Rabbit City in Blue

Well. It’s been a while, so pull up a chair and pour a drink and let’s catch up on recent goings-on!

Two weeks ago I sat down to write a blog post and then apparently got swept away by the narrative equivalent of a montage sequence set to an indie folk cover of a pop-punk song. And by that I mean the last couple of weeks have been full of the sort of days that don’t necessarily feel monumental while you’re living them, but later glow softly in retrospect like little lanterns hung along a woodland path (and definitely not like a malevolent will-o’-the-wisp). 

On May 6, I said hello to some geese (as is my wont) and took pictures because I remain completely incapable of seeing those majestic birds without acknowledging them and stifling the urge to hug them.

I have come to understand there is something deeply reassuring about geese. They are not (generally) kind, but they move through the world with complete confidence in their own goosehood as feathered agents of chaos and honking emissaries of liminal spaces.

Sometimes, I suspect they contemplate arson. 

I respect that.

The next day it rained, and during my lunch break I watched a bird bathe in a puddle, simply splashing about with absolute delight until some folks walked just a little too near and it flew up to higher ground (relatively speaking).

Later that afternoon, someone invited me to pet their dog, and honestly this was the workplace equivalent of enrichment time in my enclosure, immediately activating (and nearly overloading) every serotonin receptor available.

And then came the surprise during our unit meeting: balloons and a jar of Twix and a card and a candle that smells of velvet rose, smooth vanilla, and glowing embers.

My team decided they wanted to give me a proper goodbye before commencement chaos consumed the campus because on the 18th (hey, that’s tomorrow!) I officially move departments — and buildings — to become the Digital Communications Coordinator for the college.

I keep cycling through what seems to be every possible emotion about it.

Excitement

Gratitude

Terror

Wonder

The peculiar ache that comes from leaving people you genuinely love working with, because somewhere along the way, this team stopped feeling like “people I work with” and became people I trust, people I laugh with, people who know my weird little references and my cadence and the shape of my brain. That’s a difficult thing to leave behind, even for something wonderful – and it is wonderful: this new role is one people have advocated for over many years, which means stepping into it feels meaningful in a way I’m still trying to process. 

It feels like walking into Terra Incognita with a lantern in one hand and a backpack full of snacks and trinkets in the other.

And if there truly be dragons there?

Well.

I will pet them.

I will befriend them.

And then?

Who knows!?!

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On May 8, destiny revealed itself through the sacred medium of a Five Below blind box.

Krystal picked one out, and when she opened it at home, she immediately texted me while I was making supper (it was chicken schnitzel): 

I got this cat but he’s meant for you 🖤

Dear Reader, it was an emo cat. And not just any emo cat, it was an emo cat with the exact energy of The Black Parade, which means there’s only one title that will work for him:

Welcome to the Cat Purrade 

May 9 I made one of those glorious leftover meals that somehow transcends its ingredients and becomes memorable all on its own: namely, leftover chicken schnitzel over leftover spaghetti in thick meat sauce – enjoyed with a Kraken-enhanced Baja Blast Mountain Dew and consumed while watching The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.

Listen. Sometimes the raccoon in your soul takes over meal planning, and you listen to it. 

May 10 brought a trip to the World Oddities Expo in Raleigh, which felt like being allowed to wander freely through the inside of my own brain (albeit with considerably more people).

There were bones and art and strange little treasures and stickers and curiosities and all manner of delightful oddments. I returned home with trinkets because I am, fundamentally, three crows stacked in a trench coat pretending to understand budgeting.

May 11 gifted me a mashup of Twin Peaks and My Chemical Romance, proving once again that somewhere out there on the internet are people operating on my exact frequency.

May 12 marked the return of Chauncey the rabbit statue after his departure on February 28, 2025. For over a year I waved in the direction of his ears, the tiny bit of him I could see behind the chain link fence. But now construction is done (or done enough) to allow his return. I haven’t been able to get right up to him yet, but soon, I will!

Then on May 13, a campus-wide email went out beginning with: 

Please join me in congratulating Jay on their new role

Perhaps unexpectedly, one of the things that hit me hardest about that wasn’t even the promotion itself. It was realizing I’m moving into a department and working under someone that has already taken the time to know me as a person and respect me as me. And given the state of the country in which I live, there’s something profound about not having to sand myself down into a more “acceptable” version in order to be valued professionally.

I get to just be me: Crow brain. Orange cat energy. Weird little metaphors. Enthusiasm for shiny ideas. All of it.

Commencement arrived on May 15 in all its glorious chaos.

At one point I hit my head on a glass panel because apparently my sense of spatial awareness remains mostly theoretical. Thankfully I survived (and yes, the safety folks checked on me) and had a sub from Jersey Mike’s for lunch and then later for supper there was a Domino’s pizza topped with pepperoni, pineapple, and green peppers along with Parmesan bites and we watched The Thursday Murder Club even though it was a Friday. 

Such rebels. 

May 16 (yesterday) we went thrifting and the thrift gods smiled upon us, finding 

• two cobalt blue dessert cups that remind me of the bottles my grandma kept on the windowsill over her kitchen sink
• a pressboard cat head that was part of some from of flat-pack, being marked with a circular “10” sticker but having no holes for attaching it to anything
• a sketch pad
• American Horror Story: Freak Show on DVD.
• a recording of Rhapsody in Blue I didn’t already own
• The Te of Piglet (I already have The Tao of Pooh)
• the complete one-volume His Dark Materials trilogy in hardcover with the dust jacket intact.

We also had lunch at a new-to-us Asian restaurant with genuinely spicy pad Thai, using an actual Thai-scale of spiciness and not an Americanized version. It was the kind of spiciness that clears your sinuses. Huzzah.

Later on, I helped our neighbor Jamie rehang sliding shade panels and I met their cat, Morris, who looked at me as if unsure but as soon as his person said “it’s okay Morris” immediately demanded pets I was happy to provide. He even came to say goodbye when I had to leave. 

We ended the evening seeing a ballet performance of Sleeping Beauty. It was a good performance. 

Afterwards, we saw someone we both know, but while they spent several minutes catching up with Krystal they acted as if I wasn’t there. That’s not an exaggeration. Even now almost a day later Krystal is still commenting on how weird it was they never once looked at me or acknowledged my presence, despite the fact I was standing right next to Krystal looking at them. Krystal jokingly asked if I’d managed to somehow become invisible, but that’s a solid “no”

And now it’s Sunday, May 17.

I cleaned and shopped for groceries and found some clearance fabric at WalMart and then we picked up milkshakes and now I’m mentally preparing for summer hours at work and preparing to step into a new role and a new building and a new rhythm of life.

And underneath all of it is this quiet sense that something is changing in a good way. Maybe not in a dramatic lightning-strike transformation sort of way, but more like the kind of change that happens gradually in late spring when suddenly one morning everything is green again, full of birdsong and possibility.

And that’s where I’m at right now. 

What about you?