MEEERRRRYYY CHRISTMASSSS

Uncle M just threw a rotten eggplant over the bluff at a neighbor on the beach. Merry Christmas!


Yesterday night Rosie saw how clear the sky was and how bright the stars were and let out a hoot of astonishment. I asked her if she was trying to communicate with an owl and we all had a good laugh at her expense until she was answered by a real great horned owl in the trees behind us.

Another nice thing:
Every time it snows I check the snow to see if it is good snowman snow but I am usually disappointed. Not yesterday! Yesterday's snow was the PERFECT snowman snow. As soon as we arrived here I checked the snow and then got right to snowman making with Sister. So great. We could even do that classic snowman making move where you roll the ball of snow and it packs onto itself. I can't even remember the last time I was in snow that did that.

One bad thing: my boots leak.

I'm reading All Things Bright and Beautiful. I've been thinking about how I get to read it when I come here for months and now I'm here and now I am reading it. I liked it a lot when I was little but now I like it even more because when I got to the part where all the sheep are down with calcium deficiency I thought about milk fever and when I got to the part where the cows have mastitis I thought about mastitis and when I got to the part about how nice it is to snuggle up with your wife when you're cold I thought about snuggling. I would say that everybody should go out and read this book right now, but I think I'm a lot more interested in the life of a farm vet than the rest of you. I should go and read more of this book right now. That is what should happen. I think I will do that. Right now.

Today

Today I half woke up as Bej left for class. He fed me some hummus on bagel before he left while I was still partially asleep and under a bunch of blankets. Then I slept for a few more hours before fully waking up and finding that the ice cream I made a few days ago wasn't all gone. It was pretty much all gone by the time I was done with it. Next I went to the mail room when it opened to get my packages. I checked my mailbox last night and saw that I had three package slips but it was too late to get them so I had been thinking about them for hours. I thought one of them would be from Mother because she told me to be on the lookout for a package but when I looked at the return addresses they were all from book places. I was a little disappointed but thought oh well at least my textbooks are showing up on time, but then imagine my surprise when I opened one of them and found a popup Eric Carle advent calendar. After I set up my advent calendar I started a new painting and painted for most of the afternoon. Then Bej came over and looked at sunspots and I made a necklace out of a little sheep from the advent calendar. Av and I made an Indian feast for dinner and it was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten. He made chickpeas and flat bread (because my naan wasn't ready yet) and I made lentils and naan (that wasn't ready in time but is ready now). A and Av and Da and I all ate it and said our three good things that happened to each of us today, as is our family tradition during dinner. Two nights ago I hosted a dinner party that ended up getting pretty busy and wild and everyone there did their three things. I don't remember when we started the tradition but I thoroughly enjoy it. For dessert we had some ice cream chocolatey thing that was outrageous as Av and his mom would say. His mom visited with her friend yesterday and took Av and Mel and A and I out to lunch. I'm really into his mom and her friend. After dinner I made my naan and then went with Mel to hang out on the third floor of s where everybody sits around and does art and plays music. There are always people knitting or drawing or painting or coloring or playing guitar or doing something creative. Pretty neat. Then I came home. Now I'm here.

Homework

homework homework homework homework my whole life is homework. and class too.

Shambles November or not, I'm so happy right now.

Last night A and Ke and Mel and Av and I all cuddled up on my bed and Av read out loud to us from the Hobbit. You can imagine.

Tonight we had ourselves a sequins theme dance party and if I didn't have a strict 10:00 bedtime I would still be there now.

Eggs and my life

A told me to update my blog RIGHT NOW.

So heeerreeee we go!

Av is in the living room singing a bird song to A and playing the guitar. He has to do something artistic with birds for his project. Bird song!

A is trying to write her essay. Maybe she will end up writing it.

Av just came into my room playing his guitar. He is playing his guitar in my room right now. Now he is leaving. I might go to the living room. That would be social of me. I am in my room sitting on my bed blogging. Bej is in my room sitting on my bed playing his video game. I could relocate to the kitchen table and sit in my corner. I could open the windows on both sides of me and listen to the rain. I could make myself some hot water and drink that. I would bring my computer and continue blogging. Right now I'm sitting quietly trying to decide between staying here and going to the living room.

My plan just became reality. I am wrapped in my white cashmere blanket. That wasn't even a part of my plan until I realized that the air outside was cold. The hot water is heating up. A is talking about it. Maybe I will go get it.

I got distracted with celery and peanut butter when I went to get the water so a bunch of time has passed since I said I would get it. Now I am back in my seat with my hot water and my celery and peanut butter.

Av took his guitar someplace. He might have taken it into the shower room. He likes doing his thing in there. There is too much rain noise for me to hear. When I am in my room I can hear very well and I like it.

Av was not in the shower room. He was outside smoking. He saw a girl practically get naked looking for a bruise. Right now he is looking at his face in the mirror thinking about how he has to shave but can't shave because it is no shave November. His beard is thick and burly.

Bej is looking through binoculars. I think he is looking at me but he could be looking at something beyond me. Now he is looking at A. Earlier this night Bej and A and I went for a walk and Bej brought a magnifying glass. Sometimes he looks at things up close that are already close and sometimes he looks at things up close that are far away.

We encountered a worm on our walk and it crawled into A's foot. She screamed.

This morning I was late for my field trip and when I opened my door the black cat that hangs around here ran past me into the house. I wanted to go take it out of the house because the last time the cat got into the house A screamed and was very frightened. Ke and Ja brought the cat into my room and played with it. I gave it a yarn ball to bat around. A wanted me to take it out of the house so eventually I did. So I felt bad about the cat being in the house but was already late and had no time. I let A blame it on Mel but I can confess to YOU sweet anonymous internet and she will never know.

NEVER

KNOW

The first stop on my field trip was to an egg laying factory farm. Before taking farm class I never thought much about where my food came from. I knew vaguely about animal welfare in animal factory farms but I never really connected it to my food. Now I have! I invite you to all consider where your food comes from. It did not just spawn at the supermarket. Which is kind of how I always imagined it.

So we got to this egg laying farm and we all had to suit up in hazmat suits and special boots and masks and hair nets. I took home six hazmat suits for the six people who live in the apartment. I stabbed my finger in the process but it was totally worth it. Someday we will all wear our hazmat suits and it will be nice.

Once we were suited up we got to go inside the building. Each building has 45,000 chickens in cages stacked on top of each other in long rows. There are about six chickens per cage. The room had a very strong and distinct odor of chicken and chicken poop. Here is a picture of what stacked up factory chickens in cages look like:


But in real life they go on and on and on. The chickens were freaking out because there were so many people in the barn, all flapping and making noise and going crazy. I walked down into a chicken row by myself and stood very still and watched the chickens slowly calm down, starting from the farthest away from me and slowly working their way towards me. When they were calm they stuck their heads out between the bars and looked at me. It was a lot of chicken heads. The eggs were on little conveyor belts. They weren't moving then but when they move they bring the eggs out to be processed. One conveyor belt is a mile long and goes directly to the egg processing plant.

WHICH is where we went next. There was a really nifty machine for putting the eggs into the cartons and lots of broken eggs everywhere. Different brands of eggs is a lie. They are all made of the same eggs. True story.

Unless of course they are "specialty eggs" like cage free or free range or organic.

Next we went to a cow-calf farm. There were baby cows.

I think I'm done with blogging now.

Who needs heroin when you have love?

CO

I am living in a madhouse. The whole family (A, Ke, Mel, Bej, Av, me) has been in this apartment all day doing homework and going crazy. Last night I went over to Mi's with Av and A and Bej and Mi was not prepared for all of us interacting. It's that whole you never know how crazy you are until you hang out with an outside observer. Mi has hung out with all of us at different times and different combinations but it is a whole different experience with us all together.

Speaking of Mi, two night ago a crazy photoshoot went down with lasers and a slinky and all sorts of good stuff. Maybe sometime I will have the pictures for you folks to see. But it was great.

