Shining with Every Movement

The rehearsal dinner had the haphazard quality of an event organized in the tropics, where both cell phones and responsibilities have spotty service. A three-walled restaurant with insufficient waiters hosted us and dinner took almost three hours to serve and sort and share the English-language menus.

In the midst of the ordering and waiting, an after-dinner dance party was deemed necessary, as only these sorts of things can be. It was hasty and half-hearted in the planning stages, but once implemented went on as most dance parties do. Nineteen friends, found in different stages of drunk and sweaty and committed, dancing in a large pagoda in the backyard of a rental house to “Seven Nation Army”.  I most feel comfortable as DJ in those situations. I can’t live outside my head when dancing is involved; I need a task.

The dance party wound down at 12:30. Everything was sticky; the temperature was still a humid 90 degrees. A moonless sky served to accentuate the overwhelming stars.

 Someone suggested we go to the beach. A narrow path cut from the rental house through the jungle and out onto a wide and white private beach. I was one of the last to arrive, and the beach was littered with piles of my friends’ clothing, as if they had disappeared out of their outfits as soon as they touched the sand. Skinny-dipping sounds emanated from the ocean—laughter, chatter, splashing and reckless abandon—but as I stepped closer I realized I could see from where the sounds came. The ocean was teeming with bioluminescent phytoplankton. My friends shone with every movement.

Not our beach, but very similar to what I saw. 

I was hesitant to join them. I was feeling much older on this trip, and thought that maybe I’d passed the age of group skinny dipping. But my friends were glowing in the sea and I was jealous. I wanted to shine. I stripped down and ran in.

It was as if I were swimming in sparklers. Every movement lit up my whole body, each kick left a trail of light. I couldn’t stop laughing. The bride floated by me, doing the backstroke through the teeming sea, her face glowing from the moment, her eyes reflecting the endless galaxy above and below.

It was much too much.
And I’m grateful.

(I was in Costa Rica in September/October 2011; I'm just getting around to writing about it)

Climbing Out of the Panoply

The humidity of Costa Rica isn’t subtle; it doesn’t creep upon you, doesn’t belly up to the bar beside you as you sit. It hits; it has fists that punch the moment one steps outside. It is as subtle as a stripper.  I walked out of the San Jose airport towing my bright orange backpack and was forced to stop a moment to collect my breath, the air thick with city and heat and sweat and noise. My prearranged taxi driver mumbled to me in broken English how to get to his beat-up Mitsubishi and I blindly followed.

20 minutes later my driver dropped me at the inner-city bus station, where I was to meet my charter out to the coast. He told me that the brightly-painted castle next to the station used to be a prison. It’s now a children’s museum. He said this like this shift was symbolic of the whole country. 

I ordered a lunch at the bus station mostly through pointing and nodding; it was carne and rice but I’ve no details apart from that. My Spanish was slow to come back to me after sitting dusty since high school. I felt dumb; I’m no good at staying mute. To use the restroom at the bus station cost 50 coloń, or about ten cents. The bored looking woman at the table took my coin and handed me a few small squares of single-ply. I was traveling alone and the floor of the bathroom was slick, and so I found myself squatting over a dirty toilet, wearing my 30lb backpack and trying not to laugh out loud while my thighs shook.

The bus wasn’t air conditioned. It was half-full and I took my pre-assigned seat by an open window, my sweaty back made hotter by the rough fabric of the seat. We climbed out of the panoply of the city without a word passing between any of us. The roads narrowed and traffic shifted without signs or signals. Buses blindly passed each other. Banana farms and endless jungle lined the two-lane road and everything was verdant and hummed of wings and lust and sweat and arrogant fertility. I didn’t know where I was and my heartbeat thumped loudly in my head.

