A letter from September 8th, 2020

Dear FutureMe, It's 6:16am, and I woke up a whole hour ago. Polly was meowing desperately, and I was so anxious to get started with my day that it was useless to try to fall back asleep. It's my first day at Epic! I'm going in at 9:15am. I moved to Madison a few weeks ago, arriving on August 17th. You might remember that I was actually supposed to arrive on August 16th, but Polly threw a little wrench in our plans :). I'd given her one capsule (100mg) of gabapentin the night before we were supposed to leave, and another the morning of. I left the kitchen with the bottle not screwed on tight, and when I came back, the other five pills were missing. So she spent the day at the Somerville vet, where the vets tried to induce vomiting with more! sedative. It didn't work. They said she was the sweetest, chillest cat, and I couldn't fathom how they didn't connect that to the fact that she was having the high of a lifetime (probably literally). The next day she was ready to go, and off we went. I didn't even have to medicate her until well into the second day. I used this whole debacle as a convenient excuse to cancel all the camping along the way, which I realized I didn't even really want to do. It was a blessing to fall into the soft hotel sheets each night. I booked at a Quality Inn the first night, and Mom said "you don't want to stay there!" I asked why, and she said they Quality Inns are not very nice. I said "Nicer than a dirt floor though?" She said "They're just not very clean!" I think it was an upgrade from the camping. And! It turns out that Quality Inn right in the middle of Pennsylvania was right next to the hotel that Max Kozlov stayed at the same night! How weird and cool! We didn't see each other in person, but we chatted on the phone during our drives the next day. He was driving back to MA from an internship in St. Louis. However, the next night I stayed a Motel 6 in Indiana. That's where the fire alarm went off at 3:30am, and I lost Grandma Rose's blanket :(. I'm really upset that I lost my blankets from both grandmas within a year. They were my oldest possessions, and the only thing I have to remember Grandma Rose by. On a happier note, I got an early start that morning, saw Morgan in Chicago, and then arrived in Madison! Well, not so happy because the apartment had a gas leak and I was exhausted and cranky and I thought the place was way smaller than I expected and I just wanted to cry. I didn't have anywhere to go while waiting for MG&E to show up, so I just brooded in the air conditioning of the car with Polly. I felt lost and alone and scared. But I got the gas leak fixed! And I knocked on Ines' door to ask for some toilet paper, and there was my first friend :) In the next few days (weeks) I unpacked, saw Isaac, unpacked, started cooking for myself, furnished, watched Avatar, unpacked, met Sam, unpacked some more. A few days ago I got the boat bookshelf and my zig zag cactus, and I think that marked the moment I felt like this was truly my home. The floors and walls are not at 90 degree angles and there are exposed pipes everywhere (Sophia said "oh, so it's like a look? Like the exposed pipes?" and I said "no, it's just a re ally old building"), but I really really love it here. I love having all the space to myself and feeling like it's really mine because I'm paying for it (or will be, shortly). So that brings us to this morning! Now it's 6:31, I'm sipping on lukewarm coffee already, and when I finish this letter I'll make some breakfast. I didn't feel nervous until this morning. It's a really silly, primitive anxiety, though! Not "will I be good at my job" -- I know I'll be fine. More like "am I dressing too nice?" (dark blue dress pants, white square-textured shirt from express, nice black shoes). "Will the other kids like me?" At least I can rest easy knowing that Grandma and Grandpa approve of my decision to dress nice, despite it being a casual company. Another thing I'm nervous about -- I've made my intention to work from home so clear, I hope I don't face any repercussions for that. The plan was originally to work from home after my first day, but I might stay the first week just to get a feel for the place and get to know people. I'm scared that everybody will make friends and I'll just be sitting at home, zooming in from the wrong place. I'm being paranoid though! I'll stay a week, make friends, things will be good. I'm excited :) Good books from right now: I'm rereading How to Break Up With Your Phone and Why Does E=mc^2 by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw. HtBUWYP is working, although I gave up on my first try two weeks ago because I didn't read the "Wake-Up" section. I'm back on track after a week of ignoring it sitting next to me on the couch. WDEmc2 is, funny enough, not nearly as fascinating as I remember, although I guess that's a good thing! The revelations of crazy Minkowski geometry are not as mind-blowing this time through. Next I'll reread the Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene. I originally thought that the crazy delayed-choice double-slit experiments were in the Cox/Forshaw book, but now I remember they're actually in the Greene book. After that, maybe I'll get around to some of the old, ignored books sitting in my new, lovely bookshelf. I think that's all for now! Love you! Good luck! I can only imagine what you're up to -- if you made it long enough to take that sabbatical, and what you did with it. Are you glassblowing in Venice? Bartending on the side? Have you abandoned those romantic fantasies in favor of continued financial stability? No judgment. Love you <3 Julia