When Home Isn't Home, Even Though You Love the People

"There's a good ant.  Eat your neurotoxin."

-Dad, on pest control

As will surprise no one who knows me at all, I'm pretty territorial. I like my own space.  Visiting home hasn't been a problem over the last few years, so I figured that moving home (for the foreseeable future) wouldn't be too much different.  There's a light, after all-- K graduates in December, and, from his employment history, Lady Awesome Jobs smiles on him regularly.  We'll be out and on our own in no time.  So, I reasoned, living at home for practical purposes will suit me just fine for the next few months.  After all, multi-generational housing was common and usual for all but very recent history-- this will be fine, right?

I found this in the fridge.

Wrong.  The food in the house is not the food I normally eat*.  The kitchen has Rules, because my dad is just as territorial about Where Things Go as I am-- and I have no idea where anything goes.  I hesitate to set up my video game system: I know my parents don't approve of what they call "screen time".  I have yet to adjust to 5:30 family dinner time (as I'm used to turning to K at around seven and saying "hey, what do you want?" and figuring it out from there).

So, it's a challenge.  I'm going to have to figure out some compromises to suggest regarding kitchen space.  I'll need to go out grocery shopping, and I'll need to learn where everything goes again.  I'll to eke out some space for the food I like.  I may also find a corner of my room and set up a mini-pantry of non-perishables if I can figure out how to appropriately ant-proof it.

Part of this transition is cleaning out my former room, setting up a space I can live in.  (For the past three years, it's been a dumping ground for old class notes and miscellanea I haven't had time to sort through, shuttling back and forth between internships and school and two sets of family.)  Right now, it's a work in progress, and I am pleased to report that I have successfully passed the stage where "cleaning" has been more akin to "playing Rush Hour"**.

Sorting through the papers.

I'm getting there.  Hopefully, my room will provide a functional space for job-hunting after the rest of today's efforts.

In other news, I keep trading hard posts for easier ones. Over the next week, I should write about my frustration with "Walden" (by Henry David Thoreau) and some feelings about gender expression and professionalism.  You may prod me with a blunt instrument of your choice if you do not see these posts by Saturday.
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*My brother read some book on primal diets and, as a result, has cut all dairy (except for butter, which he eats for inadequately explained reasons), grains, legumes, and sugars (except for minimal fruit) from his diet.  He consumes something like three pounds of vegetables a day and gets the balance of his calories from meat and, I think, oil.  This significantly impacts the balance of food in the fridge.

**Or, in the words of the fictional Sergeant Colon, "a case of no one being able to move because of everyone else." -Night Watch, pg. 364, Terry Pratchett.