The one where Maxine peeks around the doorframe

Hey, kids! How've the past seven months been treating you?

Seven. Months. I know. I can hardly believe it myself. Lots of things have happened, as you might expect. Some of the highlights:

1. I left my job at the post-Vox firm in February. I can't and don't want to go into any details. Suffice it to say, it wasn't the best way to kick off the year. At least I know how to navigate unemployment this time. My current plans are to find a new job and move, probably out of state. I have discussed sharing part of a house with a friend who is lease-bound until the fall. October... l'aventure commence.

2. Either my neighbors are getting nuttier or I'm just running out of patience. Although my apartment is spacious, has hardwood floors, big windows, and cheap rent, the drawbacks include:

• The Ever-Remodeling Republicans: The husband, the human embodiment of a bullhorn, is an aging frat boy who all too recently fired up his power saw at almost 11 p.m. and really enjoys blasting Sugar Ray from his deck. The wife masquerades as an opera singer and tortures anyone within hearing range when she practices.
• The Humpingtons: Betty Off Her Crocker and Chuck, her boyfriend of almost two years, for whom the honeymoon loudly and thumpingly continues in the room directly above my living room sweet Jesus please Google 'DIY padded headboard.' Betty has taken over all of the available yard space and most of our patio. I kind of expect to come home someday and find her in my apartment, wondering where she can put a couple of things.
• The porch-partying art school hipsters who have to be told at 5 a.m. to please be quiet so I can sleep.
• Cleaning up bunny remains after my cats wantonly murder the backyard wildlife. I'm considering posting little signs with, like, carrots behind a universal 'no' symbol or "Peter C.: Missing since May 15" as warnings.

3. Now that I am a free agent, I am more invested than ever in supporting myself as a writer and visual artist. My multi-pronged plan includes listing (and hopefully selling, to wide acclaim) some drawings I've done and self-publishing (or *cough* getting a major book contract from Random House) a book of essays/memoir-y goodness. I just finished reading Jenny Lawson's Let's Pretend This Never Happened and loved it. Feeling very inspired and such, and not just because Lawson and I could probably be found comparing anxieties while hiding in a quiet room at a big party.

So many things have changed. I acknowledged the other day that my 30s have been rough. I've never wanted to say it out loud because of the guilt associated with complaining about first-world problems, e.g., "So you have to shoo hipsters off the porch at sunrise? Well, I have cancer." But it's more than that. I have been confronting / dealing with / drowning in / struggling through increasingly worsening depression and anxiety, both of which have the power to render me almost useless and have made simple things like going to the grocery store totally suck. My tenure at the firm I left lasted about two years, during which time I grew more and more sensitive to noise (to the point that a coworker and I self-diagnosed ourselves with misophonia) and began to feel my age crash in around me. I guess it makes sense. I was in a full-blown panic right before I turned 30; why wouldn't I feel similarly a decade later? Especially after a decade that included the start and end of three emotionally taxing jobs, living in three less-than-stellar apartments, embarking upon and ending my first serious relationship with a woman, confronting my anger and food issues in therapy, watching my friends marry and procreate, and dealing with the death of several people, including my beloved paternal grandparents. Ugh. It's just been a bit too much and most of the people I feel closest to live out of town. So it's difficult and I wouldn't mind just curling up like a little pill bug (HOLY SHIT WRONG TERM DO NOT GOOGLE THAT) roly poly and hiding.

I know that much of my current situation is temporary. A new and better apartment with more respectful neighbors awaits. I'll get a job again, whether I'm a PR hack or a self-employed ukulele repairwoman author/artist. I'll get rid of the furniture that stresses me out. I'll figure out a solution to the depression and anxiety issue, whether I continue to explore the wilds of Big Pharma or dig up Freud so we can have a little chat.

I'm a little stuck and a lot frustrated but I'm still hopeful. I've been invited to speak at an artists' retreat this fall, which I'm really looking forward to, and I'm going to continue investing in my writing both on and offline. I don't want to give up on this blog, in part because I sometimes fantasize about having a following like The Bloggess or Amalah, but also because it's been a constant in my life for most of my 30s and I don't want to walk away from it. I just need to... I don't know. Put up some curtains or add on a wing. Scrub the floors clean, hang some pictures, invite people in. Things are going to work out. They always do.