There is a strange lesson happening across from me at the coffee house.

My quiet space has been encroached upon by a 40 something computer nerd’s condescending lesson to his 70+ impatient student. “It’s called wireless. Do you know what that means? Radio waves. You are getting internet through radio.” He overpowers the smooth jazz, offsetting its effect.

Iowa City life has been unsettled lately. It’s almost August which means the end of the academic lease. Piles of cheap Target desks and bent floor lamps mark the lawns of student housing, along with old couches that no longer stand to be passed off anymore. In the daytime dumpsters overflow with opportunistic bums and dumpster-diving Ebay abusers, while at night they are set on fire by drunks and assholes.

Meanwhile, I am still in stubborn denial of my own recent residential shift and spent the last week feeding my summertime jet-setter fantasy in Hilton Head, South Carolina. It is an island for the stereotypical, southern privileged who divide their time between afternoon beachfront dining and late night beachfront drinking. Naturally, my Fairfax County roots fit right in. Mostly, and most surprisingly, I was looking forward to a family reunion of sorts. The first night I had dinner with members of my father’s small town relatives who travel in clumps and all carry the same ambiguous title “cousin” (hold my uncle who subsequently beat feet within hours of my plane landing). The cousins were soon to follow after snubbing an invite for after dinner drinks in my parents’ swank marina-front timeshare. So much for my northern-centric hopes for a week of ethnographic observation. I dressed up in designer jeans and heels for our first and, as it would turn out, last casual crab-house dinner, proving I can be an alienating force when I put my mind to it.

Back in Iowa I am also trying to expand my world understanding. I finally left Vegan Hell and somehow managed to completely miss a total you-can’t-quit-you’re-fired! moment. After a week in Hilton Head I walk reluctantly back wearing my little green bandana, expecting to finish out my last week. “You don’t work here anymore. Remember, our last conversation ended: ‘Whatever, don’t come back at all, it probably won’t even be busy that week!’” So I give her back the bandana.

Currently jobless, in a desperate effort to combat the horribly self-centered feeling I get from living the summer life of a college student (read: timing your own sleep schedule to coincide with the hours of your local bar), I have started volunteering. Working here, like any job where kids are involved (ahem, my preschool teaching days), is like sitting through an endless episode of Kids Say the Darndest Things. Only now much of it is in sign language. I am slowly learning to speak a few words and phrases, but am currently limited to only the most adorable conversations. I can now describe the trot gait as “silly”

or frantically beg for “more horse”

when the lesson ends. It’s endlessly inspiring and clamping kid butts to bouncy saddles is totally getting my arms back in shape.

So I guess the lesson is: Iowa City has a lot of couches for the taking. It’s a bitch to sort through 'em, but eventually I'm bound to find something.

Meanwhile, I’ve got an interview tomorrow for a secretarial position at the local substance abuse (rehab!) clinic.