them were things I was reluctant to share. They are all things that may not have been learned as soon as they were if we hadn't been sharing a space.

In less than a month, we're taking a trip together. There's no hiding when you're traveling. What will come to light then?

It's official: Larry the Cat has given up his vendetta against Mike.

The last time Mike was in town Larry made it clear that he was displeased. This was odd, since Larry is a cat-whore. He loves everyone, boys especially. His normal reaction on meeting someone new is to make out with them, or, at the least, sit behind them on the couch and hug their heads.

Larry is convinced that he is my boyfriend, although he considers it a fairly open relationship, what with his tendency to stick his head into other people's mouths. When Mike came to stay for the first time, Larry took one look at him and realized something was different. I'm impressed, still, with Larry's insight here — he's not the smartest cat in the world. This is a cat who runs into walls. This is a cat who has set himself on fire — twice.

Larry, the lap-lover, would immediately vacate the couch if Mike sat beside him, stalking to a chair across the room and watching with hostile eyes. He stopped trying to sleep in the bedroom, much less on the bed. He refused to let Mike pet him.

One of the things I love about Mike is that he loves my cats. At the risk of being the crazy cat lady, they're awfully important to me, and anyone who wants to be a part of my life in any significant way really has to be ok with that. Finding someone who not only tolerates this but is actually pleased when I drag him out of the shower to see them in a particularly cute position...well, it doesn't get much better than that.

So Mike's been on a mission to win Larry's affections.

It helped that his second visit saw him working a lot — it got the desk lamp on his side. Larry loves napping under the desk lamp.

Then there was the miraculous day when Larry actually got into Mike's lap. I have a picture of Larry looking over at me in horror and guilt before leaping off and pretending it had never happened.

I just had a very odd moment.

Sometimes I get lonely. I'm never quite sure what it is what I want when this happens, I just get knocked a little flat by the reality of my solo flight.

I'm up too late. When I finally tear myself away from the computer, flip off the reality TV I watch when I'm grading papers, start to straighten up for the night, I'm hit with a wave of lonely.

Normally, when this happens, I curl up in my comfiest chair and just sit in the feeling for a while. So I figured, okay, well, I'll do this for a bit. I'll have a contemplative little 15 minutes.

But then — and this is the odd bit — it just went away. I looked around my living room, the apartment that's just mine. It's neat, because no one else is here to mess it up. There's a cookie left on a plate on the coffee table, and it's still going to be there tomorrow, because no one will sneakily eat it when I'm not looking. There is nothing in this place that is ugly, that I don't want, that I keep around because I have to.

Tomorrow I'm going to a job that I choose to have. I will be wrestling, all day, with what I'm going to do with my life next, but that choice, when I make it, will be mine, too.

I was all set to have my little moment in my comfy chair, feeling sad and alone and such, and I just can't do it. I don't want anyone else here. I miss the boy, it's getting harder to say goodbye to him each time I do, but — I am loving having my own life. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


The nice thing about moving is that, when the day actually arrives, you are too exhausted and crabby to wander pensively through empty rooms or ponder any kind of moving-as-moving-on metaphor.

The night before moving, I realized I could not realistically expect the movers to cope with a floor covered with pine needles and couches covered with cat hair. Unfortunately, when I brought out the vacuum, plugged it in, and started on the living room, it exploded, covering the room with some kind of white powder. Dirt? Pulverized cat litter? I'd rather not think too much about it. Instead of merely packing up my stray bits and pieces and getting some sleep, I was up until about two beating out the rug as best I could and scotch taping the hair off the sofa.

Then, of course, once everything had been stuffed into my new apartment, I had to find a place to put everything. You can only pack in an impressively organized way until two days before the move. Then you find a load of clothes in the dryer. You realize the teakettle is still on the stove. Someone returns an armload of books. I ended up with five or six huge boxes labeled "clothes/bedding/coffee-maker/utensils/various". I would think I had found a place for everything, only to find a sneaky shoebox of art supplies lurking amongst the linens.

All weekend, I had no time to think, no time to worry, no time to mourn or celebrate this last stage of moving on from marriage. So this is my strategy, from here on out: when I start to overanalyze, I will simply move.

Jake bought a humidor once, on a whim. It was very expensive and he stopped using it after a month.

After Jake moved out, I had to pack his things and ship them off to his company's warehouse in Oakland. At the time, I was angry. Really, really angry. I figure this is normal and healthy and don't waste a lot of time feeling bad about it. I didn't get vindictive - save for not packing his things terribly neatly. And maybe, maybe finding that the cat had hairballed into one of the boxes and pretending not to notice. Otherwise, I didn't act on my anger — save for this:

That humidor — I took it outside and stomped it into pieces. I figured Jake hadn't touched it or thought about it in years, it wasn't something he cared about, and jumping up and down on top of the stupid thing would go a long way towards making me feel better.

While packing up my living room tonight, I pulled down a stack of books and found Jake's baseball behind them. This ball is from high school and it's one of the very, very few things he's held onto that long. This is something that means a whole lot to him.

