This is a low-quality cell phone picture of what will soon be my new home (or bedroom, anyway). I managed to snap it while the landlady showed me the place- the old tenants still had some stuff in there. This will probably be the room I share with my friend Em in a week.

I can’t even describe how excited I am to move out of the house my mother and her husband own. I can’t describe how happy I am to finally be starting my own life, as an individual, not as a teenage daughter from the first marriage who lives in the basement. I regret that I can’t take my beloved cat Minka with me, but she’ll be okay until I can find a place that allows pets, hopefully next winter. Call me crazy, but that cat has been my only friend at times, my only companion in a very damp and moldy basement that would have been a deathtrap if there was a fire. Which wasn’t that far-fetched, seeing as how for the majority of the year we heated the house with a fireplace just one floor up from where I slept.

I’ll miss being surrounded by acres of forest, and I’ll even miss splitting wood and mowing that lawn- but I’m eager to know what it’s like to actually live in the heart of the city. The bus line is one block away as opposed to one mile of steep hills- that will be nice for when I’m going to work. I have a job now, too! Nothing fancy, just making sandwiches. But enough to pay the rent and buy food and cigarettes, maybe even a little beer money here and there for hot summer nights. I’ll be working a lot but this summer is still going to be one of the best I ever had. And it all starts next week!

Can’t wait, can’t wait, can’t wait….