I caught my first glimpse of a road sign three hours later, after I’d resigned myself to the possibility that I’d missed my stop and my future included being murdered in the jungle near Panama, and after my fellow travelers had departed and been replaced by new strangers, one carrying a live chicken. The lone road sign was bent and dirty and hard to see but provided the modicum of comfort that I needed. It was such a relief to know I wasn’t lost, I just wasn’t there yet. 

Between the Numbered Boxes

I moved this past weekend, and in the process of packing up 4.5 years of life in my previous space I came across four well-worn books of Sudoku puzzles. Before I got my smartphone, a book of puzzles was perfect for entertainment so I had one on me at virtually every moment. It was just mindless enough to relax while keeping my brain on a quiet humming plane.

I was going through the old books and came across little notes or ideas I'd written in them. Some are song lyrics, some are quotes or things to do, but others are things I scribbled down. Maybe if the words won't come now I should air out the ones I've had before. I'm still searching for my once and future words. So here are a few of the things I found jotted in pencil in the margins, between those numbered boxes.

"My ice has melted into mesas, monoliths left by the low tide in my glass."

"I keep hope like a flare gun, strapped to my leg."

"The heart of the day
has overstayed
a guest without insight to leave.
The crickets are sighing
in kind manners trying
For something akin to reprieve."

"My hand looks like my mothers. Outside the double-paned glass there is frost.
On the ground it is 85 degrees. Under the ocean of cumulus there is another, more staunch in its perceptive, precipitous state.
And I don't know this ocean."

"You stop hearing the train once you live by the tracks.
That's what my dad says.
He does.
He says, "Son, watch 'em tracks. Stay away from 'em tracks."
And I do stay away.
Sometimes."

The state of:

• Maine
• Main
• Mane

Poor Names for US Battleships:

• USS Asston
• Good Ship Lollypop
• Love Boat
• Dingy
• USS Flee
• USS Milliard Fillmore

And this quote:
"Somewhere are place where we have really been,
dear spaces
of our deeds and faces, scenes we remember
as unchanging because there we changed." --In Transit, W.H. Auden

The Face of the Journey It Took

Don Miller is one of my favorite authors*.

I like him because he is honest and he somehow makes this honesty beautiful; makes shards look like more than just broken bits of 2 cent pottery. He writes with a lot of grace.

On his blog he is giving away a podcast of a lecture he did on the power of story and I’ve been listening to it in bits and pieces while I work. Today I heard him talk about conflict in story; how conflict can create the beauty and worth of the prize because of the journey it takes to get there.

Don told a story of hiking Machu Picchu. His guide pointed toward one trail and said, “If we took this trail we could get to the lost city Machu Picchu in 5, maybe 6 hours. This afternoon we could arrive. But we are not taking that trail.” And the guide pointed at the trail leading up a 21,000 ft mountain. He said, “For the next two days, we are going to climb 13,000 ft, we are going to have to get our bodies out of the altitude very quickly. We will camp at a low altitude and then climb another 12,000 feet before we do 9 miles of stairs to the lost city. We are going to do this over the next four days. It will be excruciating.”

The reason the Incas make people take the long journey through the mountains is because they want them to value and appreciate the city when they get there; if they didn’t go through pain, through conflict, they wouldn’t respect the city. Machu Picchu is special because it took real work to see it through.

How beautiful and true. I identify with this and I know that at the end of my conflicts the resolution is that much sweeter, in the face of the journey it took to get there. I often want things easily and quickly but value isn’t found in those drive-thru words.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that I have a huge crush on Don Miller and do still hold out the hope that one day we will meet and he will fall madly in love with me. Hey, a girl can hope.

Johnson City Thinks I'm Pretty

The drive to Virginia is a familiar one. It's the same drive I did my four years in Syracuse, the same as my one year in Rochester, and now the same as my three years in Asheville. It's seven hours. It's a roundabout number. I'm throughly used to the seven hour drives alone down I-81. I've been doing them for ten years.