Realistically, the chances of Jake ever unpacking the boxes I packed for him are slim. The chances of him even coming back to this country are slim. If I just threw this baseball away, he would likely never know.

This, then, may be the kind of thing that determines what kind of person you are: sitting in a half-packed living room, holding a baseball, wondering whether to throw it away, knowing he may never know, or drive it to Oakland, knowing he may never know I did that either.

Ladies and gentlemen, set your minds at ease: Alice found an apartment. Alice is moving. Alice is so delighted with this that she is speaking of herself in the third person.

There was a manic week in which I stalled a broker, pled my case to a building owner, all but bribed a building manager, and tried to track down vacationing Human Resource people to verify my employment. But... I have an apartment. I have, in fact, the loft I wanted, which means I have a place I love, get to stay in my marvelous neighborhood, and will save a significant amount of rent each month. I am giddy all around.

Signing the lease was oddly scary. On the one hand, I was thrilled and excited and calling all my friends to tell them. On the other hand, there's something a little unnerving about making that kind of commitment — and any commitment is problematic for me at the moment. Change has never been something I'm good at, and this will be a big change.

I'm also — and I know you're shocked by this — overanalyzing. Why I feel the need to make every action in my life some kind of metaphor I don't know. At least it makes for something to write about.

What will not be fun: coming home after the holidays and packing, selling off furniture, making the inevitable 12 trips to the Salvation Army, cleaning, moving, unpacking.

What will be fantastic: getting rid of everything I don't like and don't need, hanging things on my fabulous high walls, stringing lights across my pillars and pipes, the turning of this space into a home. My home. My home without a partner, without sharing, without compromise.

This week, I am a grownup, suddenly.

So, I have decided to move out of the lovely yet enormous apartment I shared with my husband. I have decided to find a place that is mine and only mine, and to fill it with only the things I love and I choose. I will get rid of everything I don't like, arrange what I do like as I see fit and be — finally, completely, unequivocally — my own person.

An excellent plan.

Save for this: everyone else in this entire city is also looking to move. The holiday season, apparently, does not at all keep people home with their families, leaving the available apartments free and unsought for me to choose from, as I had originally hoped.

After spending a significant amount of time with my new friend Craigslist, I set aside a solid weekend to go to every within-my-price-range open house. Around 3 p.m. that Sunday, 20-odd apartments later, I was all but completely discouraged. Nothing has hit me with that feeling of "Yes, I could live here."

On top of that, it is absurd how high the rents are in this city. Laughable numbers are starting to sound perfectly reasonable to me, and I've given up on that I-will-save-an-impressive-amount-of-money-each-month dream.

Then, the next weekend, I find it. It's a loft, a mere four blocks from me. I walk in, and think, "Yes. Yes, I could live here." Full of joy, I take a rental application. Then I count the number of other people doing the same: 35. There are 35 other people applying for this apartment. So far. It's 11:15 a.m., and the open house goes until 2 p.m.

It's unfortunate that my decision to move on with my life, apartment-wise, is not more fully supported by the rest of the universe.

When Jake moved out, I worried about staying in the same apartment. I thought it would be too hard — to be single, but in the same space. But I rearranged some things. Bought a bunch of plants. Got rid of the spectacularly ugly dining room table that had come from his family. It turned out to be relatively easy to feel the apartment was "mine" as opposed to "ours".

The thing about this apartment, though — it's gorgeous, but it's huge. I mean, really, really huge. Far too big for just me.

Also, I'm feeling crushed by possessions these days. I have, with some exceptions, all of the collected furniture of two people over a 10 year marriage. I have furniture coming out of my ears. Moving to a smaller place, getting rid of all these things, is terribly appealing.

Financially, getting a roommate makes the most sense. It's an absurdly expensive apartment for one, but fairly reasonable for two. There's plenty of room for another person.

But I really, really like living alone.

Then there's this: as "mine" as this apartment feels, it's still the place where I was married. That piece of me that takes so much glee in being selfish wants a place that's just mine, that's never been anyone's but mine. I want a place that I pick out for me, not for us. Of course, a place that will stop draining my savings account won't hurt either.

I'm not someone who's good at change. I think, though, this is one that's overdue.

I'm the only one who pays the bills. I'm the only one who pays the rent. I have to take the garbage out or it will stay in the kitchen. Things stay where I put them. No one else has a key to the front door — I will never walk in at the end of the day and find anyone else home.

It's a strange feeling. At the same time, it's kind of fabulous.

I find I'm jealous, now, of my alone time. I worked awfully hard to be at peace with myself, to learn to be still, to be content in my own company. It's worked well — so well, in fact, that I get antsy without that time by myself.

It's hard to imagine ever sharing a space with someone again. I'm more comfortable, these days, with the idea of being in a relationship, but the idea of sharing a place — it kind of horrifies me.

I always thought of myself as a social person, someone who would always prefer living with roommates or friends or partners — someone who preferred to have people around. As it turns out, I'm not. I like being by myself. I'm pretty decent company, after all.