A Normal Field Trip

Last week my class went on a field trip from Tuesday morning to Friday night, camping by night and visiting farms by day. Here are a few highlights:

- Singing songs around the campfire with coyotes yipping in the background
- Bottle feeding a five day old calf with a heart shaped mark on its forehead
- Standing in the middle of a 7,000 acre wheat field. It was crazy! The land was mountainy and all wheat covered and it looked like South Africa and the sky was huge.
- Exploring an old abandoned grain elevator in the middle of nowhere
- Seeing a double rainbow over a cow barn in a misty foggy valley surrounded by mountains
- Free fruit - SO MUCH FREE FRUIT! Farmers love to share and I love it. Raspberries, plums, pears, apples, grapes, persimmons, all freshly picked and delightful. I fruit until I couldn't eat any more.
- All the rest of the food. Turns out farm people are food people, which makes complete sense when I think about it but I never realized it before. Yum.

I wasn't excited to go on the field trip before I left because it was so many days away from home and I wasn't pumped for camping in the rain and snow. But when I did it I ended up really enjoying it. I didn't even have to camp in the rain and snow. When we first showed up I was helping set up a tent in the snow absolutely dreading sleeping in it but then my teachers said we could sleep in the grange if we wanted and even though most of my class wanted to be tough and outdoorsy and sleep in the snow I was all for sleeping in the grange. No regrets there. The more I learn about farms the more excited about them I get and the more I mentally plan my someday farm. I've learned so much already and it has only been a few weeks. I have tons of homework and have to work for hours on it every day, but it is worth it because of all the learning I get out of it. This week is chicken week. Excited? I know I am.

Friday night was pretty rough emotionally but we worked through our issues and even though I ended up running away about to cry at one point Av and Mel and A seemed to care and stopped me to talk more and I think we all figured out what was going on was a misunderstanding and I think it is better now. And I like that because I had thought for a while that my friends had grown way closer with each other than with me and that I wasn't as welcome in their little worlds, but that wasn't really how they felt, because they thought that I just wanted to spend time with Bej and not them, but I thought they didn't want to be close with me. So that was reassuring and I haven't felt distanced from them since. Everything seems to be good again.

On Saturday night I decided to try going to an off campus party. Av and Mel and Ke and A are all about the off campus party scene and always go to parties and I never want to go. It's hard because I want to hang out with them but I don't like going to the parties or being at the parties, so usually they go to the party and I stay at home and then they get all their party bonding in and I feel like a loser. So I thought I would try one out just to make sure I didn't like it and I didn't like it. BUT that is not even the important part of this story. The important part of the story is that Mel and I were outside the party on the sidewalk talking when a guy came by and said there was a really drunk girl over there could we help her out because he doesn't know what to do, and we said sure and went over and found the really drunk girl. But then it turned out she wasn't just drunk, she was also an alcoholic and bipolar and thought she was going to have a seizure and had post traumatic stress syndrome and had been riding trains for the past 10 years and had two months to live and was crazy. And the guy who told us to look after her was her boyfriend ditching her. We didn't know what to do with her because she didn't know anyone and didn't know how to get to the house she was staying at so we ended up driving her to the hospital with so many people jammed into a car. La, Bi, Mel, Av's friends from back home, and me. We didn't get home until three thirty in the morning. But when we got home we all joined up with Av and A and Bej at our apartment and had a wild game of catchphrase and Av and Bej played music and A and I shared Ru's sleeping bag and it was great.

The End.

I plead pizza eggs on that banana

Av is making a blog, which is wildly exciting and an inspiration to us all. Mostly me. So now I am inspired and blogging.

Father and Sister are visiting this weekend. Ke and A and Sister and I went and saw him do his think downtown on Friday night and it was intense and nice to finally see him in action. A and Ke and I all cried. Sister fits very nicely into the family. She hated all the parties on Friday night so Bej and I took her stargazing on the field instead and it was very nice.

Right now Av is in the corner writing a song and Sister is in the kitchen cleaning up her sandwich. Last night Av played music for us and we all danced, which happens all the time around here but it never gets old.

Anddd as I was writing that there was a knock on the door and in came Bej, No, and Bej's mom. This the kind of thing I am talking about when I say there is no time for the internet anymore. Too much real life getting in the way. I ended up going out for burritos with Father and Sc and Bej and Bej's mom. The photos that Bej's mom took will be up on facebook so don't even worry.

Last night we were blasting music and dancing and the RA on duty came and knocked on our door and A went to answer and asked if we were being too loud and then the RA launched into this whole speech about how we chose to live in quiet housing until Asia interrupted and said we actually are not in quiet housing. Then the police officer and the RA were horribly embarrassed and introduced themselves and said they would wipe the egg off their faces. So that was unexpected.

I'm not sure I've talked about my sheep yet. I have so much to learn about sheep but I am so ready to learn. I wish I had a car so I could go over to the sheep field all the time and hang out with the sheep. At least I get to go once a week. Sheep make the best noises when they bite grass.

We found a little door with a free ice box behind it and it looks to Mel how all doors look to A. Which was funny to me because I'm in the middle of the two heights and both perspectives were really different than how I see doors. I never thought about how different people's perspectives on stuff like that must be.

Farm Class Farm Class

Today as I was taking lecture notes I realized that I don't care how well I do in class. I've always been pretty concerned about getting good grades so this is sort of a radical transformation. I like it better this way though because now I'm trying even harder to learn since I'm learning with the goal of soaking up as much knowledge as possible. I guess it isn't really that I don't care, just that grades seem so pointless in comparison.

I just feel like

it is so nice that this is real life. I had farm class today from 9-12 and then 1-5 and I'm very excited about it. There is so much that I don't know yet that I will learn from this class. And then I can take the class that builds off this next year where you actually run a farm and be so set. I'm going to be given so much knowledge this year and my teachers seem good and the rest of the people in the class care and want to learn and have so much experience.

Then after class I made macaroni and cheese for family dinner. Our apartment is so sweet with its family dinners. I love that we all cook for each other and eat together. Oh man. I'm so into the apartment and all its ridiculousness. I feel like I'm living in a madhouse but I love it.

Tonight Be was having a gathering at his place so we all went over and Vi stopped by and it was nice cause she's Vi. The most surreal part though was that people kept on praising me all night and I don't even know why or how that could happen in my real life. I was blushing and swooning all over the place. Sometimes I think that they're saying nice things about me because they actually think I'm way too weird and don't want to say that so they say nice things just to have something else to say because there is no way all those people could say all those things and mean them.

At one point in the night I discovered Av sitting in a little nook in the bushes next to Be's apartment that was so nice. I want to go back there later.

And then we went to the library and got pages to color and came back and Bej and I colored while Av made us bacon. IN REAL LIFE.

I started knitting again and I LOVE knitting.

This is real

I just keep on stopping and thinking about how this is how my sophomore year began. This is real and forever will be how my life was. I'm so happy about that. I don't think I could never have predicted this last year when I was a confused and lost little freshman but now it is real. This is my life!

So I went back to college and it was everything I dreamed it would be and then some. I'm so happy this is my real life. It seems too good to be true. I know people say that all the time but I keep on finding myself wondering how what is happening could possibly be my real life. I'm excited for class to start.

Thankful

I'm so thankful for you guys. All you people who read my blog (except the ones who just got here searching for something else or who just want to look at Martin Kratt's bare feet, I mean I'm sure you're great too but you aren't who this is about) are such neat people and I'm so happy that not only do I know you but I get to be friends with you. And the same goes for those college friends that don't know about this secret blog. I don't know how I got this lucky.

I JUST WANT TO GO BACK TO COLLEGE

My future, by A. My past, by me.

"I just pictured really really ugly children that are really dirty from farming who think they are cool but aren't and I'm talking like mangled ugly children and I hope that isn't your future" - A

In other news, it smells like the end of summer in the town I grew up in. I could be any age from four to now smelling this smell. I could be buying the new markers on my school supply list or wondering what high school will be like or walking to the farm down the road for barley sugar turkey shaped lollipops with my babysitter or making a collage of binder cover art smelling this smell. After being in an unfamiliar place all year it surprises me when things like smells can be so familiar.

Clamdar, Clam Tsar

Today the waves were rough and wild and close together, the kind where you have to dive under the crashing froth quickly and surface as soon as possible with no time to wipe the water from your eyes before opening them to see the next wave bearing down. First I had daddy-daughter ocean time which was just like all those summers of my youth and then I went in with Y and Pa and M and the girls all had serious little bikini big ocean syndrome but modesty seemed so petty and we had to stop caring. I was in there so long I stopped being able to talk and got all wobbly and couldn't walk straight. Pa said it made her feel high, and while I don't know what being high is really like I imagine it would be pretty similar to how I felt.