And so this drive was to be no different. I got out of work an hour late, got on the road a half-hour after I would've liked but on the road I got. I only had about a quarter tank but I didn't fill up, eagerly waiting the cheaper gas across the border in Tennessee or Virginia. I was being thrifty.
45 minutes in: there's a black bear. Standing on the side of the interstate. Just watching traffic. Like ya do. Duly noted.

Just north of Johnson City, TN I realize I have to stop for gas. I had wanted to make it all the way to Bristol in VA but this will work. I take the exit for Tri-cities airport and stop at the BP there. First gas pump takes over five minutes to pump about a gallon. This isn't going to work. I painfully wait through $10 of gas ($2.46 gal for mid) then pull around to another pump to try my hand there. Same speed. Apparently this is the gas station from interstate hell. I was just driving at nearly 80mph; I want my gas at that speed too, you bastard. I end it at $12. I can't stand to wait any longer, this just took a half hour. I start my car. It doesn't sound like my car. It sounds ill. My car isn't ill. I stutter across the parking lot to the McDonalds there, so I can use a restroom that isn't attached to a gas station. I come back out, start my car and realize things had gone downhill. I realize this when my car keeps stalling. Or acting like its stalling. Even when I'm revving it like I want to race.

Curse word.
Double triple curse word.
Apologize to God.
Beg his forgiveness.
Promise him my first-born if car is magically healed.
Try car again.
Still coughing like it has auto emphysema
Well too bad, God cuz I didn't plan on kids anyway so HA!

I pop the hood and stare. Go to trunk, pull out tools and Haynes manual. Dismantle air filter, check it. Looks a-ok. Check connections on spark plugs. Check idle. You get the idea. I'm stuck in the parking lot of a McDonalds in 88 degree Tennessee. I'm in jeans. I hate everyone. Nice guy stops by with a slight beer belly, a trim strawberry blond beard and a receding hairline. He's the kind of guy one knows works construction before he confirms it. He offers whatever he can. We agree it's probably my fuel injectors. He works in town but doesn't live here and starts calling his buddies to find a good auto parts place. This is also when he starts telling his buddies he's met “some cute lady who's got her own tools. And a Haynes manual. I'd ask her out if she twern't headin' for a weddin' up in Virginia. Hold on. (turns to me) How ol are ya?” Then drops the phone and asks if I wanna go to the lake with him and forget my car for a while. Oh lord. I am in two different colored wife-beater tanks, my hair looks like it has been subjected to windows down driving for over an hour (it has) and I'm rapidly collected Johnson City crud between my toes. If this is what it takes to look cute around here, I am gonna win. I politely decline and reluctantly the nice bearded guy leaves to meet up with his friends. I head to the gas station (who sold me the stupid gas in the first place) and ask them if they know of any auto parts stores or mechanics.

Guy behind counter: I dunno. I don't live here. I lives in Kingsport.
Me: But you work here. And you haven't seen anything?
Guy behind counter: Nope.
Me: (to woman standing there): Do you know anything?
Stringy haired chain smoker: Naw. I lives in Johnson City.
Me: Well then where am I? What town is this?
Guy behind counter: Beats me.
Me: But you WORK HERE.
Guy behind counter: Well YEAH.
Me: And you don't know what town this is.
Guy behind counter: They don't pay me to know that stuff.
Me: Do you have a phone book?
Guy behind counter: I thinks so.

I borrow phone book, use it and the GPS function on my phone to figure out I'm in Grey, Tennessee. Because homeboy behind counter isn't paid enough to know the name of the town in which he works. Well done; he's gonna go far it life. I then use the phone book to call and plead with two mechanics to help me, who both tell me that it's too close to closing and that they're booked up for the rest of the week. Drat. I call a third. His name is Ed. I crank up the southern accent. I dial into my inner helpless woman. I throw hints about loving Jesus and being from out of town. Ed sighs. I tell him my problem. Ed understands. Ed gives me advice. He says its probably bad gas, I should get some specific fuel injector cleaners and try that out. And just in case, he'll have calls forwarded to his cell phone if I'm still stuck. I decide that first born no longer goes to God, creator of the Universe, but to Ed, polite auto mechanic.

