Summer nights

Two nights ago I went walking in the woods down by the river*. There was a full moon, bright enough to throw deep shadows, but beneath the trees it was dark enough that I could only just see the faint shapes of the tree trunks ahead where they were outlined against the sky beyond, and I had to make my way along the path mainly by feel and memory. It was dark enough that the fireflies swirling around me looked like spotlights, and lit the foliage around them as they glowed.

I had the great pleasure once of witnessing a grown man's first encounter with lightning bugs, and I hope I never forget his wonder and excitement. I remembered that last night, and wondered what the first European settlers to this area must have thought of them. The whole place felt like a fairyland, with the rich warm air filled with swirling lights, and the river rushing just alongside, in the deep shadow of the woods. There was a lot of the kind of loud silence and peaceful busy stillness you get on summer nights in the South.

While I was there I noticed that a feeling of wellness, of mental health, maybe, had crept up on me when I wasn't looking. (It feels important not to look, or else it might not come at all. Like waiting for Santa, or the Tooth Fairy. I guess my perception of Mental Health is that it's a wild magical beastie that must be believed in softly, and not looked for too hard. You have to prepare for it, you have to put out the cookies and leave the tooth under the pillow, but then you have to just go to bed, and hope for the best.) I had this unexpected and gentle realization that I was ok, and life felt ok, and I wasn't afraid of it, for once. It was a perfect moment, apart from the fact that I had to leave the shelter of the trees and go home.


Last night after my shower I went out onto the deck in my towel to look out into the trees and listen. Most of the fireflies had turned in, but I could hear a few varieties of owl off away to the left, and the wind. One of my favorite things about a clearing in the woods (like the one where we live) is that you can hear and see the wind coming. In the city or in the type of suburb that's devoid of trees it usually just appears, and then stops. In the woods, especially on a high deck in the middle of a clearing, you can hear its approach from far away. The trees begin to rustle in the distance, and the rustling grows louder as the wind approaches. You can watch its exact path as these trees begin to sway, and those others remain still. You can see its height where the taller trees dance, and the lower branches remain at rest. You can watch it pass and make its way off into the night, and see what direction it takes. It always feels like I'm a witness to some great magic.

















*I was there to play Pokemon Go, if you must know. But in my defense, I started playing again so I'd be more likely to take walks like this one. I had forgotten how much I love walking in the dark. The world and my well-meaning husband are always conspiring to make me afraid of the dark and the world outside and of other people. I don't want to be too reckless, but I'd like to take those things back. I am not interested in living in fear.

Post-wallow

Update: getting the fuck out of bed made me feel quite a bit better. And somehow today (or at least this evening) I've been doing a better job of not withering under the weight of all the scary things in my life that I can't control. Hard to say whether that's health or denial, but for now I'll take what I can get.

On another note, this just happened.

Marie: I am lying around in a towel and I just found a spider crawling on my inner thigh. Sweet dreams.

Ian: I just drank a gnat with my medicine. Saw it right as I was gulping.

Marie: high five.

Duh.

After a summer of wearing Rainbow flip flops (very comfortable; not at all squishy) almost exclusively, taking an evening walk in athletic shoes feels like heaven.

(What are these things on my feet? Springs? Maybe I can complete today's burpee challenge after all!)

Life, by the way, is rolling steadily along. Had quite a bit of drama in the family/close friends group over the past six months: a long hospital stay, a twice-broken ankle, a cancer scare (that is to say, it was indeed cancer, but it's been removed), a bipolar relapse...but things have been leveling out, and there are also several weddings coming up, and there's been a good amount of playing in waves and sand, and a couple of friendships restored and others renewed, and a new camping hammock, and more reading than I've done in quite a while. Things are good.

The River

Sara and I (and Brian, but he doesn't come into this story) have lived by the river for nearly two months now, but until this evening we hadn't gone. So today after everyone was awake and fed and had sat around watching the cat and wasting time on the internet for a while, Sara and I changed into swimsuits and headed off down the hill. It's a very short walk--maybe half a mile--and well worth it, because the parking down there is horrendous. We walked past lines and rows of waiting and parked cars, right down to the water's edge, and then upstream along the bank until the people thinned, and we found a spot to leave our towels. The water was deliciously warm, and the rapids relatively soft, and we waded and stumbled and half-swam, laughing, halfway across through the current until suddenly deciding to make camp on a half-submerged boulder. We sat in the sun, half-in the water, and talked and people-watched and drank in this gloriously beautiful setting-sun landscape in our backyard, and after an hour or so we collected ourselves and walked back up the hill toward home.

