welcome to the azalea garden!

So I haven’t posted in a while! I meant to write a wrap-up post for March, and then for April, and now I’ve decided I don’t care too much about writing those. I might make mentions of what I read and wrote for those months if I write a wrap-up for May, but we’ll see about that in about a week-ish.

Firstly, the immigration process has been unbelievably irritating. Haven and I decided to pay for fast-tracking my visa because of how long the paralegal on our case is taking. This cost over a grand but it’s been over a month since I provided all the documents and I still haven’t gotten my application draft. I was promised the draft last week, but never got it. Monday of this week, I was told not that I’d receive it, but that I would get an update on Tuesday about if I provided enough info to finish the draft or if I need to give more info. On Wednesday, not Tuesday, I was sent a list of questions that I promptly replied to. Thursday, I heard fucking nothing. Friday, I was told that I was asked those questions because the Home Office will want the answers, but in that case, why the fuck wasn’t I asked at the very beginning? I was hoping to get to the UK before my birthday, which had seemed pretty realistic when I was under the impression that absolutely anything might get done in even what might resemble a halfway reasonable time frame, but that’s obviously not happening. This is extra annoying considering my housemates let me move in under the assumption I would be gone before the end of June, which I was positive I would be, because why would I still be here in that long, even without fast-tracking? What a fucking nightmare.

Aside from how constantly frustrated I am about this needlessly slow and irritating process of dealing with the paralegal on my case, I’m at least enjoying Boston and I have a really good job. There’s so much food to try here, which is really nice, but not great for my bank account—but it’s been worth it, honestly. I had lunch at Shake Shack yesterday, and oh my god, that was the best burger I’ve ever had. I’m never going to find shit like that in England. All the Chinese has been absolutely divine, and there’s a bunch of Gong Cha locations here and their drinks are incredibly good.

I haven’t really gone out as much as I’d normally like, but it rains a lot here, and getting out of the house means spending less time with my partner. So I can’t really complain! I love the weather and I love spending every possible moment with the love of my life.

My apartment sucks pretty bad, objectively, but it’s home. I fell into it being home pretty quickly, really. The toilet doesn’t flush very well, sound carries weirdly and only in the most inconvenient ways imaginable, the floor plan is arranged so that every bit of space is used in the most inefficient fashion possible, the agency that rents out the property sucks absolute ass, and the downstairs neighbors kept the backyard a fucking wreck until the landlord finally threatened extra fines. We have to store our cookware in the oven because there’s literally no other goddamn place for it all. And it’s in the worst part of Boston, down in Dorchester. And all of that bullshit for a grand total of $2,450 a month. Like, are you fucking kidding me? And that’s not to mention that it’s always either too hot and stuffy (basically whenever it’s over 55 degrees out!) or it’s absolutely freezing. Fucking ridiculous. But it’s home for now, and I’m comfortable here regardless.

I work in the environmental services department of a hospital. The best job I ever had was as a janitor—a job that had me solely responsible for cleaning and overseeing an entire gym for my entire overnight shift, complete with the most godawful management—so I was really excited when I saw a housekeeping position open at a hospital. I wanted it so bad that I tried to forget about applying for the entire time after I did because it was the kind of job that was just too good to be able to get. I wanted it too bad and it was too perfect for me, there was no way I’d get it. But then I got a call back about it! And I was hired on the spot over the phone, with the hiring manager doing everything she could to get me working ASAP. I got blood work done to prove I’m fulled vaccinated, had to get another TDAP vax because it was easier than getting my records to prove I also had that one (apparently that one wasn’t tested for), got fitted for an N-95 mask, and then started working the day after attending my department’s orientation. Nurses have been appalled when they learned I wasn’t warned about how gruesome the unit I was placed on is, but like, it is what it is. There are a lot of people who just wouldn’t have the stomach for it, so it’s kind of insane that I wasn’t given any warning whatsoever beforehand. I wasn’t even told what the unit was, I had to find out once I got there. But I really can’t complain about it. There’s a consistent routine I can follow, it’s physically intensive enough that I don’t have to worry about getting extra exercise in outside of work, and I’m not the kind of person to be negatively impacted by anything my job entails. Like, yeah, it can be difficult to see people suffering, especially kids, but I’m not going to be traumatized by it or need any kind of therapy once I’m finished working here. The only thing I actively hate about working there is cleaning up the staff lounge, because oh my god, I’ll never be able to understand how anyone can be totally fine making such a fucking mess at their workplace and leaving it.

It’s really weird to think that soon I won’t have to work anymore. Not just that, but for a while, I won’t be permitted to work, since it’s not allowed on the marriage visa. It’s going to be hard to get used to it, and harder to get fully comfortable with it. As much as having to work is destroying my body—it aggravates all my disabilities and causes them to act up, and every week or two there’s a new injury that suddenly pops up as a result of work pushing my body too far, and either it doesn’t go away until after I get injured in some other way or it doesn’t heal at all and becomes indefinite, if not permanent—I also like working. It’s a way to get out of the house, a way to make money so I can afford getting out of the house recreationally as well, and just a way of enriching my existence overall despite the fact that, well, employment is inherently exploitative under capitalism.

I’m hoping that, when I move, I can focus a lot more on writing. If I’m not working, I’d like to finally complete something worth publishing so I can make some amount of money that way, even if I don’t expect it to ever be that much. I also really want to start a YouTube channel, so this might be the final factor that ultimately has me motivated to start. I think it could be a lot of fun. I could talk endlessly about media I really like and really don’t, especially books, but out loud. That’d be a lot of time. Much to consider.