I again use phone book to find auto parts store. I enter it into my GPS, who tells me in a polite voice that the closest store like that is .7 miles away, down the four-lane divided road that is Bobby Hicks Highway and so there I go. Along my walk two other guys stop to ask if I need a ride, or they can be of service. This would be a nice gesture if I hadn't just watched “Monster” and if they had been looking me in the eyes. And if my serious case of back sweat hadn't been so uncomfortable. I again decline the offer of a ride and keep on my trek to Advance Auto. I make it, I find what I'm looking for, I ask the guys there what they think and they say I'm probably spot on. Walk the .7 miles back along the highway that has no sidewalks, dump one in my gas tank, sputter around the parking lot a bit then say to hell with it and get back on the interstate.
I immediately feel that I have to pee.
But I won't stop.
Not for another four hours.
I'm going now, dammit I won't get delayed again.
So a seven hour drive turns into nine hours with the addition of $22 in dreadfully slow (bad) gasoline, 3 sketchy ride offers, a 1.4 mile walk along a highway named after someone who probably drove moonshine, $8 in fuel injector cleaner and one free phone book.

And no more bears.

Truth and Everything Else

Hello…you may remember me as someone who used to blog all the time. Remember those days? Those were good days.

I discovered that the times when I am happiest I don’t write much, because writing is the method I use to scratch the itchy places in my life. It puts my fears, frustrations, hopes and heartaches into words; map them into something I can process; organize them into the stacks of Truth and Everything Else. When I am happy, when I am not itchy in those deep places only I know, my words evaporate into a trickle. Thoughts don’t stay with me long; they alight before words can catch them.

This spring and summer I have been busy. Not hectic; busy. As in full. As in constant. As if I live life like the outline of the soft Blue Ridge and not the harsh extremes of the Rockies. And it has been good.

I’ve been canoeing on the French Broad with Emily, floating gently by the back side of the Biltmore House on a Sunday beatific in its summer uncomplicatedness.

I did a random road trip to south Georgia with Leslie and her gaggle of kids (and aging wiener dog) to sit on a back deck with her parents, drink gin & tonics, eat boiled peanuts and kayak through a cypress grove.

After a particularly rainy week I ended up in a whitewater raft with Doug, his father and Nathan on section IX of the French Broad, guiding those silly guys down Class III-IV rapids with 24oz cans of Modela shoved in our PFDs.

I had a birthday.

I’ve had some damn good kisses.

I took off my flip flops, rolled up my jeans and splashed in puddles in the street after finishing wine at Bouchon while the sky threw the sort of tantrum it only throws in the summer.

I’ve laughed with my whole body.

I discovered that I really, really don’t like sea urchin.

I've tried acupuncture.

When I was in Georgia, Leslie’s mom showed me a green plant climbing the trunk of a massive live oak tree. She said, “That is called a resurrection fern. When there is no rain it withers up and appears dead. It shrinks to nothing. But when the rains come again, it unfurls and greens. It resurrects over and over again.”

I haven’t stopped thinking about that resurrection fern.
Or whether it falls into Truth, into Everything Else, or both at the very same time.

Start Your Engines...

