turn around our back on each other

OH MY GOD

if not THE greatest experience of my life, certainly in the top 10.




more to come...

well i was green and eager

its been just over a year since i first set off on my great adventure on wheels. a year is a very concrete and digestible measuring unit for time. i'd love to be able to quantify my change in the same way i can quantify the passage of time. what would my measuring units be? patience, surely. serenity? happiness? satisfaction? clarity? they wax and wane. i would love to be able to tell you all, to tell myself, truly and surely "_____ happened!" i would love to be able to fill in the blank and shout the resulting sentence to the heavens. problem is, i don't know exactly what happened, i just know something happened.

i could sit here (lay, rather) and write sentence after sentence of small ways i feel i am different. but these, in my mind, don't amount to the same feeling as when i say "it has been just over one year..." and that is what i am looking for. that feeling. that substance.

now it is late and books and bed are calling. before i go, i will have you realize, i do understand that while i am not able to write or measure a weighty change, it does not mean that one has not taken place.

when you're lucid you're the sweetest thing

a few snaps of my new hair for all y'all:











today was sleeping late, prairie dress dressing, radio station talking, marigold planting, seed spreading, sunshine soaking. tonight is a great hot shower and the may day house clean extravaganza. tomorrow is a rise early, country drive, antique fair kinda day. i hope the rain waters my flowers and then the sun shines bright and strong and makes everything grow good and green. i also hope i find a dress form at the fair tomorrow, and other treasures too, obv.

still working on my shaved ice techniques. i need to get on making some kind of syrup. my dad has already volunteered to be my guinea pig, so i just need to start concocting some actual flavors. any suggestions?

times a'wastin'! see y'all next time.

the great albany bowl-crawl part 4 - del lanes

the crawl continues!
christine was in miami for over a week, so we had to pause our adventure times, but now we are BACK IN ACTION!

tonight we continued the crawl at our old haunt, del lanes, in delmar, our HOMETOWN. this is the alley we both basically learned to bowl at, so we have sentimental feelings for this place. that being said, i will try to set those feelings aside and rate this place fair and square.

that being said, i have an EXCELLENT story about the following picture. when i was in 11th grade i decided to throw a "punk" show, and del lanes was my venue. i called this event (cleverly) "punk rock bowling" and it was a complete success. i had local bands play, and there were so many people there that the owner of this bowling alley gave me some money at the end (which wasn't part of the deal, and i think he gave me like $100 bucks) anyways, someone climbed the building and stole the bowling pin that was cut in half and mounted after the bowling ball in the sign below. that was TEN YEARS AGO. they still haven't replaced it? fine by me, i get to tell an excellent story about it.



we picked del lanes because they had an awesome deal: dollar shoes, dollar games, dollar sodas, dollar pizza slices. sweet!



ball selection was great and they had a plethora of 8-10 pounders. i went to the bar and got a giant blue moon for $4.75. all was set. we began our battle.



the lanes were packed, so i was a bit distracted, plus they were bumping some r+b hits which really had a negative effect on my game.

here are the scores:







so christine basically kicked my butt the entire time, save for the third game where we TIED! which is really pretty incredible. second game c got her highest score EVER. congrats christine! very impressive!







here's the snack bar, which was way more depressing than i remember it being. we didn't order any snacks so i can't really talk much about the quality.



all in all, not too shabby of a night, and it cost us $4 each! can't beat that!

price: 5
equipment: 4
snack bar: 2
bar bar: 3
character: 3
overall: 3.4

tomorrow may rain so i'll follow the sun

well hello and hi to y'all.
we had a burst of heat up here and boyyyy was it fine! it felt like july for 3 straight days and i drove around in the countryside a bit west of here with my windows down playing lovely sparkling summer music and grinning ear to ear. decided to take a drive to minneapolis this summer and i am quite looking forward to that and finally getting to milwaukee! fonzie bronze statue! mostly excited for the road. the speed. the green of this country. and dairy queen, duh.

paid off my credit card debt today and i feel free! so excellent to not have that looming like my own personal grey cloud raining negative signs on me all the time. i went ahead and paid all my outstanding bills as well. a nice tax return will give you that power. now i am free to think of my future plans without taking into account all the money i owe someone else.

toying around with the idea of selling shaved ice. i bought an ice shaver but it seems to be a piece of crap so i just ordered another one on amazon. going to try this one tomorrow with the actual ice disks instead of just regular ice cubes, if it still sucks i'm returning it. expect nice treats from me all summer. nummmmm.

i am planting lots of lovely green things daily. i need to start putting my seedlings outside during the days to get them used to real live nature instead of my laundry room. trial and error is a funny way to play this game, but its the only way. of course i read stuff about gardens here and there, but i think its best to trust my inner grower in this case and see what happens. the land still isn't ready for transplanting so i might just grow giant pumpkins in pots all summer (no, this wont really happen). i also planted all different kinds of shrubs, perennials, and annuals in the beds outside my front door. looking forward to seeing what happens there as well. living in green-land sure has its perks and lately, with my self-imposed moving date in sight, i am having pre-regrets about leaving the country. can i really live in harmony with sidewalks again? everywhere i look i see green and its like lavender ice cream for my soul. i wish i could find the happy medium. or a husband. BOTH! please both.

about now i am thinking it is time to read a bit of cheever (oh, sweet dear cheever) and enjoy the bliss that is my bed. fyi, everyone is invited to my piece of green. just give a holler.

the sun will always shine where you stand

here's something i don't understand:
its illegal to euthanize a person, even though they can communicate in a language we understand that they may want to end their life, but is completely legal and widely practiced to euthanize an animal who cannot communicate in the formal sense with humans.

i'm not really sure which side of this i think is worse. i'm pretty gutted my cat was put to sleep today, and, if it was really necessary that this happen, that i wasn't there to see him out of life. he is now buried in the garden in a cardboard coffin. we planted two yellow lily plants on top of him. i keep thinking about him all dead and curled up inside a weird box and its making me so sick. what a good dude. bless his little still heart.

warm as saxophones and honey in the sun for you