All Creatures Great and Small

When I was little Gram introduced me to James Herriot's books about his life as a vet in the English countryside. She had all his books in the bookshelves in Southold and I ended up reading them over and over. I cried for most of her funeral but when the lady started singing All Things Bright and Beautiful I really could not keep myself together. I started crying again a little when I found the song on youtube BUT that is not the point of the story.

The point of the story is that my farm class teacher emailed me about an opportunity to work with a flock of sheep next year. My favorite parts of the books were the lambing scenes. I don't know why I had such a thing for lambing back then, maybe it's the same reason why I have such a thing for lambing now, but I guess the reasons don't really matter because here I am with the chance to do real life lambing this February.

SUMMER!

There is so much happiness in swimming naked in a huge warm ocean. The waves weren't huge, but they were there. The water was a murky green soup with all kinds of floating seaweed, but sometimes a little opacity isn't so bad. And there I was, nineteen and naked and bobbing in that big August bathtub of an ocean, feeling free and youthful and tiny and powerful and powerless and connected.

And then chicken wings! Barbecue with Y and T's family! Sitting out in the backyard with a candle! Burning the plastic wick of S's parents' electric candle. Chilly goats and an imaginary trip to Costa Rica.

Yum. What a day.

Penguins and teeth and Henrietta the chicken

I still feel comforted every time a woman walks by smelling like my third grade teacher's perfume. I wonder what she would think if she knew.

Welcome to my fronteir

I had never made tapioca pudding before but I really wanted some so I made up a recipe and went for it and it turned out great. I feel so hardcore!

LOOK EVERYONE I'M A FOOD BLOGGER, I MAKE UP RECIPES AND POST THEM ON MY BLOG!

1 cup tapioca
2 cups water
1 can coconut milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

First I put the tapioca in a pot, added the two cups of water, and soaked it for 10 minutes. Then I added the can of coconut milk, the salt, the sugar, and the vanilla and brought it all to a boil. Once it boiled I reduced the heat and let it cook for a while more until it seemed done, and then I stirred in the beaten egg and cooked it for a few more minutes. Then I put some in a bowl and sliced up some mango and put it on top.

Good decision.

And I suppose this is a little unrelated, but JULIE ANDREWS! YOU MINX YOU!

Reading my book reading my book

Shelley was the poet of that time of life when men feel most strongly the sense of proud and lonely inviolability, which is legible in everything he wrote, and when their spirits, like his, are also "tameless and swift and proud." And this is a time of life and magic that, once gone, is gone forever, and that may never be recaptured save by memory.
But in the years that followed, just as Eugene's physical body grew coarser and more heavy, and his sensual appetites increased enormously, so also did the energy of his spirit, which in childhood had been wing-like, soaring, and direct in its aerial buoyancy, grew darker, slower, heavier, smoldering and slow in its beginning heat, and densely woven and involved in all its web-like convolutions.
And as all the strength and passion of his life turned more and more away from its childhood thoughts of aerial flight and escape into some magic and unvisited domain, it seemed to him that the magic and unvisited domain was the earth itself, and all the life around him - that me must escape not out of life but into it, looking through walls he never had seen before, exploring the palpable and golden substance of this earth as it had never been explored, finding, somehow, the word, the key, the door, to the glory of a life more fortunate and happy than any man has ever known, and which yet, incredibly, palpably, is his, even as the earth beneath his feet is his, if he could only take it.

Oh god

I literally just cried reading Dooce's birth story.

Bugs and blackberries

I went out to the yard for only a few minutes to pick some blackberries for blackberry cobbler but the combination of mosquitoes and thorns was utterly ridiculous. I really did not want to be a princess about mosquitoes and thorns but now my legs are on fire but I am not touching them I am not touching them I AM NOT TOUCHING THEM.

Eating cherries and spitting out the pits

I was eating cherries and the phrase "eating cherries and spitting out the pits" kept on running through my mind, just as it always does whenever I eat cherries, when I started thinking about how neat it is that somebody thought up those words and wrote them in a book and now I can't eat cherries without thinking them. I guess I just realized what it is to publish stuff and have other people know it. And I think it's pretty cool. Like...people create things that they then make public and other people love. I think everyone else already knew about this phenomenon. But I don't think I ever realized how much other people were people too enough to understand.


In other news, I'm really into this apocalypse rainstorm going on out there. As I was writing this darkness fell and the wind picked up like crazy and now it is raining like the middle of the end of the world jungle. Yum.

Family Night

Mmmmmmmmmmmm today was great. I think I'm finally my normal level of happiness. My happiness levels have been low for the past while and I've been still having fun and all but having fun is more fun with full happiness. So I am ready to live August up.

Today I went with K and J for a delightful swim in the lake. The water was warm and deep and the lake bottom was sandy and the company was thoroughly enjoyable. J and I helped K overcome her fear of swimming and realize her true swimming abilities. And like...I'm not sure I can express how great being in that water felt, floating around and being surrounded by cooling yet not too cold liquid. It felt like we were swimming in a lake of molten happiness. That may sound dumb in words but I swear that's what it was.

On the drive home I was in a great mood and the sun roof was open on the van and the breeze was coming in the windows and I was listening to all the songs I wanted to be listening to and I couldn't contain my dancing or singing, so I was driving along dancing and singing and feeling so young and happy and summery. I always forget that other cars can see me when I'm driving so I didn't feel self conscious about driving in my bikini and flailing my arms around to the music even though I probably should have. But oh well.

Then we went to Father's birthday dinner at Doyle's in JP. It was just so family night and so nice and my parents and J's parents bonded and K's brother showed up out of nowhere with free pizza and starbursts. After dinner K and A and J and Sister and I all went for a little exploration around my old neighborhood and saw my old house and old school and old food co-op. I saw so many things that I liked on that walk, including a bunch of great murals, some black eyed susans growing through a picket fence, a really pleasant looking side porch, and some flower boxes. I liked them.

BIKING BIKING

Yesterday I was driving home from dropping of A after work and I saw an old man walking with two canes down the sidewalk wearing a large cowboy hat, a big fluffy mustache, and an unbuttoned button down denim shirt. And pants. And we made eye contact as I drove by and he smiled at me and I smiled at him and it was a beautiful moment.

Today I decided to go for a bike ride. I hadn't ridden a bike in years, probably about five, but I thought I might give it a try. I always thought I hated biking but as it turns out I was very wrong. Well I was right once, back when I hated biking, but that apparently was just a phase. Turns out these days I love biking. Who knew! I raised the seat on my old bike and started biking and it was just so much fun. I listened to my 70's music and felt like I was flying and biked down all the roads I used to bike on when I was little. The sky was beautiful and the breeze felt great and I loved that I was the power behind my transportation and how fast I could go and how much distance I could cover. Biking! It's great!

I biked past so many houses and looked into so many windows and lawns and thought a lot about life. It isn't/wasn't in my control that I live here, but here I am anyway because children end up living where their parents live, but pretty soon I will reach that age where I go off and live in a place that I choose. All the adults who live in the houses that I passed were once nineteen year old kids on bikes wondering how their lives would turn out, and then they got jobs and bought houses in the suburbs and that was their life. I'm here because my life started here and I guess my life is still starting because I'm still here. But it just really won't be long before I'm someplace else.

Have I got a story for you

It all starts with me painting blackberries hanging over the stone wall in my backyard. I found this really nice branch of blackberry bush propped up on the other spiky plant that grows on the wall and the black blackberries and the red blackberries and all the different greens in front of the wall looked so nice that I really wanted to paint it. So I packed up my paints and my turpentine and a little canvass and pallet and sat down and started painting the blackberries and it wasn't long before I discovered the serious flaw in my plan. Painting in the garden on a hot summer evening in not enough clothes sounds glamorous until you factor in the mosquitoes. And those mosquitoes were all about my upper thighs. I don't know why, but I ended up with nine mosquito bites on the outside of my left upper thigh and three on the inside. The right had two on the inside and seven on the outside. I look diseased. And they hurt like the dickens. I smashed a bunch of mosquitoes but I kept on forgetting that I was holding paintbrushes and my hands were all painty and all the attempted mosquito killing ended up getting a lot of paint on me and my clothes. One dead mosquito dropped onto my pallet, and without really thinking what I was doing I mushed it up and mixed its blood onto my paint, and then I thought oh god I just KILLED AN ANIMAL and now I am PAINTING WITH ITS BLOOD. And I creeped myself out a little. I seriously do not know what compelled me to do that. But ANYWAY I didn't want to take a picture of the blackberries and paint from the picture since I like painting from life much more, but I have kind of a race against time in this painting since the red blackberries will ripen and I really like the red.