Every now and then I get a few days of outlandish.
It takes on several forms, be it impromptu trips to the beach (for a day), brew tours, a caving trip gone wrong by rednecks or just Waffle House at an ungodly hour. Yet each and every time I am struck with the same feeling of hilarity and awe—hilarity at the characters and situations, awe that I get to live it.
Two weekends ago the outlandish took the form of a ½ mile oval track called Bristol Motor Speedway, which is, I have now learned, is one of the more revered NASCAR tracks out there. Nathan and I first had to stop at Wal-Mart to pick up various sundries for the journey: ear plugs, size-specific coolers, tailgating chairs and the most ostentatious shirts we could find emblazoned with our token driver upon it. After fifteen minutes in Wal-Mart we were both itching to leave as quickly as possible. It was the people...that's when we realized how snobby we were. And how we were judging people by their clothes, their weight, what was in their cart or the rowdiness of their kids. I was sort of OK with snobby because of the stigma of Wal-Mart, the great homogenizer of the US. Hypocritical? Absolutely.
So after our forays into Wal-Mart and our subsequent judgmental rantings we met up with Cara and Anthony, who were coming off of a stay at a cabin near Hot Springs for their anniversary. Anthony's family has property and connections in Bristol and graciously let the four of us crash on various couches and air mattresses.
Saturday night we stayed out much too late at Anthony's cousins house, drinking PBR in cans and smoking cigars in the frigid night. One of the guys kept assuming I was married to Nathan and I/we didn't know how to tell him otherwise. I was keen to go along with it and would have probably made up a fantastic story about our wedding if I was assured the friends who knew better would have gone along with it.
We began tailgating around 9am at a campground less than a mile from the track. We fired up the grill and began to cook our brats and drink our beers and quietly play our music, like every other person there. I was laughing internally because though we were looking mighty redneck, the music we were blaring was bluegrass, not country. Our brats were from the organic grocery and were called things like “bison chiorzo”. Even our beers were microbrewed porters or organic ales. It was like we were just playing dress-up.
What can I say about the race? It was mighty loud, it was dizzying, it smelled like oil and rubber and my driver won. There was no conversing with the people around, no trash talking, no cheering on a team. The crowd was silent. Eerie to be in a stadium of 170,000 people or so and have it sound so ambivalent to the goings on. We did nothing but spectate; it might as well have been on TV.
Would I go again? Maybe not to a 'short-track' race. I have heard that longer track races allow time to actually speak to those around you, and that would be exactly the experience for which I was looking.

Into the Arms of Florida

So my blogging has been severely limited lately, due to several factors, among them time, access and a severe crackdown by The Man on computer usage at work. What like I'm not supposed to obsessively check and write blogs on the clock? Lame.

This weekend I ended up on a 62-foot Schooner with a plastic cup of red wine in one hand while the other gripped to whatever was available for gripping. The seas were high and it took all of my conscious energy to not yell “WHEEE!” at the crest of every wave. The sky was gray, the sand was gray, the ocean was gray but it did little to dampen my spirits. My ancestry is a long line of ship-captains and the sea truly is in my veins. I feel like a different bit of life comes to visit me out there.

I was in Saint Augustine for a four-day adventure that mostly included eating, planning the next place to eat, getting to the next place to eat, recovering from eating and then celebrating by having a beer. It was lovely. I love Asheville but it is such a joy to skip town and see something else.

The lighthouse on the island also served as a landmark; the spiral-painted tower the only denotation between cardinal directions. We climbed the lighthouse on Sunday morning; being that my only reoccurring nightmare involves spiral staircases I was less than enthused to undertake the process of ascension (and even less that of distention) and my knuckles were white with the strain of my grip. I got quiet; I do that when I'm terrified. I don't like it to be known how hard my heartbeats. I stood on the balcony with an underwater archaeologist who works at the site and he could point out histories and disasters only known by their wreckage. His words gave it all a sense of place.

We are Young and Happy...

