Oh Yay!

This week is student directed days (ie a short break between block and quarter). So Ben and i are loading up the truck, driving off into the mountains and camping out in the aspen groves up north. Yeah!
I'm gunna burst my buttons i'm so excited!

Oh. Also i made bread the other day. First time i've ever made bread without my mama there to guide me. Oh i feel so grown up. Turned out well too. Good stuff. Whole wheat farm bread made with organic apple sauce. mmm mmm.

Elephant Knees

Ever since i was a child i drew on myself. To this day i can not stop. The tattoos didn't help either.
I miss baltimore. I want a real fall... next year i guess, next year... it just feels so far away... so much to do between now and then.

a bald new land

Ben found the clippers and gave himself a hair cut yesterday. I have two words: Velcro Shoes.

Oh the first day of school. Nerves, nerves, nerves. Am i going to make new friends... enemies. Will that kid figure out that the slimy stuff in his mailbox last year was placed there by yours truly, will he think it wasn't funny?

I wish my hair would lay down, it's so damned fluffy. I may actually have to pay for a hair cut. None of my friends actually feel comfortable with a pair of scissors in their hands... course they're all alcoholics. Would you want a drunk person weilding scissors near your head??!! Ok, i lied, they're not alcoholics but they don't really wanna cut my hair. Jes, member da good ole' days when we would just cut each other's hair?

So, today it begins. The daily grind that is to continue from now until we pack up the last of our possessions in our little white pick-ups and head east... for good...

Can you tell all i really think about is moving home? ok. here we go. i'm gunna suck it up and go put on pants.

My New Shoes

I got a second job. Well okay, you got me, it's not really work. I'm nannying for two of my professors children two or three afternoons a week. The youngest is two years old. Her name is Paloma and she has an abnormally huge head, it's bigger than mine. She's way cute and is very good at head butting things. The boy, Walker is six and he's cute and very very smart. They are both so articulate and funny. They also like to wrestle. How cool is that!?

I start classes on Tuesday and i'm already dreading it. I mean, it's going to be great and very intense. I don't know how well i'm going to do with this. I'm going to be writing my first book, teaching at Juvie, taking classes and working two jobs as well as attempting to do my regular volunteer work with V-day stuff, art club, and the Walrus. sheesh. Sometimes i think i've been blessed with a disease that forces me to bite off more than i can chew.
However, I'm trying as hard as i can not think about it. I've decided that it's the thinking about it that is the real stresser. If i just don't think about it and do it i realize i'm a lot less stressy.

For now, Ben's coming home in ten minutes and he's taking me out to buy some new shoes for my birthday. I need a pair of shoes i can skate in, my old ones died. Well, okay, you got me again, i suck at skating but i think i have another disease on top of my biting-off-more-than-i-can-chew one, this one is called the really-likes-to-beat-herself-up-via-falling-off-things.

Missing This Town

I think i'm going to miss this town when it's time to go. As small and cramped, and over-priced as it's becoming there are some phenomenally cool people here: The Lesbian Action Team, Alain- the French baker who gives me free pastries because he's sweet, the Climber jocks who are silly but nonetheless very generous, of course Mike - my second favorite blacksmith, the old bicycle guy who wears an apron and fixes my bike every time i eat it, the librarian down the street, Sam Henry who knows everything, The Dinner Bell - Best biscuits and gravies...

sigh. it's going to be hard going back to Baltimore. However, it will be worth it... my sica is there -- and she i miss.

Re-Entry

Man is it ever hard to come back to everyday life. I've been wondering what's wrong with me for days and just lastnight in a fit it occurred to me it's post field depression. After almost three months of backpacking, kayaking, hiking, bird watching, exploring post-glacial landscapes -- it's really hard to drive a car in a crowded town, to go back to work, to smile at people you'd rather throw ketchup at. The mail is here. I don't get anything but bills, still i love the mail.