well.

since my last entry in this blog, i have begun using facebook, extensively, and i find that it has in some ways replaced my blogging, because it is good for me to be encouraged to be pithy, and the reward in terms of feeling more connected to so many people in so many different spheres of my life is addictive.

somehow, in the past year, facebook has managed to swallow up so much of the general population that it’s network now includes: the more computer savvy members of my extended family, in both colorado and florida, which means many cousins whom i see once every couple of years, if i’m lucky; most of my friends from highschool and college, including people whom i have not really seen or heard from since, but liked at the time, and now i really appreciate having a window onto where their lives have led; designers and techie people whom i have met and/or worked with since going to grad school, and who are now dispersed; bloomington townies i knew and loved before ever going to IU, and have been anchored by since; and various other people i met while traveling in the UK, living in portland, becoming involved with burning man, and generally circling the western 2/3 of this country for the last two years, while keeping as many tops spinning as possible in order to figure out what the hell to do next.

that’s quite a list, when it comes down to it, and it makes facebook by far the easiest way for me to keep up with the world right now. better than email, better than the phone, better than christmas letters, better than blog posts that i always Wish i could find time to write but then never do…

facebook is like just being able to think of the title of a blog post, and then not actually having to say anything else about it, unless people prompt you, which is a really nice option for my brain. :)

and i do like the freedom to write more than a 140 character twitter update, and attach pictures and links, though as with any new freedom, a learning period wherein we all must learn what it means to be judicious with our powers is part of the deal.

i still like twitter, and i should use it more, but it only includes the hci/techie circle i mentioned above, and celebrities and companies and news sources, which is nice, but not nice enough to win over facebook, when i’m pressed for time.

when i explain twitter to people, i call it a virtual water cooler, and i think that facebook status updates have really grown into the potential of that concept. it’s like a network of water coolers, with one in every building of your life, from which you draw not water, but random sequences of interesting tidbits of news and commentary, from everyone you have ever known.

and friends who don’t know each other – who live in different countries even! – can meet through your comments!

and we are forced to choose which sorts of conversations we WANT to carry on this publicly, and which to have more privately — how much do we talk about what we Really did last weekend? or what we think about our boss? or who we are going to vote for? or what we think about our neighbors?

and what does our willingness or reluctance to be transparent about these things say about us?

it is fascinating.

and i am thrilled to be able to witness it, much less shape it.

it is an example of why i continue to err more on the side of technophilia than technophobia.

so…

find me on facebook if you want, k?
:)

i logged on here because i was reading old blog posts, and realizing how long it has really been since i wrote, and how i do enjoy the record of my life and thoughts that my blog provides me, regardless of whether other people enjoy reading it, so i should do my best to avoid letting the gaps get too large.

and i don’t know about you, but when i have trains of thought like that, i find it best to follow them through, which in this case, meant just hit “write post” and see what happens.

and now it seems that i have written a post about facebook, which is fine.
it really is the best answer to “so, where’ve you been?” when it comes to the part of me that lives in the blogosphere, so it’s as good a place to start as any. :)

it’s characteristically not pithy, however, so i’ll just have to come back later with updates about, you know, the part of me that lives in the real world. ;)

i know i say ‘i’ll say this later’ a lot, but eventually, i might just surprise us all.

one potential benefit of winning nanowrimo this year is that it will make a daily writing habit easier, so i just have to structure my time, and that’s kind of my focus right now with kwerk, so ding! winner!

oh, yeah! i just won nanowrimo! :)

remember two years ago when i first tried it and failed miserably after a week or so of nervous effort, and then went on a trip to florida wherein i barely wrote at all?

don’t worry, i don’t really remember it, either.

but i really did blog more in those days, didn’t i?
huh…

anyway, i’m kind of in shock about it this time, because it was too easy, and that means that i really have no excuse to not write a novel…

but that’s another post, too.

hasta.

i am hereby moving my camera into my purse even though it takes up too much room, because keeping it in my backpack clearly doesn’t do enough to ensure that i have it when i want it.

i got back last night from a little trip to palm beach, FL, where my mother is living now and where she was just officially ordained as a unitarian universalist minister after many years of preparation and hard work. the ceremony was a big success, and it was nice to see and hear so many people telling my mom how cool she is, because they are right. :)

congratulations, reverend momma. i am proud of you.