One story from Paris...
We didn't reserve a place to stay until we got there. I had looked at a few places (shout out, Rick Steves' Paris 2008) but we hadn't really considered where to sleep. After I met Hatcher at the train station, we sat outside eating bread with Swiss apricot jam and goat cheese while we tried to figure out what to do and where to sleep in a city where we didn't speak the language and we didn't know. No problem. We found a hostel in the Latin Quarter, called and got a reservation in a 4-bed room for that night. Where? The Young and Happy Hostel. We liked the name. That was a selling point for us.
It was on the other side of Paris, but once we got our rolling suitcases down all those steps and onto the packed Metro we were just happy to be together on an adventure. We got to our metro stop and then had no idea where we were and walked about 20 minutes out of the way to get there. Eh well. It was our version of "The Amazing Race".
Conclusion: Young and Happy? Well, here is the stairwell up to our third story room:

Three stories, about three feet wide and two American girls laughing so hard we had to stop periodically to catch our breath. What!? Why did I bring a rolling suitcase? Oh that's right, London. Gahh! But we were still young and still happy and very bruised and battered.

Why am I holding a rose, you ask? Good question. We stashed our stuff at the hostel and headed to the Eiffel Tower to see it all lit up and a-purdy and while we were walking along a darkened path a French Police Officer holding a semi-automatic weapon popped out of the dark and said loudly "Pardon Mademoiselles!" My first reaction was to throw my hands up in the air. Maybe I'm a paranoid American, but man with gun shouting at me means I surrender. Weird I know. Anyway, he walked up and handed us roses, smiled and walked away. We hid behind a bush to see if he'd give them to every passerby but no, it was just us.
Must have been because we were so young and happy.
Other notes about Young and Happy: first night we shared a room with Amit, an Israeli book editor, and Steven, a college student from Ohio. Good times. Second night we were moved to a larger room that we shared with Rosalita and Paco, two Spaniards living in the UK who were on holiday and a bunch of other people we didn't meet.
Also: Young and Happy: bonus points for really, really cheap beer.
The end.

London, Concentrated

So I'm back in Le States and the jetlag has not been as bad as I feared, and for this I owe my utmost gratitude to sleeping pills. Here's to you, drugs.

Paris was, as I previously mentioned, absolutely hilarious. If ever you have a chance to take a trip with Erin Hatcher, do it. I learned this several years ago on a trip to the beach (LOGTRUCK) with a brief stop at South of the Border and a stolen ashtray. The Paris trip overshadowed that beach trip like whoa. Amazing. I will post photos and stories soon! Also check out Hatcher's blog
But first, I was also in London. I realized I haven't mentioned that part. My dear and wonderful Elizabeth Kate, my friend from many an adventure, got married to the sweet sweet Brit Phil. Way to go for that duel citizenship, you two! He's obviously never seen you in roller skates...

I worked half a day and then drove the three hours to Atlanta, where I met up with Alana who drove me to the closest MARTA stop so I could ride it down to the airport. My flight was a red-eye and I landed at Gatwick around 8am London time (EST time: oh who knows I sure didn't). Customs was so quick I talked my way onto an earlier shuttle bus to Heathrow, though there was an accident on the M25 so it was all these little back roads around London. Once to Heathrow I called Liz from a payphone, hopped on a city bus to Uxbridge and 30 minutes later I was finally in Uxbridge! All in all it was about 18 hours of travel. Cool. I hadn't seen Liz in over a year and I must admit, I got straight up emotional seeing her again. ANYWAY this is rambling, some photos from the brief trip to London (not including any wedding photos because I want Liz and Phil to get back from the honeymoon first):

My first pint in London...I asked for an IPA and the girl at the bar just stared at me. You guys invented the IPA, how can you not know what it is? But I did get olives. Yumm.

Trying to be as quintessentially London as possible, I got Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the London Eye in one photo. Condensed trip calls for condensed photos.

I liked to call this the Trogdor Cannon. It was near 10 Downing Street, Steph and I just sort of stumbled upon it and all I could think of was StrongBad's lesson on drawing dragons.

The night before the wedding the girls went out for some pints at the Swan and Bottle, which I kept calling the Swan and Trousers for some reason. Me, Liz, Steph and Sarah.
actual conversation:
Me: "Barkeep, what porters or stouts do you have on tap?"
Barkeep: "Umm we don't have any."
Me: "You are standing next to a Guinness tap. That is a stout."
Barkeep: "Oh. So you want a Guinness?"

