Life got complicated last night as we were waiting for a flaky craigslister to meet me outside of my work. I'd just taught two back-to-back yoga classes after a nine hour work day and was wired and exhausted and feeling a bit sketch as we flicked our brights on at each passing car. The street, dimly lit, boasted only one open business: the adult store, which gets a decent, and surprising, amount of traffic for 9:30pm on a Tuesday.
I'm trying to sell my Corolla, because I hate it and I don't need it. I can feasibly ride my bike everywhere I need to go, and have a company car I can use whenever I don't feel like it. I use the Corolla so infrequently I only have to fill up the gas tank once a month. Plus, I could use the cash for escrow fees.
Horny drivers and pedestrians peeking in through the window of my decrepit car would have seen us engaged in an animated discussion, which, considering the setting, probably seemed a lot more clandestine and scandalous than it was.
I actually got a zip of the unadulterated excitement I felt that one time I snuck out of the house to meet up with a friend's boyfriend. We only talked, sitting in the back of his car, but I desperately wanted to kiss him, not because I liked him, but to hurt my friend. He explained later that he didn't want to cheat on his girlfriend the day before her prom. I can't remember why I wanted her to feel pain, but it was a confusing time, 16, and the only thing I could really hold onto was the pureness of raw emotion and doing whatever it took to feel anything at all.
Last night was not quite so innocently scandalous. The boyfriend is being sent to the UK for ten days next month, and will probably need to return for a few months. This is a dream of his, to live abroad for any amount of time, and aside from celebrating the excitement of his having earned his goal, we were trying to figure out the logistics of how to buy a house together when he will be out of the country during escrow.
I called the craigslister and told him I would wait ten more minutes.
I could fly out and stay with him for a week or two, we decided. I have a free transatlantic business class flight to use up. We could stay in the company flat. Take the train to France for the weekend; maybe rent a car and drive to Scotland. He'll be working obviously, but I can entertain myself in London for two weeks, no problem - a day at the Tate, an afternoon walking through Hampstead, hunting down that record shop in Camden again, writing in pubs. I have a former friend living in London; I'm not sure if enough time has passed since our friendship dissolved due to conflicting loyalties that I could contact her for a cuppa, but even if I spend several hours a day alone, I'll have my Kindle and my yoga to protect me.
But still: the details of buying a house. Paperwork, inspections, moving (twice for me: once into his, then again into ours), signatures. It can be done.
We can do this, we decided. We gave up on the craigslister and drove to Roy for a glass of wine to celebrate having it all.