So I went back inside and I got out my camera to document the blackberries. I hope to get out there again tomorrow afternoon and paint more from life but if time and tide end up doing what they do it is nice to know that I have the picture. After I took the picture of the blackberries I took a picture of the sky behind my house since I had been watching it while I painted. My issue with pictures is that I can never get them to look as good as things look in real life. I know people who are good at taking pictures can get things to look better in the pictures than in real life but I always end up disappointed with mine. So I took a few more pictures of wildflowers that I were disappointed in and then moved on to eating blueberries. I started out reaching through the net that Mother put around the blueberries this morning to keep out the birds and picking the good ones and eating them and having a great time, and then I noticed a bit of commotion back behind the bushes. So I looked over closer and found two birds tangled in the net flapping to try to get free.


I don't know what the proper protocol is for saving trapped birds. I know what to do when a baby bird falls out of its nest but I had never before heard of this issue. I was singing sort of quietly to them to try to calm them down and I told them I was helping but I'm not sure they understood. When I saw how badly tangled they were I ran inside and got Father and Grandfather to come help.



Grandfather ended up holding the birds still while I cut away the net with scissors. The first bird died in Grandfather's hands but the second one flew away after I cut it free. It was all pretty intense. But now I have this memory of Grandfather and I working together to try to save birds. I like all my memories of Grandfather, but I feel like this one will really stick. He's so great.

That's my story.

Farmer Boy

I was reading my book in my room when I started thinking. Once I started thinking I realized that though I was reading through all the words I wasn't thinking about them anymore, and then I gave up reading and lay down and thought so much that I ended up falling asleep. I didn't plan to fall asleep and I didn't notice that I had slept until Mother woke me up to go eat Father's homemade Indian food. But that's another story. My story is just about all the thinking.

I started thinking about how much I would enjoy having a farm of my own when I grow up. I could have a big solar greenhouse that I would grow food in all through the year. I'd have a chicken coop in the greenhouse and rabbit pens and the body heat of the chickens and rabbits would help heat the greenhouse and I would harvest eggs and meat from the chickens and fur from the rabbits. It would be modeled after the greenhouse of my youth. It's weird to think that the greenhouse of my youth doesn't exist in real life anymore. Our old farm lady friend couldn't manage it anymore and couldn't stand to see it operating in shambles under the control of other people, so she sold the land and now a huge mansion is in its place. I could bring it back, though, if I had some land of my own. I could take all the lessons that I learned growing up with that solar powered super sustainable farm and combine then with everything I learn in farm class and make something that actually works.

I really think I could do it. Our old farm lady friend has so much stuff figured out and I know she would be excited to coach me through making my own farm. All she wants is for somebody young and spirited to make all her ideas happen. I could do that. She has so much information online about how to make a sustainable farm work, and she always says that her farm plans can make $500,000 per year. I don't know if that is true in practice, but I could do that!

I would have a little pond on my farm with ducks and turtles. I could eat the duck eggs and turtles are just cool. I would have a bunch of sheep and a big field for them but instead of letting them graze wherever they want in the field I would make a little collapsible sheep pen and only let them eat in certain areas. That way I would make sure they weren't princesses about the grass. I would help with the lambing in the spring and then there would be lambs in my life. I would milk my dairy cows and learn how to make my own cheese. I could get into beekeeping and have fresh honey and bees to pollinate all my plants. Maybe I'd have an apple orchard and blueberry bushes. And of course there would be all of the vegetables growing in the greenhouse and in the fields in the summertime.

It would be a lot of hard work but it would be my life so I would have all day to do it. I wouldn't have to be shut inside. I would live every day taking care of my plants and my animals and helping them grow. My hands would get rough from all the digging in the soil and it would take a lot of physical effort but I would get strong. I'd have to wake up with the sunrise and go to sleep early, but it wouldn't matter because that would just be me synchronizing to the sleep schedule of a farm, which is the same as the sleep schedule of the sun. I could live like that.

When I had my one farm child I would have to cut back a bunch from all the long working hours, but maybe by then I would have a few farmhands to help and then in a few years when the farm child was old enough I could go back to working as usual. And the kid would get to grow up with so many farm animals as pets and learn about life from the farm perspective and always have dirty feet and fingernails. I think that would be a great way to raise a child.

When Father was falling in love with Mother she was living on the farm lady friend's farm before the farm lady friend was the old farm lady friend. Father called the farm the Goddess's garden. Mother has her garden now, and it's a pretty nice garden, but she very much is not living in a shack just big enough for a bed on an organic farm. I thought about how that was sad, and then I realized that Father is still doing soul healing and traveling the world and trying to make a life from what he is passionate about even though it doesn't really make money or sense from the normal perspective. So I guess I don't mind that he doesn't have a real job, since new clothes and jewelery and objects are all unnecessary, and I just think I want to buy them sometimes since all the industries have so much power that they've wormed their way into my consciousness. And if all my current clothes continue to fall apart until they rip to shreds, I can just sew new ones because who needs fashion anyway. Or I could just be a naked farm girl. Worse things have happened.

So I think in conclusion screw the establishment I want to be a farmer.

You look like my face

I really like this picture that Father and Sister took in Paris.


I also finished my self portrait!

Doing the Karen Cheng

I MADE A DRESS GUYS!



I mean not to take blurry poorly lit pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror or anything. But yesterday I just ended up making this dress and K made a beautiful pink one and we didn't even have a sewing machine or patterns or knowledge. We just set out with the old sheets and our needles and thread and ended up with dresses we made ourselves. So I figure I should document it before it rips to shreds.

If I get my hands on a sewing machine who knows what could happen!

An email from sister about Berlin

hi look what i can do:
é à ç è ù § µ £ ¤

heres whqt ze did in berlin:
ze took q bus from the qirport but the directions zere zrong so ze got off the bus in q rqndom, plqce then it stqrted rqining qnd father didnt hqve q cell phone: he zqnted to go into q store to borroz q phone; until he noticed the store zqs q XXX video store so he zent to qnother store qnd borrozed q phone qnd ceciliq sqid she zould meet us there zith her friend: he sqid ze zould be zqiting infront of the video store: then he noticed q second video store on the opposite corner: so he left me zith the luggqge infront of the XXX video store: thqt was awkward for me:

later we went somewhere to buy a cellphone and buy dinner: we went to a turkish restaraunt and i ordered chicken shiskabob but i got viel and chicken qnd beef: i only ate the chicken parts: i broke a glass on cobblestones becquse ze zere outside: i was ashamed so i picked up all the little pieces: then i hid behind a phone booth because i did not want a turk to get mad at me: that was friday night:

the best thing i did in berlin was listen to father and cecilia talk about constellations for hours: JUST KIDDING!

the best thing i did in berlin was play with the scottish girls! we went out for italian and went for a walk in the park qnd climbed up a waterfall and played cards and truth or dare and learned the hoedown throwdown (youtube this if your curious)

once we were outside qnd it was smoky: So ze szitched to the other side: Then the zind chqnged directions qnd it zqs snoky qgqin:

I was lazy: And my kne hurt becquse i sprqined it: So father and I had a long conversation about wheelchairs, because I wanted a wheelchair: We were walking around so much because we wanted a hotel to get a internet connection: The we went to a hotel that ws full of men inwheelchairs with no legs or pqrts of legs: We stopped talking about wheelchairs right away: There was no connection there anyway:

Here are a few things about Roxaboxen

“Marian called it Roxaboxen,” began the picture book found on my first grade classroom’s blue bookshelf. I also called it Roxaboxen. Alice McLerran’s Roxaboxen was set in the Arizona desert, while mine was nestled under New England pine trees. I wasn’t discouraged by these regional differences; instead, I drew inspiration from the children in Roxaboxen and created my own adaptations when necessary. Marian never laid eyes on my Roxaboxen, but I liked to believe she would be proud.

