Quotes Mix-n-Match!

First one to get it right gets a prize of their choice? Sure, we'll do that.

1. “It never was 1980! Not even in 1980!”
2. “Your hair is like a sunset after a bomb went off… pretty.”
3. “Four hundred years ago on a Tuesday….”
4. “My mother defriended me on facebook! My own mother!”
5. “There’s always a boy in Madison.”

a. Saswato R. Das, writing for the New York Times
b. Some rando-dude at the bar (scooters, ‘cause i was with Bryan)
c. Terry Bellefleur of [True] Blood
d. The lovely Lauren S.!
e. Me.  ¶ 21:36 0 comments

  Me: "What wouldn't you do for $200/day?"
Sar'ivy: "Eat a Klondike bar!"

August, concisely:
got laid off, ran back home.

August, more fully:
Went to Mexico for an afternoon with Elyse & didn't get shot (Anton thinks that all one does in Mexico is get shot... good thing they're building a house 45 miles from there!), decided on a bridesmaid's dress for Elyse & Anton's wedding, got the phone call from the office 'letting me go,' as they say, got random pity-groceries from Elyse, couchsurfed in Las Cruces, visited Jeremy in Hobbs, visited Allison & Jason & alpacas in Las Vegas, camped (poorly) in Nebraska, and made it home just in time for Megan's bachlorette party only to fall asleep exhausted instead.

So, in sum, the entirety of the previous two months of traveling was unnecessary-- and definitely cost too much--but i can't imagine it any other way. The steam off of Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone, the sunset over Bellingham Bay, geckos in the desert, alpacas in the mountains, duststorms that made me believe in 1934 in Colorado.

And finally, arriving in Wisconsin once again.

The swamps by Wabasha up here seemed lavish after the desert. Water is a bigger blessing than any of us up here could realize... and i read Cadillac Desert, like, a decade ago, and i'm still internalizing it. It rained here last night, the dampness seemed foreign after all that blazing tan heat. Foreign, wonderful, and faintly how it should always be.

Being laid off really isn't as awful as i would have thought. It's weird, i did panic a bit of course, but on the whole i've been fine with it. Basically i've been in much worse positions before, and even with the economy stuff going down i'm not too worried about finding another thing to do.

i have:
--a car
--a laptop
--prescription sunglasses
--almost a year of worthwhile work experience
--the ability to pack up at a moment's notice
--the knowledge that i can put up with almost any situation that presents itself
--substantial progress on the student loans
all things i didn't have a year ago. And after all that traveling, i have a good idea of where in the country i could live and be fine, and a much smaller dedication to any one geographic location--as long as a city nearby is big enough for me to take lessons of some sort, i'm good. And it should have trees. And really, what did i like about my job other than it was a job? Um, not too much. Paychecks/experience==awesome; lifestyle/locale==thesuckage.

Geography feels both much more arbitrary and important at this point. On one hand, the people that i'm good friends with (Ratty, Dave, etc) i'll always talk to, on the other hand there really are things one can do in one place but not another (more sailing in Bham than NM, etc). i love WI more than i did when i originally left, but at the same time nothing ever changes here, so it kind of doesn't matter whether i'm participating in the shenanigans that go down. Mom keeps freaking out that RGE is moving all the way to the cities: but really: NOT THAT FAR AWAY DEAL WITH IT.

So i'm applying for jobs, researching grad schools, hanging out at the farm, biding my time till i make a decision about what to do next. [Though, of course, i drastically underestimated the amount of work that needs to be done on the farmhouse before i can do my stuff: We cleaned the kitchen today, and not only had mom never heard of Magic Erasers (THEY'RE MAGIC! ERASERS! OMG!), i had to go into town twice for random supplies. The dryer needs to be rewired so we can move it, but first the 'front' (actually back, wtf?) bedroom needs to be cleaned, but first we need more shelves & probably 12 trips to goodwill, and so on. So on until infinity, but on the plus side mom has applied for a house improvement loan of some sort, so if that happens we'll get new doors, redo the porches, and if the back porch isn't falling in it's the perfect place for rabbits, and she agreed to have angoras if she gets rabbits again (the conversation, i might add, went something like, Me: "Though angoras aren't the best fiber animal, they only make so much fur in a year..." Mom: "Well, that's fine, you only knit so fast!"). So yeah, the idea of staying in Stanley was to be left alone for a bit to catch up on my reading and internetting, and already i'm pretty sure i've moved more things than should actually exist. What is up with the farmhouse? Really? Their (mom+John's) 10-year anniversary is this week, and though the house is markedly better than a decade ago (i haven't discovered any dead person's dentures lately), it's still impressive how much should be done for it to be 'habitable.' Gr.]