I hung my wet skirt and sarong on the back deck to dry, and was bombarded by a wave of childhood memories and nostalgia for all the countless days I walked to the pool and walked back, or walked to the creek and walked back, and hung my wet things to dry.

I smell like the river. It is the most perfect smell there is.

Look, I never said I was cool.

The other day (alright, a few weeks ago) Ian and I had dinner with my best friend and her boyfriend, and camp came up. Specifically, the fact that this new job I've got will mean that I can't work any sessions, and that I will therefore most likely be spending a lot of weekends up there. And Ian, in an attempt to be all wise and mature and winning (and maybe a little condescending), said something along the lines of, "maybe it's time to accept that the door is closing on that part of your life, and move on."

And that seems like a totally reasonable and obvious thing to say, I guess, but I was floored. I was so floored that I just keep talking about this story. I'm honestly getting a little sick of it, but I keep thinking about it every so often. Because it just doesn't work that way. I was writing about it the other day, in the van, on the back of some papers from work. Here's part of what I said:

"It is difficult to explain and a little embarrassing to admit how shocked I was. In truth I am actually sickened by the thought of 'the door closing' on Alkulana being a part of my life. How could I explain that sometimes a place, a community, an adopted family will get under your skin, and that Alkulana has seeped into my bones? I feel like Wolverine, except that instead of adamantium, my skeleton has been infused with the love of Christ." Because of camp. I love the way I do (and, considering the person I could be, I think I love rather well) because of this community.

Probably nobody cares who hasn't been there, and that's okay with me I suppose. Why should the cool silk of the creek at midnight hold any sway over you? Why should you feel warmed by the early morning sun swimming through the mist and touching down on our daily prayer circle? By the smell of campfire on all your hoodies? By the blissful quiet of rest hour or the welcome relief of a raucous late-night kitchen after staff meeting?

I can't make him, or you, understand. That's how life is. But I hope nothing ever changes the fact that when I am at my worst, when everything is unbearable and I can't find any light, I am sustained by this. It seems ridiculous. (Maybe it is ridiculous.) I know that. But those memories feed me when I am starving. I don't plan to put them away any time soon.

Oh, it's been weeks again. My bad.

Things I Never Thought I'd Say pt 27:

"I really hope I have poison ivy on my mouth."


This is because if I don't have poison ivy on my mouth, then I have somehow just contracted oral herpes after 25 years of successful avoidance, despite having two immediate family members with the virus. So here's hoping for poison ivy. I guess the odds are good, since I'm covered in it*.

Speaking of which, in case anyone is wondering why people always say "DO NOT POP POISON IVY BLISTERS," rather than "you can pop them, as long as you then immediately wash them with lye soap or something else similarly effective and then cover them with calamine lotion," here is the reason:

popped poison ivy blisters do not stop running. Apparently ever. Learn from my mistakes. Please.






























*Hypothetically, if you were ever to have to do something like running outside during a hurricane to set up garden-hose siphons in your backyard to prevent your basement from flooding, and if your backyard is full of, among other things, poison ivy, you should probably wear long pants and long sleeves and lace-up shoes. And then after you're done you should probably wash yourself with lye soap. What you should not do is run around in a t-shirt and cropped pants, and then take a shower with some random, totally-ineffective-against-poison-ivy body wash, and then go back outside to restart the siphons, and then just kind of hope for the best. That might not be the best plan.

Staff training: an emotional reflection.

I am home, and (judging by the hour) possibly not resting as I should.

I both love and do-not-love the way that in my eyes, all of my coworkers are the same age--as each other, as myself. It can be an excellent way to view things, but it can also be unhelpful.

I love the way that this place is a perfect venue to get to know people on a level that is simply unavailable in any other situation I have ever experienced. There's something about the mix of the work and the training and the prayer time and the decompression that brings out true hearts.