Though I spent my first years in Boston, my most vivid childhood memories take place in the suburb to which we moved when I was four. The transition from a city environment walking-distance from the Arnold Arboretum to a town filled with manicured lawns and fences was difficult for both my Manhattan-raised father and me. In the suburb, grass was not for running through; it was for decoration, pesticide-sprayed and marked with little yellow signs warning of poison. Wandering into a neighbor’s yard was not socializing, instead, it was trespassing. My yard was different. The crabgrass-spotted lawn was downright pathetic compared to the one next door but it was perfectly suited for childhood exploration. My curiosity led me beyond the rickety green chain-link fence lining the back of our property. A row of tall pines reached up a small hill bordering the backyards of the houses on my road. At the top of this hill under the shelter of the pines I found my Roxaboxen.

Before I go too far assuming all are familiar with Roxaboxen I figure some explanation is in order. In her book, Alice McLerran writes of the half-imagined, half-real play world of a group of friends. With rocks, old broken bottles, cactus, sticks, and boxes, the Arizonian youth construct an elaborate miniature town complete with a jailhouse and a graveyard. Their Roxaboxen includes a mayor, shops with storekeepers, and all the staples of a grown-up town. Barbara Cooney’s illustrations depict unbridled boys and girls utilizing their surroundings to create an almost magical community. To a child like me, such an existence was irresistible.

I wasn’t the first child to use this place. A rusted chain ladder hanging from a thick bough silently spoke of past children. I never learned any further identifying details of their story. From the top of the hill I could peer down into the yards beneath me and over to the large white house to which property lines had granted claim of Roxaboxen. I met the woman who lived in that house only once when a friend of mine tried to build a house with tall walls of logs. The commotion attracted the woman’s attention and violated one of my personal rules of Roxaboxen. I was allowed to shape the fallen pine needles into subtle house boundaries but I could not create too much of a disturbance in the natural way of the land. Unlike the more sculpted Roxaboxen of the picture book, my imagined town was to be mostly just that: imagined.

From Roxaboxen I borrowed the idea of a town in the wilderness, but I played more in solitude than my fictional counterparts. The occasional friend would join me in my woodsy getaway, but for the most part company existed within my head. I didn’t long for others, though. I wasn’t an anti-social child, but I found that my friends didn’t imagine Roxaboxen in the same way as I, nor could they find amusement in pine needles and rocks for as long as I could. My attention span allowed for hours spent sculpting my needled roads and mentally assigning names to the tree trunks and bushes that surrounded me.

Like any plucky New England girl I did not balk at cold weather, snow, or brisk winds. Roxaboxen existed in all four seasons, with each season bringing new projects. I’d bury acorns in the fall hoping to see tall oak trees come springtime. When spring finally arrived, I’d attempt to transplant crocuses from my garden into the rocky soil. Though winter snows buried most of my accomplishments, they gave allowance to snow-walls and snow-roads. Summer left me with endless expanses of free time to be filled by cultivating my imagined neighborhood. These seasonal changes only prolonged my entertainment. I imagine a Roxaboxen in Arizona would lack the variety given by my Massachusetts climate.

Consistent to Roxaboxen was the scent of pine, both the sharp smell of needles fresh off the trees and the earthy musk of the fallen ones rejoining with the soil. Mocking birds cooed in the juniper trees below the hill and blue jays cawed in the overhanging branches. A local cat would occasionally prowl through my village, stealthy and calico, seemingly oblivious to the jingling of its belled collar. Some days I would find Roxaboxen permeated with the distinctive smell of skunk, though I managed to escape any more personal encounters. When I envision Roxaboxen, my mind fixates on the color orange: orange pine needles, orange maple leaves, and deep rusty-orange bark on the evergreen trees. Thinking of Roxaboxen brings back the feeling of a comforting, peaceful seclusion. There, I was free to let the forces of my mind meet the forces of nature, to let them combine to create my joy.

la la la la la the end

This is nice

Having a Coke with you

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian partly because of my love for you partly because of your love for yoghurt partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider as carefully as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

by Frank O'Hara

Not blogging about work

Once upon a time a counselor was reading to some campers about frogs and asked the campers what they knew about frogs and one boy raised his hand and said, "My mommy kissed a frog and it turned into my daddy!"

Thunder

I've said it before and I will say it again. Thunderstorms are the earth getting it on with the sky.


MMMM! THE POWER! THE ENERGY! THE HEAT!

Stoked About Life

Today when I came home from camp I ate a bowl of blueberries and milk, then a bowl of cheerios in milk, and then a bowl of cheerios and blueberries in milk together. I was so excited when I realized the last one was possible.

Today has been a wonderful night of revelations and good thoughts. I had a conversation with Mother that ended in her telling me "that's the miracle of life" and being totally sincere.

I'm so happy right now.

Aw.

I had a horrible headache tonight, probably brought on by waking up too early and spending too many hours at staff training, so when I got home I collapsed in my bed and Mother came in to give me a foot massage because she's great like that, and then she started crying because she said that in the dark room sleeping I looked so much like her mother.


Aw.

Amazon Trail Amazon Trail

Yesterday was a very nice day.

I worked more on my self portrait. If I can keep on improving it at the rate I have been I might actually end up with a self portrait. And then I can paint portraits of everyone I know. Exciting!

SPEAKING OF EXCITING I GOT AMAZON TRAIL TO WORK. THE INCA PEOPLE ARE SICK WITH MALARIA CINCHONA IS A MEDICINE FOR IT!

And then I went to Harvard Square with A and saw C and Ma and it was so nice.

So I wasn't a mess at all yesterday. Sweet!

It's so hot in my room I am living in an oven.

Mess

I'M A MESS! A MESS!

Ummmmm

I'm kind of a mess these days.

But I did use my new Messless Cooking strategy when I made Christmas cookies for Sister's Christmas themed birthday party (Sister's friends had her leave the house and decorated it all like Christmas (they said it was a winter wonderland party but really most winter decorations are Christmas decorations and most winter music is Christmas music though they did also have a menorah out and some matzoh (while I'm on this parenthesis kick I will just also mention how I never know which spelling to use of those Jewish words that can be spelled all the different ways except for Hanukkah which I always spell like that because I like that it has the double K and it is too much with the c also))and she came back to the surprise theme)and it worked very well and I was left with a lot of cookies and no mess!

TOO MANY PARENTHESIS. AH. I'M LOSING MY MINDDDDDD.

I've been listening to a lot of Paul Baribeau because his voice has been resonating with my personal unrest.

I started oil painting a self portrait and it is wildly difficult but I'm really loving the challenge. I don't even know if I will be able to make it look any good at this point, but I just have this odd belief in myself about it. It's weird, I'm an emotional wreck but for the first time I feeling pretty while making a self portrait. Not that I never feel pretty, but usually staring at myself and trying to recreate what I see for extended periods of time makes me get all critical and unsatisfied. This time I'm just kind of liking how my face goes. And while my painting doesn't look like me yet maybe someday it will.

I've been feeling lonely and antisocial at the same time and the two do not work well together. I've been feeling a whole barrage of emotions that I do not usually feel and do not enjoy feeling. I've been lonely and antisocial and stressed and uncomfortable and sad. I'm not supposed to get these sorts of emotions. When did I turn human? Where is my constant flat calm of contentedness?

I really just do not know.

DESCENT INTO INSANITY. BY ME.

I'm really excited for work to start.

I'm really excited for college to start.

I'm also excited for Canada!

I need to psych myself up to be able to plan. Because I know I'm usually in charge of planning but I have not been feeling up to it. But I need to. Maybe one of these days I will wake up ready to plan again.

your heart

I was reading Father's book today and I found this poem. And I like it.

e.e. cummings - i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Housewife Day

Today I took the dog for a long romp, did some watercoloring at the pond, picked up Sister from the library, went grocery shopping, made dinner, and picked up Father at the airport.

It really did take up most of my day.

I went for a long walk at night and thought about how excited I am for farm class. I think I'm going to be really into farms and farming and it will lead to my career. And then I will have one child and live in a little house.

I looked in all the windows that had lights on but I only saw a person in one of them. I don't want a large house when I grow up. I want a house that is just big enough for me and my husband and my one child and my miniature dachshund. On my farm. OR A HOUSEBOAT! WHAT IF IT WAS A LITTLE HOUSEBOAT! How would I get to my farm if my house was floating? Hm. I guess I have more time to plan all this.

Anyway. On my walk I went over to visit the old house and I found that tip-over driveway's house is completely gone. MEANING I CAN SNEAK UP TO ROXABOXEN. MAYBE. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT IF I'M BRAVE ENOUGH.