[insert touching photograph here]

it was fun to see both of my parents – my dad flew down for the weekend and i realized that i hadn’t seen him in nearly two years! – and i am going to colorado and then florida again during the holidays, so there will be more time to catch up, which is good.

i also enjoyed seeing the ocean, and floating in it for a little while yesterday morning before we ate lunch and headed to the airport to send me back west. i have been to the pacific ocean a couple of times this year but i swear that the water in florida is warmer and bluer in november than the water in southern california even under the august sun, and the shells on the beach push some buttons that giant seaweed creatures still don’t quite reach, as much as i love them and as much as i learn to appreciate the beauty of rugged, rocky pacific views.

[insert super blue ocean shot here, followed by fun close-up of the broken shell section of the beach where i made little mosaics for a while]

the autumn weather in portland has made me hesitant to make too many rain jokes, lest i reinforce false stereotypes or tempt bad weather sprites to teach me to be careful what i ask for, but last night i flew in to heavy fog and drizzling rain, which continues today, so perhaps winter is starting to stake its claim on the PNW. flying into PDX at night is kind of a ripoff because you can’t see any of the mountains, which are absolutely stunning from the air. i had a window seat on both flights this time, too, and it was fun to fly over cities at night and try to guess where we were. it’s actually quite hard. i started wondering whether, as we enter the age of satellite photography on every desktop, a new dimension of urban planning will emerge to play with how we look from above.

so now i’m back, WAY behind on nanowrimo, and confronting the task of gathering and/or redistributing my portland material footprint before i head out for a while. i am both glad to be here and glad to be in motion. the west coast has set some deep hooks in me over the past eight months, and now i begin the task of determining which lines i want to sever and which i want to continue to play out, no matter which ocean i swim in next.

tonight lauren and tif celebrate their november birthdays and some time in the next day or so victor returns from his bowling and supercomputing convention, at which point he may or may not have energy for portland adventures that will most likely involve neither. and sharon and i are inventing a tofurky dance. and chakra wants me to make a pie. and there may be another boat? and i might be hijacking jonathan’s car?

hello, friday. another cup of coffee, anyone?

a feature of the first ten years of my childhood was this: i wanted a dog. we had cats for pretty much my whole life, but a dog? dogs were a different story. dogs, my parents liked to remind me, were a big responsibility. dogs required committment. and committment required work.

at some point when i was 7 or so, my parents struck me a deal: keep your room clean for six months, and you can have a dog. i know this sounds ridiculous now, but at the time it was pretty much like telling me to find the lost city of atlantis. i was never one of those kids who let food rot under feet of old garbage or anything, but i was definitely a creator of clutter. it drove my mother crazy but she persevered in letting it be my space and my decision, the only requirement being that there had to be a clean path from the bed to the door, in case of fire.

i don’t really know how many times i tried to live up to my end of this deal, nor how many times i tried to squeak out of it, but time passed and brought us to the spring of 1990, shortly before i was to turn 11, and my room had been clean for long enough that my dad got excited and went looking for a dog on his own, so victory was assured. and so it was that, right around my 11th birthday, we brought a tiny australian shepherd puppy into our home, and we named her morgan.

we have a picture from those first few weeks where i am holding her in such a way that she fits entirely within the nook of my forearm, and i wish i had that picture here so i could scan it and show it to you. alas, we must settle for a picture from years later, when morgan and i both lived in bloomington for a while, and she retained the playful spirit of her youth even as she began to show the first signs of old age:

morgan was, by all rights, a better dog than she should have been. my parents were right, of course, about dogs being a lot of work, and morgan was a very high energy dog. aussies are whip smart, and as i learned in the research project i did on them in school the year after we got her (it was exciting to have a dog!), they run miles and miles a day when they are actually put to work chasing sheep around. morgan never got this chance (i don’t think there were doggie daycares that offer sheep as a scheduled activity back then), and while she was always well cared for and we did our best to give her “something to think about” (as my mom always put it), she still deserved more time and energy and space than we could usually offer her. nevertheless, she was always happy, playful, and friendly.

unless you were the ups man. she never really understood that whole ringing the doorbell and then not coming in to say hi bit. :)

anyway, as you have most likely deduced, i am writing this post because morgan died today. she has been living with my mom and lloyd in florida, where she still enjoyed walking and sniffing the swampy air, happy in the silent world where she has lived for the past few years since her hearing began faltering. i think she finally thought that she showed the world who was boss and got it to shut up for good. :)

since the last time i saw her – right before i left for scotland last fall – her vision also worsened and the arthritis in her joints progressed steadily, to the point where it was very difficult for her to stand up or lie down. she remained her happy self nevertheless, taking some pain medications and still getting excited for her walks, until just a few days ago when, according to my mother, she stopped eating, began refusing her medications, and lost interest in getting up to go outside. my mom and lloyd did their best to offer her everything she might need, but her message seemed quite clear, and today we decided to help her go to sleep for the last time as painlessly and smoothly as possible. the vet came out to my mom’s house, and my mom says that it was easy and morgan seemed relaxed and comfortable at the end. she was a very respectable 17 years old.

