It's amazing

How much happier and stronger I am now than I was before. I've learned so much about the world from being out here. Being on my own and being at college is a part of it, being so far away from home is a part of it, and living in a culture so different from what I always knew is a part of it.

I'm not that wild and I don't like drinking. I spend a lot of my free time cooking. I go to the library almost every week and I do all my schoolwork and I don't care what people think of me. I'm becoming more like how I was when I was little, and I think that is a good thing.

Spooky was very well behaved at the vet's and hopefully her tapeworm will be all gone soon. We tried to put her leash on her to take her there since we don't have a cat box but she did the cutest/saddest thing. She would just stand there and refuse to move when her leash was on, looking all scared and uncomfortable, and we tried to pat her and reassure her but she would just be a little immobilized cat. So we gave up on the leash.

Yesterday in Seattle we saw this little Boston terrier and it rolled over and wanted tummy scratches. Speaking of cute.

I've needed a lot of tummy rubs myself lately. I've had a stomach ache for pretty much the last three weeks or so. Or maybe the last three years. One or the other or maybe both. Not sure what's up with that, should probably figure it out or something.

I hate that I say tummy. I used to hate that word but it seems I've picked it up from the hatchery. I am turning into a baby.

I wonder what my work schedule will be next quarter. I'm going to miss the littles.

Thinking about the future is scary. What am I going to DO? But I try to not let myself worry about it because I don't believe in worrying.

I have had it up to here with this obsession with image and status and materialism. So sick of it all. Like, the amount of money people spend on their makeup and their hair and their clothes and themselves. I'm so done! I'm done with it! Spending money to take care of the insides is okay with me because I value taking care of health, these are the only bodies we've got, but I look around and see all this money spent on the outsides and it's really freaking me out. Sure, maybe it's evolutionary to care about outsides, but isn't it time we used these brains of ours to figure out that what people look like does not matter?

I know other people will care about what I look like, but I don't think that means I have to care too.