Ummmmmm want to read something I wrote about Roxaboxen for class? Maybe I will post it sometime.

Productive Wednesday

I love that I have an art room fully stocked with all the art supplies I could ever want and then some and a kitchen fully stocked with (almost) all the apparatuses and spices I could ever need to use.

I like that one of those comes from each parent and that I appreciate both.

When I grow up I want to always have all the art tools and all the kitchen tools.

Problem Solving Summer

I don't think I'm adjusted to being home yet.

Home again home again jiggity jig

Today I saw a turtle and a bunny. Wildlife!

We made eggplant and pasta in my kitchen and it was just like old times.

I don't think I'm in the proper mindset for blogging so I will end this here.

Freshman year, freshman year. Wow.

Ummmmmmmm
I left college.
It was weird. I packed up all my stuff and took it out of my room and my room isn't my room anymore. Then I flew away and now I'm in the Philadelphia airport by myself. I feel a little homeless. I curled up on the floor and cried a little, but then I decided to buy some internet and some ice cream and I'm feeling a little better now.

Tonight when I go to sleep it will be in my own house in my own bed.
That's very weird to me.

The last few days of college were beautiful. One glorious day after another.

On Friday I went on an adventure with A and Ke and ended up lying in this wonderful grassy field listening to the Sound of Music soundtrack with all the little grasses against the sky doing a ballet. It was just the nicest thing.



Then I went back and found Mel and Bej and Li and then Bej and I went to look at kaleidoscope trees and lay in an eternity field with a rainbow sunset and then went downtown and got a hot dog with cream cheese and sat on the docks. The whole day was just so nice. Even nicer than I can make it sound.

I also got to spend a lot of time with Li and the Ka's and their group which is always very exciting for me since I'm a little obsessed with Li and the rest are pretty great too.

It's just so weird to me that I won't be there anymore.

Fountain Goat

Okay so I have not blogged in forever, this is because I have been having too much fun.

IT'S JUNE
WHAT
WHAT
WHAT
WHAT
EW
OH
GOD
I GO HOME IN A WEEK
WHAT
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I'M GOING TO CRY. I MIGHT BE CRYING RIGHT NOW. I'M NOT. BUT I COULD.

I'm really excited to see all you folks do not get me wrong. But this year being over is incomprehensible. I just really LOVE it here.

So many things have happened since I last blogged. I don't even know if I can say them all. I probably can't. As you all know, my darling J is visiting, which has been ever so delightful. We threw her a birthday party last night and MAN, that was a party! We danced, we sang, we wandered in the field, we chatted in the hall, we showed J a good time. This morning was ROUGH. A and Ke and Em had to perform a Native American dance for Ke's final project presentation and it was just SO FUNNY because they all felt HORRIBLE. Ke threw up and some puke came out her nose. This is the kind of situation they were in (well, more A and Ke than Em) but they danced anyway. I was just cracking up at how funny it all was and how much it sucked and how happy I was that I did not have to dance because I felt awful as well. A and Em were trying to practice as people getting off the bus walked by and it looked to them like Em was just saying hippity hop hippity hop hippity hop for no reason. She had reason.

Ummmm yeah.

Last night was super fun. Je is visiting again and we all know how happy that makes me.

The night before I had a lovely adventure to the library with Li and the Kas and Bej and I tried to cut Bej's hair in the library but Li and Ka wouldn't let me. Then the Kas and Li were dinosaurs in the woods. It was neat.

I presented my paintings to the class. The class loved them. CoWo really wanted to buy one. But he did not because I am not selling.

Over the weekend we did some wonderful lying in fields and looking at trees.

Last weekend my room was an aquarium and the field was a snowglobe and all the people were tiny.


WHY DO I GO HOME IN LITERALLY ONE WEEK.

The Garlic Meat Lady from

We're cooking dinner tonight.
I'm making a kind of Stonehenge
stroganoff.
Marcia is helping me. You
already know the legend
of her beauty.
I've asked her to rub garlic
on the meat. She takes
each piece of meat like a lover
and rubs it gently with garlic.
I've never seen anything like this
before. Every orifice
of the meat is explored, caressed
relentlessly with garlic.
There is a passion here that would
drive a deaf saint to learn
the violin and play Beethoven at
Stonehenge.

Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll

Well. It has been a weekend. I can tell you that.

It kicked off with a dress up party at the mods, which turned out to be great. Je was visiting and he always makes stuff more fun, and everyone was there and it was a lot of fun. Je got Ad's number, but he thought she meant possible romance but she is still into Av, so that was a little awkward. And we got to see the kitten again, I don't know if I wrote about the kitten before but there is this tiny little baby kitten that lives in that mod and she is adorable beyond words. And TINY.


Yeah.
I liked Thursday a lot.

Then on Friday there was a pirate porn party at Ro's, where everyone got together and watched Pirates, the two hour long high budget porn movie. The four of us dressed up as pirates for the event, because if the theme of the party is pirate porn we are certainly not about to not dress up. The party was another great success, even though Co almost came home early and ruined it, with far more people showing up than anyone expected. The boys made really dumb jokes the whole time and thought they were hilarious, clapping their hands and stomping their feet. Boys are dumb like that. Then we went back to our dorm and Mel wanted to make bean dip and wait for Sa to switch the bean dips but A and Ke and I wanted to do something else in Ke's room, so we did that and then went to Da's room for hot dogs. It was an eventful night.

Then on Saturday everyone locked Bej's door shut with rope, but then they got mad at me when I didn't come out of the room. Either lock me in a room OR be mad at me for being in that room. Both do not make sense to me. But then we started the festivities for the day at three and went to the field, where we hung out for a bit and then I left because it was so wicked hot. I played with oobleck at the bus stop, looked insane, went to dinner and got scared of an apple, and then went to red square and lay with my head in the shade made by a tree and watched the trees and the birds and the sun. And that was great. And then I took a shower and looked at my shower walls and then watched a little bit of planet earth and really liked the polar bears swimming under the ice. After that I called the rest of the girls and found them still on the field, so I went there but I really didn't want to be outside. After a bit we all went inside and I got separated from the rest of them again and decided to lie still with my eyes closed and take another shower, and then Bej invited me to go to Li's but the rest of the girls showed up and everyone was mad at me again so I went with them to go squish in mud. We then washed off our feet, watched the end of the red sox game for Father, and went to the field a little bit more. Then Mel and I played with oobleck more in my room and then we made smoothies and a video for Av.

It was quite a day.

Sunday was a recovery day.

Then today Ke and I decided to have a beach day because it was really hot, but instead of going to the beach we went to a secluded field because it was a lot more close by. Walking is just too much sometimes. So we lay in our bathing suits in the field and napped and talked and looked at the wind in the tall grass. There was a circle of rainbow around the sun and it was all kinds of pleasant.

That was my weekend.

I killed something I loved

Oh mans. Weekend recap time.

On Thursday we sang Celine Dion in Ke's room, the four of us at approximately 4 am belting out It's All Coming Back To Me Now song to the best of our impaired abilities. Then when I went to use my bathroom I realized everyone could hear us. Whoops. Maybe they liked it more than Lovin You on repeat. Maybe not. Then Ke and A and I went to Av's room and found a kid that I vaguely know, and then I told them I was going to sleep and they said NO YOU'RE NOT, YOU'RE PUTTING ON YOUR PAJAMAS AND COMING BACK and I said I was going to sleep and then the next morning they asked me why I never came back when I said I was going to.

Communication!

And then A and Ke were left to their own devices and got into a bit of mischief. But not the last mischief of the weekend.

On Friday Mel went to Da's house to meet his parents and family, but we spotted his dad and brother at the freshman advising lunch (which was a total lie, we do not have regular Friday barbecues outside) and Ke called the dad and brother over and Mel was pretty embarrassed yet handled herself well.

Then Ke and A and I went to get burritos and got burritos and horrible service and had to leave 30 dollars on the table and run to catch the bus back. We had to! Because we wanted to go to the party at Li's but by the time we had gotten ready the party was over because that is how they do it at Li's - quick and dirty. So then Ke and A and I had to make some fun of our own, which we did by going to some random place filled with people from A's class that we didn't really know (and Be and No) and to A dorm and utilizing some of the mischief from the night before, and then we went to Ta's room and to Av's room and people wanted us to sing for them and it was all very odd.

