recession travel!

The boy and I had great timing with our Davey's-Wedding-Roadtrip 2k9 to avoid hearing anything more about the fucking swine flu. Holy cow. News is annoying.

Now he's back at work and I'm getting glared at by some holes (6, to be exact) in the wall where a shelf ripped out of the plaster. We're crafty, heh. The harder part is that I got to spend the last 4 days with him, we're back to working opposite schedules, and we're both not caught up on sleep. Post-vacay sucks.

Highlights:
Remembering that Philly's friends in Philly don't call her Phil, and correcting myself to say "Oh, I mean Chrissy" a lot.
Meeting her and Davey's other Chicago friends and completely bonding with everyone so we have new loves fo' life.
Catching up with a select few members of my high school crew <3 onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.genosteaks.com/php/ezgallery/image.php?album=9817&image=1215499155.jpg">Dancing to World/Inferno at a wedding. PUNX.
The rain stopped just long enough for great pictures and to avoid ruining all of our professional makeup jobs, ha.
More to come as remembered.

On a completely different note, I didn't get a job that I interviewed for because of my lack of experience. That wouldn't be as sad if I hadn't met people that I would have been working with and really liked them. On positive notes: I'm still wanted for other positions in this organization, AND wanting this so badly has made me realize how much I want to do social work. Good thing I've been out of college for a year and now realizing what I want to do with my life. Ha. More on this later.

When will my body catch up to the altitude, time zone, and sleep pattern change from this weekend?

Dear Kristin:

• Eat better. Scavenge more. Buy less. Basically get further away from the capitalist systems you disagree with but participate in because you're lazy. Stop supporting big business!
• Teach yourself everything you ever wanted to know. Change your oil without your dad's help. Build your new bike yourself. Learn sign language with Clare. You are not a school-type person and know all about "unschooling" (ala The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education, Grace Llewellyn), now do it!
• Find a job that makes you feel like part of the solution, not the problem.
• Write to Robin for tips on communal/collective living.
• Live more sustainably/energy efficient. I know you don't drive much, but you could still drive even less. Work with Kim to get our "bike legs" back! Convince Austin to turn off the air conditioner more in the summer. <3
• Get the compost pile going the RIGHT way this time. Convince neighbors/community to do the same. Community compost pile? Why not! It'll keep a lot of shit from going to landfills...
• Watch less TV! Do more yoga!
• Figure out where you're going to move in a year so you don't feel like you're going to die in Normal, IL.
• Get a bicycle community going for real. Spend less time on the Internet. (Was getting a blog counterproductive?)
• Start the Food Zine project and have more events like the Swap Meet Party. Those things make you feel really good about your world and you need more of that feeling.
  
• Stop being so goddamn tired all the time. Maybe this is for a health-not-lifestyle list. Either way, figure out what the deal is with that once and for all. It's keeping you from too much.
• Basically, stop being a couch radical.

This list might sound boring/pompous but it's for me, not you. I think you get the jist of what I'm thinking and now know what I'm working towards, more than you would with my vague first post. I'll leave with this writing from my sketchbook on 3/26:

"I haven't really written for years because I thought I had nothing to say...

...I found the love of a lifetime and have to squeeze in togetherness on
Thursdays and half of another day off and it makes me die a little bit inside.
Like being long distance all over again, but we live in the same house.

We should be traveling, visiting our friends, building things, building
community. Not striving for a bit of happiness in each day.

There's so much MORE out there.
More than wanting more than just existence.
And I'm gonna try to find it."