I love the joy and laughter of our little staff bonding traditions--I speak here of "The Challenge." Even if I did nearly run into Melissa in the dark. Even if I did do an accidental full body slide on the wet grass in the dark. Victoria and I remarked to each other that "we have such a good group this year." We felt like proud parents.
    And when the guys returned from their own version, and the newbies walked in with huge grins, we clapped and cheered. This is a wonderful place.


I love the peace and truth and discovery that come, and I love the dancing and the singing and the silliness. I love that in the middle of our campfire the other night, we took a break from teaching the new kids camp songs and broke into Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds." I love the fighting and fatigue and stress, and the struggle and epiphany and euphoria. I love the sudden surprise of hot cofflet in the morning, and I love the spontaneous games that spring from nowhere, from the minds of the crazy guys that come to work. I love it all.

Catching up

Last night, it was too cold for fireflies. Before that, though, on the fifth, I wrote that
"as always, the sight of a clear night sky full of stars is positively bewitching. But here, in the summer, the beauty is heightened still further--the trees blink with fireflies, and looking up into the night, numerous extra stars seem to wink in and out of existence.
I love this. On my way to bed I stand outside Cabin 6, or sit in my bunk, and watch the trees glitter in the night, hear the frogs sing, listen to the creek run on.
In the day I cannot keep from checking the blackberry bushes each time I pass by, just in case--as though they might have grown from green and hard to a full, ripe black overnight."

I have also been noticing with some frequency how much I love the way guitar music played outdoors seems to saturate the air.

[begin religious moment]
Two things:
I had a bit of a moment during and after our Camp version of church the other day. Religion is largely an emotional thing, and emotions aren't something I'm good at--so I tend to do a lot of drifting. This bothers me. Anyway, I had this realization, based on the "Christ-as-the-potter, people-as-the-clay" metaphor:
Our responsibility is not to mold our own hearts--can clay mold itself, or rid itself of impurities? We are only clay; Christ is the potter. We only need to submit, as clay only needs to submit. We only need to lay our burdens down in the pile at the foot of the cross.

Anna is pretty great, and gave a bit of a devotional the other day. She ended with this: "The end of your rope is not the end of the world--not with a God whose grace is sufficient for you. Not with a God whose strength is made perfect in your weakness."

And that made me think of the way our strengths complement our weaknesses--that is, the way my strengths are there to fill in the gaps where you are weak, and your strengths may perfectly fit with my weaknesses. It reminded me of the Bright Eyes song, "Bowl of Oranges": 

And we'll keep working on the problem 

we know we'll never solve: 

of love's uneven remainders--our lives are fractions of a whole. 

And if the world could remain within a frame, like a painting on a wall, 

I think we'd see the beauty then. 

We'd stand staring in awe 

at our still lives posed 

like a bowl of oranges. 

Like a story told 

of the fault lines in the soul.

[end religious moment.]

Winter and spring, then summer

Here is the difference: I love winter like I love sleep. I love the quiet. I love the dreamy, ethereal qualities of the season, of the air. I focus on the fixtures: the unmoving trees, the pendulous moon, the here-and-gone frost that mirrors the glittering stars in the night. And when summer comes, I am suddenly lost. Where is my moon? Where are my bare, silent trees? Where is my quiet beauty? The leaves grow suddenly so thick that I can barely see the sky. But then the sun sinks toward the horizon, and its yellow rays mix into those green leaves, and my breath is stolen away. I am slowly, slowly coming to remember that I can't look in the summer for what I loved in the winter. In the summer the beauty and magic are in the movement, in the shockingly quick growth of the plants, in the changing landscape, rather than the spinning sky. It's in bioluminescent bugs, and in all of the animals that seem to somehow have appeared out of the ether. Where have they been? This evening I stood barefoot in the stream again, again drinking in the feeling of its coolness around my calves while Miley refreshed herself by swimming in small circles and huffing, and I was struck by the fragility of the water skaters. I was glad to see them, firstly, but (never having done a whit of research on them) I always wonder where they've come from. How could such spindly, tiny little bugs--water bugs, even--have survived such an icy winter? But it doesn't matter. They're here now.