It was a rough night in our dorm, for some more than others but really for everybody at least a little bit. One of THOSE nights as they say.

On Saturday I went with Bej to get an exercise ball for Li's apartmentmate because he had stabbed hers with a knife the night before.

I wasn't kidding about the one of those nights thing.

Then when I got back it was Oregon Trail party time with Br, which was a WEIRD party. Then that night All and A and I watched Ferngully after hanging out with the Kas and a little sister. Ferngully was a really neat looking movie. And probably is under all circumstance.

This weekend felt really long. I'm only at Sunday recapping it and I'm feeling what I felt on Sunday, which was that whoa it's only Sunday feeling.

Sooo on Sunday what happened? I'm sure something happened. What was it.
No idea.

Then yesterday we had guacamole and ran around and bothered people.

I just got bored of blogging a bit there.

The Lonely Goat Herd

Today was a splendid day!

A and Ke and I spent a lot of time looking at our new FAVORITE SHOW, the Lawrence Welk Show, which often features our new FAVORITE SINGING GROUP the Lennon Sisters, on youtube. We found this little gem:

Which we decided was our new theme song and learned the lyrics to and performed for Da and Mel and the second floor boys and the rest of our friends.

It's pretty great.

And we hung out in Sa's room and Je flashed Boob Girl and sang a song which went:

Boob girl, show us your boobs
They look kind of round
And I want to put....

....

I dont know.

So that was entertaining.

And then Ke and I made a quote book. Which is pretty rad.

Next year we WILL be the Lennon Sisters.

GIRLS WEEKEND!

GIRLS WEEKEND!
was a blast!

We took of to Tacoma for the weekend, which is actually a delightful place to live, surprisingly enough. Maybe Ke just lives in the nice part. But it sure is nice there. We went to costco first and then to the seashore and there were so many colors in that water and fake trains everywhere. Trains around here are apparently not for people. Then we went back to Ke's house for chocolate fountain and hot tubbing and Babysitter's Club on on demand. And it was all as pleasurable as it sounds.

The next day we went to the glass museum and the art museum, and oh mans do I ever want to get really good at glass blowing. The guy who made The Way Things Work, the mammoth-ful scientific CD-ROM of my youth, had an exhibit at the art museum which was VERY exciting.

And then we went to see some water and walk about on the beach and climb on the fireboat. I picked up a crab from under a rock and held it and only got a little terrified when it squirmed.

Ke's stepdad makes wonderful food and her mom explains her.

Today we went for a walk and got caught in a hurricane.

Do they even have hurricanes around here? Cause I feel like they don't.

Don't let it in, it will kill us all!

So on Monday or something Ke, A, and I went into Av's room to visit before he went off to China, and we all sat on his floor and he sat on his chair and then on his desk and told us a story and then passed out goodies for all. And then somehow it came up that we were a gang and needed a gang tattoo, which was decided should be a crucified tyrannosaurus in a sailor hat, so I drew one but had to borrow sharpies because Av's kept on running out. Av got it on his arm, Ke got it on her neck, A got it on her forearm, and then they told me to put it on my chest but that proved very difficult. But I got it eventually with a little help from Ke. And then Bej showed up and Av had to leave, so it was just us in his room for a while, and things were all very pleasant and then Ja and To and some kid Mi showed up, and they were all out of their minds and very wild and smoking cigarettes and getting their hair stuck in Av's guitar and To was all PLAY US A SONG BEJ and then they all played songs and sang and it was still wild. It was eventually too much and we all had to leave.

Av is in China now. Crazy!

We're going to Girl's Weekend this weekend. Should be a ball!

IT'S TIGER TIME!

Highlights of the week:

1) Wednesday was Sa and Adr's birthdays so there was a lovely little celebration at the mods. It was great. And then Ke introduced me to Freaks and Geeks and I thought it was fantastic.
1) Je visited and I always really enjoy when that happens. He is great. He ran into a wall and the lights flickered and pretended to be a lion tamer and woke Bej and I up to kiss us both on the foreheads.
1) I have a LOT of painting to do. MY WHITE PAINT SMELLS LIKE FROSTING. AHHHHHHHHHHH.
1) Da and Mel and Hu and Bej and I all hung out for a while last night and that was fun. The RA's showed up but Da played it cool.
1) Sa and Be and Mel and I had a techno dance party
1) Bej and I went to Indian buffet which was just a really good idea. And then we were walking over to the lake and saw all these tents and asked information what was going on and they said dragon boat festival. DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL! Remember the last time we went to a dragon boat festival?



Yeah.

BLOG

Today Ke and I put on our field dresses and went to the beach since it was all kinds of hot and sunny out. I got so sunburned. Well not that sunburned, but sunburned nevertheless. I hate getting sunburned. Makes me feel so irresponsible.

Here are weird things we saw on the beach:

1) a man with four wives and nine children
2) a girl jogging with her boyfriend in a rolled up tight t shirt with no bra and giant saggy underwear
3) a tour group that was very excited about everything

Then Pi showed up and we hung out with him for a bit. When we got there at like noon or so there were very few people but by the time we left there around three thirty were a lot. Also a lot of really cute dogs.

Then Ke and I went to the field, where we found a bunch of our friends sitting and enjoying the sunlight.

Then after the field we went to dinner, and then went out to Chinese buffet again with Be's dad and got ice cream.

SO FULL.

SO GOOD.

I was kind of in the right state for chatting with Be's father, kind of not.

Success Story

Mans. Blogging. The internet. I've been spending a lot of time away from both. There is a conclusion to be drawn about the internet in there somewhere.

My life has been pretty pleasurable and a little jiggly. I'm doing oil painting for my class and you knows how I feel about that, even though it's a little nerve wracking not having an art teacher around.

A lot of what has gone down as of late I can't even write about in this blog.

Here are a few things I can mention:

* It was RA Br's birthday on Sunday and he invited us in for almond cake that his mom made and it was a rollicking good time
* I just ate all of Be's Reese's Puffs. Oops. I guess I need to buy that boy another box.
* Ke and A hid hard boiled eggs in Ge's room so they will start to smell if he doesn't find them. Little devils, both of them.
* The weather is supposed to be glorious again this weekend. Ke and I (and probably Mel and A) want to wear long dumb hippie dresses and go dance like fools in the field with all the kids who are playing drums and dancing and pretending they're a lot happier than they are
* My life is just pretty nice these days.

Right

Tonight was somethin else altogether. We spent a lot of time in Av's room and a lot of time wishing we were in Av's room. Stuff was crazy and we wrote notes. My room was the 70's lounge and we could always expect it to be as it was.

Alligator days

Oh mans.
I have not blogged in almost a week. And what a week it has been. WHAT a week it has been.

SO I think I last blogged Thursday, let's see if I can remember what happened all those days. I don't think I fully can.

Oh, so on Saturday we had Je's surprise birthday party at Li's apartment which was fantastic and everyone was there and Je was so happy and so surprised. And then on Sunday...what happened on Sunday something I'm sure. On Monday Ke and I woke up and went to the beach and it was a sunny beautiful glorious day and the bird poop incident happened and we told everyone about it and spent some quality beach time with my RA. And then yesterday was Tuesday and Ke and I went to the beach again.

I am living the life. My life is kind of a mess a little bit, but it's also freakin incredible. It's a little more of a mess right now than it is supposed to be. But it's also beautiful.

Not your average paleontologist

I used to blog before I went to sleep at night but recently I have not been blogging before I go to sleep at night and this has been throwing off my blogging schedule.

Tuesday was a lovely day. I remember thinking what a great day it was when it happened and I am now trying to think of what it was that happened on Tuesday. We sat in Sa's room and flashed the lights on and off at the dorm across from us and they flashed their lights at us. Ro and Ta and Bej had an epillation contest to see how long they could stand epillating their arm hair and now all have patches of no arm hair. Br made us all cookies and we all ate them and hung out cause he is a great RA.

Then yesterday what happened. We went to anime club, went to the mods for a bit and hung out, hung out other places, watched this neat thing on the history channel about predator x.

I'm rull sleepy for my nap now.
But these past few days have been great.

Too productive

Today may have been the most productive day ever. Ever.

Ke and I woke up at ELEVEN and Ke showered before coming into my room and I was ALREADY AWAKE when she showed up and we looked at baby sloth and baby hedgehog videos on youtube and decided that next year we are getting a baby hedgehog. Having a baby hedgehog says: we're hip! we're cool! and we like small animals! we're interesting! we're nurturing! we'll make your dreams come true!

fact.