there are a lot of stories that could be told about morgan, and i’m sure i will be telling them for years to come, but for now i will just recount the first time i realized how freaking smart she was, which was only a day or two after we brought her home. she was a tiny puppy, and very bouncy, and she spent a lot of time sleeping. we bought her a bed which we set up in my room, and we brought her to it after it was all set up. we played a little game where we said “morgan, go to bed!” and then put her in it to show her it was hers. we didn’t expect her to remember this; it was just to get us in the habit of repetition and consistency. that night, however, as we grew tired, my dad said something like “well, i guess it’s about time to go to bed!” whereupon morgan perked up her little ears and started clambering up the stairs. my dad and i looked at each other in astonishment, followed her, and sure enough, she had gone straight to bed, and was curled up happily inside.

she was a very good girl, right from the beginning, and we all wish her a peaceful, well-earned sleep.

busy times since my last post. my mom just left this morning after a visit of a week and a half, and we spent some time romping around oregon and some time just hanging out in my apartment, which was nice. my unexpected unemployment was a boon for the visit, as it felt pretty much like a bonus vacation in my own town.

during one particularly memorable trip around the city we ended up down on the banks of the willamette, talking to a guy who had constructed a hurdle course for himself out of driftwood, and watching the boats go by. i walked down to see what the hurdle guy was up to and he chatted with us between circuits until we eventually had a whole conversation going about life, literature, and the similarities between the south and italy, which i found very amusing. i poked around on the bank as my mom and he chatted their own topics, and i ended up taking on a small cleanup project because i was overwhelmed by the amount of plastic that was washing up on the shore. but that’s a whole nother post. i think i’m making an art project out of it.

for this post, i will just say that i ended up wading in the river up to my waist and failing to keep my skirt dry, which also meant that i failed to keep my cell phone dry, though i didn’t realize this until we started walking back to the MAX and i was feeling around in my pockets to assess the damage. my phone ended up fritzing out a bit as a result, and for three days went into “car kit” mode, which the internet tells me is a secret LG code for “damn fool got this phone Wet – not covered by warranty!” it also meant that i could only talk on it with a headset, which was pretty damn annoying because i don’t have one. so i spent a few days in text only mode.

eventually it dried out and started working again, but the battery now runs down very quickly and it still seems a little flaky, so it seems the time has come to explore new candidates for cellular companionship. it’s kind of funny seeing as i had been considering hopping on the iphone train as a celebration of my new employment, but then decided against it as a recognition of my new unemployment and the fact that my phone worked just fine, so now i don’t know how to interpret the signs. when i told all this to erik, he said “visual voicemail!!” but i am resisting such temptations, at least for the moment…

anyway, that was a bit more detail than necessary, but moral of the story is: good week! sorry if you couldn’t call me!

on sunday i turned 28 years old, and my mom and i took a lovely daytrip through nearby outdoor oregon. we drove up the gorge and hiked the little 2 mile loop at waclella falls, which was bustling yet agreeably less overcrowded than multnomah falls, and quite enjoyable – an easy yet engaging meander through the gorge that leads to a booming faucet of a waterfall. waclella pours forth from the cliffs into a deep, luminescent pool: large enough to feel somewhat imposing yet with enough of a rocky rim to allow you to get in close, breathe in the spray, and lose some time in the thundering stillness. thanks to mikey mike for the tip, received on saturday as we helped to celebrate sue’s promotion to the role of stay-at-home mom. yay sue and verl and full summer weekends!

after the falls, we kept driving east to hood river and watched the windsurfers for a bit, then came back via mt. hood, stopping for some roadside cherries and driving up to the timberline lodge above govt. camp for the views. the day was obligingly clear, unlike last time i drove through the forest, and hood showed itself off quite nicely. my camera battery was dead but my mom took some pictures. i’m trying to talk her into putting them on flickr, and i’ll let you know if i succeed.