Just as Miley and I crested the hill, the church bells up the street chimed eight, and the late afternoon sun reached over the Western trees, and gilded those standing to the East. A handful of bluejays circled the sky over the neighborhood, calling back and forth. Winter is about sleep, but I am relearning how to be awake.


I am still sneakily trying to teach Layla that all life is precious. This week we've (finally) been doing swim lessons rather than math lessons, and the design of their backyard pool is such that hapless spiders crawl up to the edge, lose their grip, and fall in. They are light enough to be able to stand on the surface tension in the water, and can often cling to floating leaves or make their way back onto the walls of the pool, but they can't make it up over the lip and back onto dry ground. We've been rescuing them when we see them, and noting those that are jumping spiders. They still make her nervous, but at least she no longer demands their deaths on sight. I'm working to warm her up to bees, but I am making less progress.

Once again.

Why do I never, ever feel like writing anymore? I suppose, if I think back, I have to admit that this happens every summer. Somehow it surprises me every time.

Well I'm tired. What else is new? I know this is shocking, but the reason for my fatigue is twofold:

1. I stayed up late reading.

2. I couldn't sleep. WHO AM I?




I took Miley for a walk the other afternoon (I know! In the daytime and everything!) and I began to warm up to the summer a bit. No pun intended. I've been missing the winter landscape. But I reveled in the hot dirt smell that I so love, that doesn't show up until the temperature hits a relatively dry ninety degrees or so. And the moment Miley and I burst out the side door of the house and hit the asphalt, a chorus of cicadas swelled into song on the other side of the road, and my heart nearly burst. I have never understood why so many people dislike cicadas. They're such an essential part of summer to me. They sound right. And have you ever seen one just emerging from its shell? They're gorgeous. They look like living, winged emeralds and sapphires.

We walked down to the creek, where Miley always swims whenever it's even remotely warm, and I stepped into the water with her and savored the feeling of it swirling around my calves. I may have splashed it up onto my arms and face; I can't remember. I sometimes do this. Further up the road we passed the flowering blackberry brambles and the honeysuckle vines, and as we reached our driveway, I saw that the tiger lilies had bloomed. It was a good walk.

Greatest of the season

Smells:

honeysuckle, rain, damp dirt

and peony and gardenia

fresh cut wood and fresh cut grass

campfire (and burnt marshmallow)

pine forest

tomato plant, and warm, vine-ripened tomato fruit

watermelon and honeydew and a charcoal grill

a house with all windows open

washing brought in from the line

thunderstorm, rain and clean river water.

Sounds:

frogs of all sizes

crickets and cicadas

owls calling from tree to tree, and the almost-imperceptible rustle

and silence of their wide, graceful, dangerous glides.

Rain and river water,

ceiling and box fans

and happy birds in the trees,

distant rolling thunder and working bees

and live outdoor music from down the block,

and children laughing outside.

Things I've been forgetting.

Last week when I was tutoring Layla out on the dock, I saw something white bobbing in the water under the walkway. It looked like one of those soft, white, round mushrooms (which don't grow in the water, of course), but turned out to be a goose egg. Despite my best efforts, I failed to effectively convey to her that the watery sound from inside the egg meant that it was dead, that it was rotten, and so on. Anticipating the smell and fearing the view I didn't want to crack it, but I allowed myself to be convinced. I carried it away and downwind from the house, stood back, and cracked the shell with a stick. I would have let Layla, but she lost her nerve at the last moment. It seemed that somehow water had seeped into the shell, so what came out was a terrible smell, a piece of embryonic sac, and half a shell's worth of grey liquid. Layla spent the next ten or fifteen minutes telling me that I should have cracked it more gently, though I tried to explain that "baby goose eggs" need to be kept warm in their mother's nest; that all of the goslings had already hatched and didn't she remember them?; that floating in the water for weeks will never let an egg live. She said that she had hoped that if I cracked the shell gently enough, it would turn back into a baby goose.