The hardest part of the quick trip to London was seeing my best friend but not actually getting to see her, if that makes sense. I was so happy to be there for her big day, but it was almost a tease, like I can view her but not actually talk to her. Selfishly, I wanted my friend to myself for a little bit. I couldn't help wondering when I'll get to actually see her face again, and for that reason when she and Phil drove away from the reception I turned to Liz's new sister-in-law and cried.
Anyway, more photos/stories to come!

Paris (For Now)

Bonjour!
I'm in Paris, drinking Heinekens at the computers in our Hostel, singing "Runaround Sue" with Hatcher...all day I have been saying, "I am in Paris!?" and laughing. Spent the day with Hatch and Derek, our new Canadian friend that we decided was our friend on the metro and made it truth at the Arc de Triomphe. That's another story for another time! What a great guy, that Derek/Jeff/Michael! I will post photos of this fabulous trip soon enough, just know that London and Paris have brought life to a soul already stuffed to the gills with zest.
Some notes:
I have great friends. Seriously, How am I so lucky to have these people?
My friends also have great friends, I love my friends' friends.
Liz now has possibly the greatest sister-in-law ever in Jess, whom I want to be my sister-in-law.
After a wedding nothing is quite so soothing as champagne and a soaking footbath.
Escargo: pretty tasty.
I think there is an FAA regulation that any and all flights longer than 2 hours within and from/to the US must screen at least one episode of "Everybody Loves Reymond"
Alana: shout out for the ride in the monsoon to the MARTA stop. So necessary.
Viva!
Back to the states tomorrow!

What? Totally Productive.

Things I have Done Instead of Packing for Europe:

9 crossword puzzles
15 sudoku puzzles
checked every blog I can think of at least 3 times
Bourbon. Lose one day.
SNL political clips from the past 30 years
Baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from scratch
Explained Cuban Missile Crisis and Iran-Contra Affair to roommate
Sewed up some holes in shirts I wasn't planning to pack
Updated fantasy football teams
Facebook. And more Facebook.
Chatted with 15-year-old sister
20 minutes lost trying to find "Hail to the Redskins" as a ringtone
Made "Best of Dar Williams" playlist. Not for my iPod.
Packed up summer clothes then left them in a bin on my floor
Watched clips from season 1 of "The Sarah Silverman Show"
Actually spent time trying to remember Phil Collins songs besides "Sussudio", "Against All Odds" and "In The Air Tonight". I could remember one more: "Take Me Home"...that's it. And something about Billy not losing my number. I totally had "No Jacket Required" on tape when I was like, 7 and LOOOOVED it.

So now I really do have to pack. At least I did laundry yesterday. I hate packing. And traveling. But I sure do love my friends. Maybe I should make bagels...oh! YouTube!

A Series of Sentences That Have Nothing To Do With Each Other

Yesterday morning I saw three hot air balloons floating in the cloudless blue above the just-starting-to-turn Smokies and I sighed and was in love.

When Tina Fey's Palin made fun of people playing drinking games with the VP debate I laughed because I was guilty of that.

I leave for London and Paris in three days and I am stressed about travel.

My father and stepmom came to AVL on Thursday night for dinner and didn't meet a single of my friends and it breaks my heart to have had them here without knowing it as I do.

My youngest sister turns 15 on Wednesday and I suddenly feel creaky and unbearably old.

I believe there is a timelessness to "Find the River" by R.E.M., the last cut on "Automatic for the People"

My summer shoe collection is much more extensive and feminine than my winter shoe collection.

I feel like all I do in conversations is tell stories, like all I am is just a bundle of stories...maybe I am and maybe that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

My friend Paul sent me the following text: "Do a search for 'ferret' & 'hat' under google images sometime. I won't tell you how the subject was broached initially." and I burst out laughing without even doing the search (which is very funny) because it was just so bizarre and typical.