in other birthday news, i would like to officially welcome brandon bartee to the world, and say that being born on a sunday, july 1 at roughly 11 at night is a pretty good deal, or at least it’s worked out well for me so far, and i’m honored to share such statistics with the first child of one of my dearest friends. it’s a crazy but beautiful place you got yourself into, kid, and i hope i get the chance to help you figure some of it out. :)

first off, it’s kind of fun to have your birthday smack dab in the midst of a season of barbecues, fireworks, and strawberries, so live it up!! this year, you should probably just focus on not letting the fireworks freak you out, since you’ll get them on your half birthday as well (don’t worry, i don’t expect you to do the math yet, i’ll just tell you – your half birthday is new year’s day!) so i advise learning to embrace them. it’ll suck for a while to have your birthday in the middle of the summer because a lot of your friends will be on vacation, but trust me, it’ll all even out. your parents have a full six months to recover from christmas and you get solid summer and winter gift seasons, so it’s a pretty good deal.

i told your mom i would look up the story of canada day, which actually occurs on our birthday, and for some reason i had this idea that it had only happened since the 80’s, even though canada is older than that. turns out it has only been called canada day since 1982, before which it was known as dominion day, and not that widely celebrated. apparently the alliterative appeal did not outweigh the awkwardness of cheering on the idea of dominion, so better to have the holiday only one letter away from a popular brand of ginger ale. this is actually a rather telling illustration of the difference between our nation and our neighbors to the north. i imagine that americans would get a kick out of a holiday called dominion day.

instead, however, we have plain ol’ independence day, and that will always overshadow your birthday in good ways and bad. people will already be committed to parties on the nearby weekends, but there will also often be a long weekend, and sometimes you can get bigger parties out of combining the two, which is a score.

on the whole i think it’s good to be prompted to contemplate our country’s growth so close on the heels of contemplating our own, but i also think it’s good to not cram too many topics into one blog post, so this morning i will end my birthday missive and leave us each to our own pursuits. you take milk; i’ll get strawberries.

so, small partly because he has been so kind in praising my own blogging (i mean, let’s be honest about our motivations, right? :), and large partly because he just kicks ass on his own, i’ve been enjoying kevin’s recent additions to planet info, and today i distracted myself a bit by poking around on his blog site, which is much richer than just the planet info feed.
he and amy both blog there, about all kindsa stuff, and seem to have been doing so for a fair while.
neat.
the snippet that compelled me to blog about the discovery was this one, which is really freaking hilarious.

the other thing, though, is a bigger issue i think about sometimes: can you imagine what it will be like when kids today grow up and have access to such potentially rich archives of so many of the random moments that made their parents laugh and cry? i mean, we tend to remember a Few of these moments no matter what, and they become the stories that we use to fill in gaps at family gatherings and meet-the-parents events for the rest of time. that will probably never stop happening, but now there is potentially going to be all this other stuff, too, this record of moments that we otherwise probably would have forgotten because it was either “that one time the baby accidentally spoke in bulgarian” or “how to drive the car” and, well, sometimes we have to make tough choices…
now, though, there is this lurking monster of jotted down moments, searchable and indexable, just waiting to inspire both mortification and gratitude in turn.
it might be a little messy, but i think it’s pretty awesome, and perhaps revolutionary in terms of what it will do to the way we relate to our personal histories.

ya think?

i voiced a thought like this the other day when erik, josh, and i were talking about leta (and wishing her all the luck and happiness in the world), so when it came up again a bit closer to home it reminded me to write about it.

and so i did.

the end.
now go read kevin’s blog!

today i cleaned the kitchen, started tidying the living room, bought some flowers for the table, and talked with my mom about my capstone.
i have had a few really good conversations this week about my ideas, but i’m still having a really hard time boiling them down to the key points when i sit down to write, and it’s frustrating. i start in on one thing and then it makes me think about seventy-five other things and i get all tangled up in myself and can’t figure out how to tie things together.
i told my mom this and she said i should just write a sentence or two for each of the key pieces and build from there, which is what everyone says (including me), but i have even been struggling with that because it’s hard for me to figure out where one idea ends and another begins, so what starts out as one sentence turns into a paragraph and a half and i eventually just throw my hands in the air and give up. i have been slowly making progress anyway by forcing myself to focus, but it still feels a lot like sludging through thick mud.
my mom said that i had done a good job of articulating the points while we were talking, and i said thanks, but the problem is that the talkie brain doesn’t always cooperate with the writey brain, so i was still worried about what would happen when i sat down before the page or screen. she offered to mirror what she heard back to me, which i thought was a great idea, but i had to go to the commencement dinner ceremony, and i was worried about running up my daytime minutes on my phone.
so i asked her if she would write the points up in an email and send them to me, and she said sure thing.
then when i got home from dinner, there was this wonderful summary of the conversation in my inbox, and suddenly the day feels really productive.
it’s not exActly right, but i have to do Something to earn my degree, right? ;)

it is really cool to have a mom who’s so willing to go the extra mile to help me figure out what i’m figuring out, and so i just thought i’d say so.
also, she’s shy about starting to blog herself, so i figure i’ll give her a little head start by adding her contribution to the public record of my capstone thinking.
hopefully, she won’t mind my sneakiness too much. :)

before you read any more, though, look at my pretty graduation flowers!