I and my father went to pick my sister up from the Greyhound station the other night, and from the parking lot I looked up into the night sky and saw dozens of bats swooping and gliding through the air above the baseball diamond. In my experience, bats don't usually soar and glide, actually--they flutter around and frequently change direction to go after insects. It's also rare to have such a clear view of their motions, though, so perhaps I just haven't been as observant as I might. The lights from the stadium shone straight up into the air, and I can only assume that the air was filled with enough light-loving nocturnal insects that the bats could just soar straight through the beams and get a mouthful on each pass. Good on ye, bats! I love 'em.


Friday, just before the goose egg incident, Sara and Brian and I went to see the VMFA Picasso exhibit in its dying days. I don't love Picasso particularly, but as ours was the only museum on the East Coast to get the exhibit, and as Mr P is super duper famous and influential and all, I felt that I should go. It was good. I mean, he's talented, you know. Also, he really likes boobs. A lot. Just a heads-up, there.

Saturday S and B and I went to an herb farm and took in a talk about beekeeping and met up with Anna and her friend Amy, who seemed pretty cool. Anna and Amy and I accompanied the beekeeper back to his hives and watched him replace the queen and the observation frame and essentially got another lecture lesson about beekeeping, which was really cool. We ate some lavender iced cream and some honey iced cream and some chocolate iced cream, and I (and possibly Brian, but not while I was looking, not that I was looking often) helped Sara pick out a bunch of herbs and tomato plants and suchness for a hopeful new garden for her family. We got variegated basil, among other things. Not elfin thyme, though, despite my rabid support. Sara and I also bought fricking adorable beeswax candles in the shape of a little bear with his arms around a beehive (the stereotypical old beehive shape, rather than the more practical but significantly less cute boxy hives of today) and with a relatively large bee perched on the outside of the hive. They smell like honey of course, thus making me want to consume honey, and they are unreasonably cute, and I can't understand how Sara plans to actually use hers as a candle. I'm pretty sure I could never set that thing on fire.

Also on Saturday with S and B: impromptu (for us) fish fry; Strawberry Fields Festival where were sold unsprayed strawberries, spinach, kale, and no free kittens. Lovely. And buying cookie dough and cooking cookies not-as-long as the wrapping says, thus producing perfect soft, gooey cookies. And Kelly and Junior happening to be near my house, and being convinced to come over, and Sara and Brian leaving to dinner.

Saturday sans Sara and Brian: Hanging out with Kelly and Junior, and retrieving Chloe from the bus stop whilst they take in Picasso in all his slightly obscene glory.

Sunday: church with Chloe and Junior (who opted to stay, possibly partially because he seems to really, really love the couch in our basement. It really is excellent for sleeping), and an afternoon spent with my excellent cousin Sara (not to be confused with the Sara of Saturday), talking and reading magazines and rifling through items destined for the Goodwill.

All in all, quite a nice weekend.

I think there may have been other stuff, but I am not sure. I may have forgotten still.


Song I've been playing on repeat for a couple of days now (I haven't watched all the way through this video, so I apologize if there is any unforeseen weirdness):

Camp.

I'm surprisingly tired tonight, and I'm babysitting so I can't sleep and can't do much of anything else either, and it seems like I've been jumping from one topic to another in my mind. Being bored. Being upset about Marcus. Being upset with Marcus. Missing David. Missing R-MA. And now, missing Camp. So much. I miss the greenness and the water. The tall trees standing so close together, and the dusty gravel on cabin row, and the cool stream running straight through the middle of Camp, always ready and waiting to cool feet, to rinse caving clothes, to facilitate a swimming lesson, to host an Alkulana Challenge, to act as a meditation garden for a midnight swim. And the sound of the creek is omnipresent, and the green of the trees is everywhere. At lunch in the dining hall, you can look up at the ceiling and see the sunlight reflected off of the creek below. And the water is so clear that you can stand on the bridge and look down and watch the fish swimming over the rocks, and the crayfish moving cautiously through the pebbles. I miss the blackberries that grow in the patches of sunlight that fall onto the path back toward little lodge, and I miss the rope swings and the bullfrogs calling and the canoe trips more than I can say. I love sleeping every night with nothing more than a screen between me and the night air, with the moon shining down onto my face, and the water music floating up the hillside, and the night breeze blowing through the trees above the roof, and the sweet sounds of children sleeping a few feet away. I miss the slamming of screen doors, and I miss pulling on muddy jeans and tennis shoes for caving, and I miss rushing to get the kids ready for their next adventure. I miss the bats in the night sky, and the sun setting over Jenny's little garden. I miss the rocking chair on Beth's porch, and I miss being able to walk down to the water with a bathing suit and a floatable bar of Ivory soap and just take a bath, if the showers were full.  I miss morning and evening staff meetings--I miss working with such wonderful people, and planning such great things for the kids. I miss paddling a canoe and singing Disney songs with Ryan at Lake Moomaw, and I miss swimming in the lake. I miss swimming in any lake--now Ouachita.

