homeless (with a harmonica)

I went to Old Town yesterday. Really don't know why I did that. Spent fifteen minutes pondering whether to break in to my old house (fools left their gate unlocked. Or rather, only locked on the old lock and not the new lock, so that I could open it if I stuck my arm through the bars. It's the way we used to do it, too. It's a good thing most criminals don't have bony wrists like mine and my mother's).

Knocked on the door instead. Had coffee.

It was weird.

I felt like a hobo, wandering in off the street. At least I was wearing a sundress. I don't think many hobos wear sundresses.

That happened to us once, a few months after we moved in. I was eight or nine, and we were moving something in or out or something, and the door was open, and this woman just wanders in. Said she owned the place. Very obviously didn't; she looked homeless or something, but she insisted that she used to live there, that it was her house.

I think the police were called, but I really don't remember.

Anyway, that was a weird experience. There's a 12 year old girl living in my room (the room that I redesigned, when I was twelve. Hot pink suits that age). They have a big dog. They have all our furniture.

I don't know why I expected it to look different. It didn't. It looked the same.

But it was someone else's house. I couldn't make myself comfortable there.

And that pisses me off. It's my house, goddamn it. I spent the better part of my conscious life there. I kept looking at the walls, thinking "Is this where I lived?"

Switzerland isn't home either, though.

And living in a basement in McLean certainly isn't.

Although all of these places are nice.

I'm basically homeless. I'm bouncing off of other people's houses. I don't like it.

Funny. Last year, around this time, I had my "I just want to leave everything and ride the rails" phase (that phase where everyone told me I would get raped. It was a great phase).

I was basically asking for this, but this isn't what I had in mind.

Bought a harmonica today, my third. I somehow forgot to pack one, and I've just been feeling the urge lately.

Me: Do you sell harmonicas?

Music Store Guy: Yeah, right over here. What'll you be using it for, mostly?

Me: Oh, you know, just those moments when you want to whip out a harmonica.

MSG: Alright, I know those moments.

I wasn't aware there was another use for a harmonica. I guess if you were in a band, you could use a harmonica in that band, and then you'd want something more serious than the six dollar "Pocket Pal".

I have a more serious harmonica. I just found it in my desk drawer one day last spring, after I'd bought my first harmonica at Barnes and Noble that time I didn't want to come home.

There were a lot of times I didn't want to come home. And now I want to go home but it isn't there.

Regardless, now I have a harmonica for use in the states. Hooray for that.

Oh, hey, you, after listening to my melodramatic rant, do you want to help out a friend of mine? Vote for this thing (click "gibt deine erste geborn" or something)!

Love always,

Clara