In Orson Scott Card's Alvin Journeyman series, one of the characters is a 'torch' which in the series means she can see/read 'heartfires.' In the series, a heartfire is like a soul that changes over time, depending on the possibilities/inevitabilites in that person's life. Peggy (chick in books) can read them, and as things change in the books for the characters she sees new paths forming and old ones dying out, and there's a physical/visual aspect to how she talks about the heartfires. Lately i feel like my heartfire has so many options i'm an obnoxious pompom or chia pet or something, no options stronger/more inevitable than any other, maybe even to the point of being frayed. Will i get the watershed job in Ozaukee county? Will i move back to Bellingham? Will i go to grad school in Iceland, New Zealand, or Texas? Will i move to NM? Will i stay here and raise angoras and alpacas on the farm? Will i sail with the S/V Denis Sullivan again? Who effing knows? For a bit, with the vagabonding, i was going to travel until i found a place that caught me, like a fish in a net; and it didn't happen and i'm 'home' again and i don't even know if i should be settling in here for years to come or if i should be frantically planning my next foray away. Stupid pompom heartfire, never coalescing into one strong cord.

Good lord, a lot of stuff has happened since i got back home, it's been a week.5 already. But since the library's closing, i must get into that next time.

And man, i've been picking burrs out of my hair all day. But that's okay.

'and i drove out of there with no one behind me--feels so funny to be free'--IG--  ¶ 17:28 0 comments

  And just for the record, Ian did say that if the stars align, three or four of us may get a free trip to Ecuador. Just so we all know. i'm the stenographer, and he has three other job titles to fill in this hypothetical jungle future.  ¶ 01:23 0 comments

  "I saw a white man smiling at night!"
--Barbie on why her neighborhood is not a ghetto--

Leaving Oregon i kind of freaked out, and on the phone mom asked me if i had ever considered getting anxiety medication. To which i super freaked out--one may consider things all the time, but you need to be in one place for more than a few weeks at a time to do things like doctor's appointments. Oh, the irony. This reaffirms that the staying with mom, while probably not the fun choice, is the logical choice.

So i camped for a few days in northern California & couchsurfed in Fresno, and of course recovered. The main thing is i do have a plan, however arbitrary, for the next few weeks, and the other thing is i super love my friends. LOVE. After the camping days i found myself once again within range of 'civilization,' and upon checking my messages had missed calls from Allison & Gus; Allison with details on me working in NM, and Gus with an offer that i could chillax with her at her new place in Riverside if i want to. OMG, sometimes i can't even handle how my friends come through for me, because all i really need is worthwhile options.

But since i've already (re-?)decided that i will be at the wedding in two weeks, i need to continue on east for now. The next few weeks are so full of activity i can hardly contain myself.

So i've made it to Tucson once again, and have all my things together for the next branch of my neverending roadtrip. i'm staying with Sar'ivy tonight, and will see Elyse tomorrow, and hopefully we'll get my dress fitted for E/A's wedding and some books dropped off at Bookman's and so forth. Then onto Hobbs... Friday? and Las Vegas...Saturday? Something like that!

Also, the basin & range province is totally overrated. Yes, fascinating, the crust is thinning. You know what? Extension can happen in actually enthralling ways too... take that, b&r! i don't need you no more! Also permanence is underrated, pretty sure i love the Colorado plateau--you can, like, see its shadow in google earth and if that's not astonishing nothing is! No mortal over the age of 3 gets away with excessive repetitiveness, why does like 1,000 miles of the south think that shit's okay? Huh? (yes, Tony, i am being snarky about geol things that no one else actually has feelings on once again... but pretty sure i drove through the entire southern extent of the b&r province today, so i had ample time to reflect on this... and get really, really bitter about it.)

lost generations of readers/clouds like perfect maps  ¶ 00:43 0 comments