This past summer was so hot that the water in that lake felt like a bath, so we'd take deep breaths and drop down as deep as we could stand, just savoring the only taste of coolness we'd be able to find for hours. I miss the nights we stayed up for hours and hours playing Texas Hold'em, whether in the cabin or at a concrete picnic table by the water. I miss lying in my hammock in the hot summer shade. I miss the night I spent on the air mattress next to Chloe, and us next to Lenny and Larry and Ryan and Zyrone and Zorrell and Kim and Meghan, all sleeping quietly but me. Once I gave up on the idea of sleep it was beautiful to just lie back and listen to the thunder from across the lake, and watch the lightning flash. It was the only dawn I've ever watched all the way through. I've said before that dawns are not like sunsets, and it's true. We all know sunsets, I hope, but dawn seems so much slower. The moon sets, and midnight's bright stars begin to go out, one by one. Soon the darkness seems less complete. The tree shapes blur, then sharpen against the sky, and color slowly seeps back into the world. Then you blink, and realize that the sky is bluer, and that the East is lightening slowly. Once this happens, regardless of whether the sun has actually risen above the horizon, it's soon bright enough to be called day. On that morning, Pup came out and looked over his field of sleeping grandchildren with pride and satisfaction, and took a picture with a disposable camera. I heard the click and crank of the plastic. I love that man.
And after I got up, I walked down to the water for a goodbye swim, and a high, complete rainbow arced over the lake, delicate and perfect.

I miss the green and blue and brightness of it all. I miss the warmth and the wetness. I am ready for summertime.

I'm doing all right.

I want a rainbow raincoat, with the colors bleeding down into one another in rings until, at the bottom, purple. I want a white umbrella that I can paint with raindrops and sunshine. I want bare feet and warm puddles and distant thunder and, after nightfall, a crescendo of fireflies glittering across the fields and up into the full, luscious trees under a royal blue-black sky.

I guess I can wait, though. Afternoons of grey skies and chill wind and freezing rain have their place. And I felt so much joy, driving home after tutoring tonight, that I laughed aloud and nearly wept.




I don't love any of the videos of it, but despite my strong issues with smoking, I do love this song. Can't help it.





A quote posted by a facebook friend: "He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart." -C.S. Lewis. I have no idea whether Lewis actually said/wrote this, but I hope so.



Song I was listening to when suddenly smitten with a wave of nearly overwhelming joy:



I've been on a little bit of a country kick lately. Don't judge me.

Highs in the mid-thirties

Well my laptop bit it, or has at least slipped into a coma. With it have gone my photo collection, my music collection, a whole lot of writing (I wish I hadn't unlearned that particular lesson from the last two times), my TCS cover letter, and my document of baby information for Steven. Awesome.

On the plus side, this gave me a chance to go get a new notebook last night at 1 am. Three guesses as to where that notebook came from.

DC yesterday (for Susannah and Mike's apartment-warming, with a side trip to visit Chris(tina) and Matt in Bethesda)  was fun, but long. Long, long, long. It should have taken a little under 2.5 hours to get to Chris's house--it took 4. Jr and I spent 75 minutes traveling 14 miles up 495. The car thermometer climbed to 135 degrees and then sat there. We became rather damp. Every time I take the metro for a while I forget how terrible driving in and around DC can be and generally is. Note to self: take the stupid metro. It is worth the $5.

Last night I took the opportunity, evidently, to start thinking about (read: pining over) David some more. The day before it had been relatively easy to remember those things that didn't work, that didn't line up, didn't click, and to tell myself with some small confidence that we are wrong for each other. Yesterday though all I could think about were sweet kisses and hands clasped together, smiles and snuggles and laughter, and such comfort. Such a feeling of being at ease and at home together. I really miss that. I did a lot of silent grieving yesterday for the loss of him, and for the loss of us.