I have been needing more time alone lately than normal, and I normally need a lot of alone time.

Why is it that blogger (which is owned by Google) doesn't recognize the word "google" and just started to recognize "blog"?
(mystery solved...capitalize Google and it's all well and good)

Lastly, this is what I look like when I do an impression of Seth, my dear friend (and a 260lb man)...now that I know what I look like when I'm thinking uber fat man, I'm a little creeped out.

Weekly Ponderosa

Back to the tidbits kiddies I'm beat!

(1) Tina Fey as Sarah Palin was clutch...it really is creepy the similarities. Why do only the comedy shows have the wherewithal to call out the BS? Why are the Daily Show/Colbert Report/SNL the shows that actually go, "Hey, you guys realize this is all spin and absolute crap, right?" No wonder we are getting more cynical. PS I looked up what a flerg was...just go to Urban Dictionary. It fits.



(2) Thank you Drew Brees for absolutely killing my fantasy standings this week. Of course the team I was playing in that league was comprised of many of my players from my other league, so I knew I'd probably win one and lose won, which I did. And in real life Brees was playing my Redskins, so sorta glad he sucked.

(3) Leave for VA on Wednesday right after work for a wedding (surprise! A wedding!) Another bonsai trip with another huge one sitting on the horizon. I love to travel but it truly does exhaust me.

(4) I watched "Snatch" again on Saturday night. I love that movie. It is such a guy film but also is so funny.

(5) Jonathan and I were speaking vaguely about our personal long-term plans last week and it made me realize how few of them I actually have. I made a whole bunch after college but they blew up in my face so fantastically that I haven't made many since then. I need to get over that and start thinking about what I actually want. Cuz I have no idea.

(6) There is a prank war happening at work. And it gets better and better. I love my coworkers and essentially disdain my job, but I guess it is the people that make the experience.

Back, eh?

I'm BACK!
Great fun, great great fun. Happy to be home, but loved my Canadian adventure with Jonathan.
I don't have time to post a full blog about it, but I did make this google map to show our route and explain a bit of our trip! I took photos and I'll post them as soon as I can!

View Larger Map

Other Side of Wherever

On my way home from the dripalator the other day I got stopped by the train. We have several different sets of tracks here on the east side of town so inevitably ones path will be blocked by at traversing train which is a pain in the butt in a way. But hearing the night's distant whistle is soothing to me so I don't mind really. I love trains. Love 'em. Before my parents divorced my dad had a model train track set up on a piece of particle board in the basement; little buildings, a mountain, etc. I just liked to stare at it. My neighbor had a huge one, filling up at least one large room in his basement; it had different towns and different trains (you totally can't believe you are friends with me right now, can you). In college I used Amtrak for almost any visit elsewhere; countless trips home, to Boston, to NYC. I loved taking the train because it was so low stress: show up (virtually no security), get on board, find a seat, fall asleep, wake up, do some homework, get a beer, fall back asleep. Trains are so quiet and couple that with the rocking motion its like taking an Ambien with a chaser of vodka. I loved seeing the other side of towns and places, not the good face they put on for airports and interstates. And the train from Syracuse to NYC to DC goes through some of the less than prettier parts of the eastern seaboard (here's to you Baltimore and Philly). I mean, wow.

I've met some strange characters on trains, one of whom I kept up with for almost two years, one who was a roadie for the hairband "Warrant". One day I'd like to travel across the country by train, stopping off in cities for a few days to sight see and then hopping back on to what lies ahead. The thing I hate about planes is there is no time for adjustment; all too quickly you find yourself on the other side of wherever without a whole lot of understanding behind how you got there. Trains at least let me see my progress. Sometimes knowing just how I got to where I am is worth infinitely more than the time I save taking a short cut.

Current Listen: Guggenheim Grotto's “I Think I Love You”.