thanks, momma.
:)

(more…)

so, in my family, we don’t really have a traditional christmas dinner. we stick pretty close to the books for thanksgiving – the small child in me does not feel like everything is right with the world if there is not stuffing, or green beany glop, or pumpkin pie (turkey and sweet potatoes are nice too, but if i have the others, i am appeased). but after those cravings are knocked out in november, it’s really up in the air what will happen for christmas. we Have made another turkey, especially when my dad’s old work used to give everybody one as a holiday bonus, and we Have made ham, i’m pretty sure. but at the end of the day, the only real requirement is that we have something special. last year, i think we had buffalo steaks, and this leek and wild mushroom stuffing that i wanted to try out, and the hands-down best asparagus that can be made in 15 minutes or less (and a good contender for the best in any time period, so go make some… now!).

this year, we hadn’t really thought about it until yesterday. nobody really had a hankering for poultry of any variety, or for anything else for that matter. lloyd offered to make lasagna, which is nice, but it didn’t seem quite right to me, and when i said so, i was given the job of finding a replacement.

fair enough.

i decided that we should have trout, because that seemed like a good thing to make while i was back in colorado, and, well, because it sounded good. i hadn’t had trout in a long while.
i poked around online, getting some use out of this recipe search engine that i had discovered a couple of weeks ago and had been waiting for a chance to try. it served me pretty well, and i picked out a menu that made me quite excited:

• Trout with Haricots Verts (that means green beans) and Almonds
• Baked Mushrooms with Brazil Nut Stuffing
• Wild Rice and Toasted Almond Pilaf
• Popped Cranberry Tarts

in case you’re interested in a glimpse of my current del.icio.us playground, that list is also available here.

the tarts were far and away the hardest part, and they were really only time-consuming – i had to make the crust and the cream filling last night because they both had to chill. today they were easy as, um… tarts!

next hardest were the mushrooms, and they were really only a little annoying – they require one to grind up a cup of brazil nuts.
that’s a cup of nuts, in addition to the butter and the cream… i’m going to file those little suckers away in case anyone ever asks me to define ‘decadent.’ and on that note – david, consider this my first (pressure-free, as always) suggestion for an appetizer for next year’s dgp. they might pack a punch equivalent to a slice of cheesecake, but i can’t say they don’t make an argument for being worth it… damn.

on the whole it was blissfully easy for how fancy it sounds – i will make the trout in less than a half-hour, any day of the week, for anyone who will buy the ingredients (i would say the same for the rice but that shiznit takes a long time to cook, so we’d need to plan ahead a bit more). i am quite pleased with how well things turned out, and my family was very gracious in agreeing with that assessment. everyone seemed happy, my dad did the dishes, and we still have to eat the tarts! (hopefully i won’t curse that experience by writing this while everything else digests a little, but i’m thinking they’ll be ok, and it’s Not because i already ate some of the berries, and some of the custardy filling, and some of the crust…)

so christmas ends, and so chanukah begins.
i shall raise a glass of wine to that.
[clink]

oh! and santa brought me a sweet little chef’s knife, so it was even fun to chop the onions.
seriously.
this knife is Sharp.

now let’s see if i can muster the energy to finish a post i’m writing about narnia, shall we?