Then we met Mel on her break from class and went to lunch, and after lunch Ke and I got our stickers for the bus and found A getting her id card and then we all went to check our mail and steal a little flower from the wilderness for me. We also went to the corner store and bought some milk.

Then we came back to my room and I cleaned it and my bathroom and Ke and I did our laundry and took out our garbage and our recycling and stood outside in the courtyard confusing people for ten minutes. And we took the dinosaurs off my window. And Ke cleaned her room and bathroom.

We signed up for our apartment last year and Ra and Meg were all oh, we're actually not living with you, so next year we will have an apartment of me, A, Mel, Ke, and BABY HEDGEHOG. It will be pretty sweet. Stoked on life.

And then we rolled out the dinner train with everyone and it was so nice having the whole family together going to dinner. But then we went to the bookstore before dinner and got our books for spring term. And then we ate dinner and then Ke and I realized that we should only have one set of books between the two of us so we each saved 70 dollars by returning books very cleverly.

And then A went back to her room after dinner and vanished for the rest of the evening except for when Mel and Ke showed her their basketball shorts. And the rest of us went back and drew fish on my window and Ba helped and it was nice and now my room is SO under the sea it's crasy.

DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW MANY THINGS THAT IS TO DO IN ONE DAY
SO MANY

We were utterly exhausted by the end of the day. Everyone else went to sleep and then Bej and I wrote letters to Ta.

Yesterday we dyed Mel's hair dark and ate brownies and chips.

We ate some brownies today too.

Thinking on chairs

Oh jeez
so much blogging catch up to do.

EVERYONE IS HOMEEE
it was so exciting having everyone come back today
Sa got the gold medal, Be got the silver medal, and Bej got the bronze medal

All is back too, which is all kinds of exciting cause that girl rocks!

She has been inhabiting the common room because move in day is tomorrow. It is real nice to have her around.

The last day in Canada was 90's night and it was freakin awesome. Then we went home and there were not many people in our dorm. Mel and Da had a rough night.

Then A showed up! And that was great cause she totally goes here now.

Today I did a lot of things.

I made studmuffins. Now Mel and Av and A and Be have them and I bet one more person will have them by this time tomorrow. Who will it be?! Only time will tell!

Be and Sa and I watched some western and it was wonderfully westerny. Bej caught the last bit.

Mel and Pi and Ta and All and I went out for Asian food and it was SOOO GOOODDD MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. I liked it.

And then we hung out in Pi's room for a while and then Bej and A and I watched youtube videos of Elvis and then went and bothered Ta in the hallway and then A went to sleep and Bej and I made a T sign for Ta with our bodies and he stood on a chair and watched us from space and understood.

That is NOT how we do it in Canada

Oh
Mans
Epic freakin journey to get here.

So Mel and I set out from college at 12:15 pm on Thursday and arrived at the hostel at like 7:45 pm on Friday. That is how long our journey was. That is a lot of journey. We took a bus to Olympia, and then a bus to Tacoma, and then Everett, and then Everett Station, and then Mt. Vernon. BUT by the time we got to Mt. Vernon we had missed the last bus. Which was a little but of an issue especially since the bus stop was in nowheresville anywhere. But there was a coffee shop that had closed where some girl was cleaning up and she told us that there was a trail that would lead us to a trailer park where we could maybe get a ride to Anacortes, which was where we were trying to go to get a ferry to San Juan island to visit Av, so we decided to walk it. We didn't see anything that looked like a trail so we took off down this road past some oil refineries hoping that was the way to Anacortes, which we were assuming was a bunch of lights we could see in the distance over some water. We eventually found a bridge over the water which had seven benches on it and a trailer park on the other side, and while we did not find anyone at the trailer park we found a map which showed us how to get to Anacortes so we walked there. It was a long walk. Then once we were in Anacortes we had to walk to the downtown area, and once we got there we had missed the last ferry to San Juan island so we went to the bowling alley because nowhere else was open and got some runny eggs and a bacon cheeseburger. Well I got the runny eggs and Mel got the bacon cheeseburger.

THEN we left there and found a 24 hour donut shop open so we inhabited that for a little and looked at the map and realized that the ferry place was really freakin far away and that we should probably start walking to make sure we got there. My spleen started hurting as we were walking and we weren't even sure where we were supposed to go so we decided to go to McDonalds to ask, but then this car full of obviously drunk metalheads was like HEY, ONLY THE DRIVE THROUGH IS OPEN, DO YOU WANT US TO ORDER FOR YOU, and we were like actually we're just looking for directions, do you know how we should go about walking to the ferry terminal, and they were like that is ridiculously far away we will just give you a ride, so we got into the car cause we had no better plan. And then they were like oh, how about watching some movies at our buddy's house instead of sitting outside the ferry terminal in the cold for hours, so I was like sweet mans that sounds great.

SO off to the house we went. You should have SEEN these guys. Piercings, tattoos, mullets, crazy beards, the works. Serious metalheads. One used to be in some band which I guess was pretty famous cause Mel had heard of it before. He was 36, the one with the mullet was 16, and the other two were probably in their 20's, and they all apparently live in this house, sleeping on couches and the floor. They also hang out with a slovakian veteran with bullet wounds in his chest who has gone half insane from what he witnessed in the war and some guy named Sharty who peed all over the floor the night before. We watched SLC Punk, Stepbrothers, Baseketball, and Beerfest. And it was a lot better than being outside in the cold. I will give it that. An experience. They all ended up falling asleep, and we kind of did too for a bit (not more than 10 minutes at a time though) even though we were trying not to just for the sake of some sort of security. Then at 6:00 am one of them drove us to the ferry, which actually was wicked far away and I don't know if we would have made it there walking.

So we got on this ferry to San Juan island at 6:15, and oh my goodness the San Juan islands are SO PRETTY when they are appearing out of the darkness as the sun comes up. SO. Pretty. I tried to take pictures but it was too dark out. But you are all welcome to google image them. Mel and I found this spot on the back of the ferry where you can walk out and look at the water and it was real romantic.

Then we arrived on the island and Av met us and took us to see the ocean at seven in the morning. It was beautiful. If i had ever seen the Pacific Ocean before it was when I was two and living the life of a California baby. But it was so freakin gorgeous. I bet you can imagine. And then Av took us to his house which is right on the ocean and so cute and so nicely furnished and decorated and made us huevos rancheros and coffee and scones and his friends came over and we hung out with them and then napped cause we had been up all night.

And then Av realized that the ferry that was supposed to really conveniently take us from San Juan Island to Victoria was not running because it was on its winter schedule so he drove us to Canada, which was very helpful and lovely of him. And then he dropped us off at the ferry station in Vancouver and we took a really luxurious ferry over to Victoria. Which is where I am right now. But my story does not stop here.

SO we took two more buses to our hostel and went to sleep at 9:45 pm cause we were so exhausted.

The next morning we woke up and went over to this adorable coffee shop across the street, brick ovens homemade bread and pastries all so cute and non-chain like, I was a little obsessed. And then we went grocery shopping and OH MANS, THIS CANADIAN SUPERMARKET HAVING BULK CANDY BINS ALL OVER THE PLACE, and pineapple rings and chocolate all up in the middle of all the aisles, by god I did not know what to do with so much possibility.

Then we went exploring down by the water and saw some great boats and soaked up the culture, and came back and made some grilled cheese and salad for dinner.

And then we headed out to hit da clubz, and went to this place where the bouncer was from where we were from and we bonded over it which helped when he was trying to confiscate stuff from us later, WHO KNEW we were doing something we weren't supposed to be, but we charmed our way out of it and danced the night away. Some random girl was all touching up on both Mel and me, touching us on places that most people are not allowed to touch and kissing our necks and really just trying to get her girl on girl on girl threesome on. That was something. But besides that the dancing was GREAT!

And then today we made toad in the holes for breakfast and this Japanese girl was fascinated by it and took pictures and had us write down what it was called. And then I put Mel's hair in rag curls, a little trick I learned from Molly McIntire. And then we made some more grilled cheese for dinner and were ready to paint the town red.

We got a little lost on our way though and ended up crossing some bridge into sketchtown Canada and had to call Bej for help. But eventually we found what we were looking for.

Canada is great.
The end.
For now.