but when you do, everything looks weird and gives you belly pangs. Also, construction. So much construction.

I’m in Victoria for the week, cat-sitting for Friend Sue. I’m staying at her place while I sit on her cat, which is win-win because the cat has someone to simultaneously distrust and beg for attention, and I can work from Sue’s living room because there is internet. Add in some ice cubes and running water, and I am fully self-sustaining. I’m also playing Good Daughter and getting some mom visits in while I’m here, so in between sitting on Sue’s cat while she alternates between purring and hissing at me, I am being a productive January monkey.

Coming home to Victoria always gives me such weird feelings. There are so many memories attached to this place, and the overall bittersweet sense of longing clashes heavily with my free-wheeling “family is for suckers” nature. It makes me all thinky and introspective and tired (although that might just be the geriatric air quality here). I keep wanting to come to Victoria and have a Good Time complete with laughing and cupcakes and maybe some sparklers, but it never seems to turn out like that – I mostly just get sad, with an impending sense of duty. I’ve never quite figured out why that is, as no one really expects anything of me. Am I expecting it of myself? That I’ll suddenly wake up one morning and look forward to spending an extended period of time with my mother without turning into a petulant 14-year-old? One of these days I will surely become an adult about this, right?

It’s not going to happen this trip, though.

If you’ll excuse me, I have a cat to sit on.