Last night, the last paragraph I wrote in my new recycled-paper-yet-made-in-China notebook was this:

"Life seems so thick right now--like molasses. Difficult to move through. Difficult to breathe. Difficult to swallow. Thick and slow. I know that those feelings change minute to minute, hour to hour. I'm just saying. Often today I've felt adult and capable, strong and attractive. I guess, I think, that I was feeling like I was worth something--like I was a perfectly acceptable, functioning human, objectively speaking. That felt really good."

It did feel really good.

Title numero dos.

It is perfect road trip weather today. On the way back from the bank this afternoon I listened to one of the cds I made Larry eight hundred years ago and then never mailed, and I listened to it as loudly as I could without my speakers spazzing out, and I sang along and made up choreography as I hurtled forward along Huguenot road, and it just about killed me to head home and not just drive on forever enveloped in college-loved rock music and 98 degree summer air. I almost died.

Have any of you ever read style rookie? A natural phenomenon on legs. A prodigy. Tavi's in eighth grade and she writes about fashion and life with such style and smoothness and flat-out unbelievable talent that I follow her blog, even though, as I said, she writes about fashion. I really could give a crap about fashion. But she is truly brilliant and you should just give her a try.

At the moment I'm trying to do some playlist work--remake those cds I did for Larry way back in prehistoric times on another computer, and burn a long-overdue birthday mix for that one girl I hang out with a lot. I got up to talk to my dad for a second and I knocked down the French press I picked up for Camp earlier this year. It was glass. I am a little annoyed. The cd stuff is going well though. Now if only I can maintain my focus and get it done despite Mom and Chloe wanting my help with packing Chloe's birthday/memorial day picnic cooler. Multitasking practice, go.

I feel like going to bed but I don't feel like it. Possibly this has to do with the fact that I love sleeping but can never fricking fall asleep anymore. But on the plus side, I found my benadryl today. I hate to misuse the stuff but as I said, I can never fricking fall asleep lately.

I did go to church with my parents today, but didn't talk to the woman about the apartments. I'm not sure whether she was there. I did sort of bond a little though with the mother of a kid Chloe acted with, which is a suppose a little odd. Our two families talked for a while though after the service was over, and that woman is hilarious. Unfortunately though I was sort of reaffirmed in the idea that the church in which I grew up is not really the church I want to be attending. That makes me sad because it means a lot to my dad, and I know a lot of people there (obviously), and going there would be so much more convenient than looking around for another church. But that's life.

The strawberry picking outing was a success, though it was really more like strawberry gleaning than picking. Have you ever experienced that horrible phenomenon of the siren strawberry call? There you are in your chosen row, bent down, berry basket grasped in one hand, the other hand deep in the sweet, green leaves. You drop a clutch of red heaven into your basket. You straighten, stand, gaze out across the strawberry fields. There. There it is. The shiniest, reddest, roundest, most beautiful strawberry ever born. You bound across the rows, filled with joy. You stop. Bend. Grasp. Lift.

The back side is rotten.

That was pretty much the story of today, only for the most part the bushes were scrawny, and almost all the strawberries were past their prime or rotten. I did manage to nearly fill my basket though. Also, there was a man from Turkey (via Russia) with his family! So I got to talk ESL stuff for a little while with a genuine ESL learner. Technically not ESL though I guess, as English is more like his fourth or fifth language, not his second. But still. Good times.

Back at the take-your-money building we found that they were selling cider slushies. Why have I never heard of these before? This is the best idea ever, ever. Ever. It was hot as all get-out today. Chloe got peach. I got apple. It was so good. I can't even find words to describe such gustatory beauty and wonder. Cider slushies.

I forgot to say--I saw the first lightning bug of the season two days ago. And I just used bug spary for the first time this year! Oh, so exciting. Sometimes I forget how much I like the smells of bug spray and sunscreen. Is that weird? And of course the smells of spring--the flowers, the damp dirt, the freshness--are lovely, but I still have such a love of that summer smell of hot, dry dirt.