after 5 airport hours, 4.5 airplane hours, 2 car hours and a bonus hour driving in circles around DIA eating fritos with my dad while we waited for my mom (who was supposed to only be 10 minutes behind me), only to finally discover that her baggage didn’t leave philadelphia after her layover (groan), i am now settled into colorado springs for the next leg of the holidays ’05 tour.
though it sounds horrific when i list it out like that, and though my mom’s lost luggage is a hassle, i really had a great trip myself. the unbelievable luck that i haven’t written about yet continued (no one has been in the seat beside me on any leg of my journey so far [pause for jaw-dropping]. it’s astonishing, and i have now probably cursed myself for the one leg remaining by talking about it. i’ll get a fat guy holding a screaming baby in a “don’t blame me, my daddy voted for w” onesie, with a yippy dog shoved under the seat for good measure… oh well), and i had no troubles making my connection, finding something to eat in indy, or keeping myself occupied. my mp3 player didn’t even run out of batteries, even though i listened to it most of the way to florida and then forgot to charge it while i was there. i also figured out how to stop it from skipping or pausing even when i have the ‘hold’ switch on, which has been mystifying me for weeks (turns out there are Two hold switches – one on the player itself and one on the remote), so that thing gained some points for itself in two categories.

all that aside, though, the truth of the matter is that i just flat out like traveling. not just the going places and seeing things part (though sure, i like that, too), but the actual transit. i like the bubble of perspective that surrounds me as soon as i leave my normal sphere of activity. i like the abundance of watchable people, the excuse to just sit and soak them in, the reminder that the world is so much larger than my daily concerns. i like the reflective mood i lapse into, the time to think without feeling like i’m supposed to be doing other things, the license to indulge in special snacks and as many forgotten paperbacks or crossword puzzles that i can fit in the time allotted. travel is tiring and time-consuming, but the very annoyance of it makes it excusable to spend the time however we please as long as we follow the signs and sit in the right places at the right times, and i guess my brain does well with that particular ruleset from time to time.

i also like traveling back two time zones, going straight to bed, sleeping for what feels like forever, and then getting up to find that it’s not even 9 o’clock.
:)
that rules.

now i’m gonna call the silly voice-recognition baggage-locator for my mom because it keeps redirecting her into the ether and she’s up to here with it.

the blurry picture of florida is developing pretty well so far.
i’ve been having fun hanging out with my family – i’ve already seen almost everyone and it feels pretty natural, which i was a bit worried about because i haven’t been down here in a while. we hung out, made dinner, played with the little bat dog (she’s one of these), passed around the puzzle i bought at the game preserve in the indy airport, walked around looking at christmas lights, played with diet coke and mentos (not quite at this level, but something definitely happened, we looked up some of why, and we’re going to try again later), and played on the computer(s). there is wireless internet, and my cousin travis proved quite adept at fiddling with it so that i can share the wealth, so that’s a nice bonus. it is also nice that my brain has agreed to install the update that makes it actually believe that travis aged past the age of 7, because that kind of thing can be awkward and annoying if it persists past the point where you are interacting with the person in question.
:)

they think it’s cold here, but it’s not.

now i guess we’re going to run a few errands, and this afternoon we might go see the lion, the witch and the wardrobe.
i imagine that i’ll be back with other stories later on, but i thought it’d be good for the record to show that things are going well.

you may have noticed that i have posted only frippery for a few days now.
this is because i have been engulfed in the blogosphere and the places to which it leads me, and it’s a little embarrassing how little else i have done with my last few days in Bloomington for 2005. i mean, i did get Some work done, i have some end-of-semester thoughts that i should probably post, i am (almost) packed for the plane tomorrow, and i spent some time with friends, so it’s not as bad as it could have been, but…
i’m still feeling a bit dazed

if you don’t know the story, i’m flying to orlando tomorrow to spend some time with the parts of my family that live there. these parts are grandmother (1), grandfather (1), step-grandmother (1), great aunt (1), aunt (1), uncle (2), uncle’s girlfriend (1), cousin (3), cousin’s small children whom i have never met (3).
i think that’s about it…
it should be nice really, so i’m a little ashamed to admit that i’m not really looking forward to it all that much. i’m sure it will make more sense when i’m there, but right now it feels kind of strange because i don’t quite know what it will be like, and so whenever i try to take a snapshot of my mood on the matter i just see some fuzzy blobs that i’m not really sure how to interpret. it Could be some QT with the fam-damily, but it could also be a series of stilted interactions strung together by phrases like “so! whatterya up to these days? infor… whatsit called again?” and peppered with feelings of guilt over being so disconnected and confusion about what should be done about it.
this uncertainty makes part of me wish for the much clearer picture of a few more days of relaxing and enjoying the end of the semester with friends in indiana, and then off to colorado for christmas. as it is, i have to pack for two trips instead of one (i’m going to colorado directly from florida), and i don’t really feel ready for either.

oh well.

i don’t know what the internet situation is going to be like in florida, but i’ll take notes, and be back before you probably even notice i’m gone
;)

now my laundry has stopped, so i’m going to finish that packing and head for bed.