Love the party, hate the scene.

The cats are back home after having to "fog" our house to kill the ants. Kinda stressful, but good in the way that emergencies can make you feel warm and fuzzy inside when your friends will take in 3 pets around town last minute.

Austin and I were both off today to spring clean... unpunx, I know. We really were slipping on the house though. Plus our one-year move in date is coming up soon; that's probably a good time to actually sweep under the couches, eh?

At least I have a good home situation. I love my home, my community of friends, our bike shop garage. May brings some worries as we'll be losing Das Fun Haus, Porch Honkey, and Thundy House all at the same time. That leaves the Kitchen, which is good, but not much else in the way of places to have shows. I'm sure Fixed Maquis will start riding/working on bikes again soon too; that's something else to look forward to.

Friday night knocked my socks off so hard that I'm still reeling in happiness from it. I did show up underdressed for Inferno; what was I thinking? Met new kids, saw old friends, our first adopted son met our new one and I still don't know how that went... ha. Security tried to pull a boy off the stage and Jack Terricloth pushed the guard away and pushed the boy into a stagedive. Beautiful. Inferno always keeps me going, even though my 2 dear friends who introduced me to them didn't show. How do we go almost 2 years without seeing each other, but I'm still going on a roadtrip to your wedding? That's true friendz.

On that note: I will always keep my faith in humanity remembering the friends that you can go years barely speaking to, but everything picks up right where you left off when you see each other again. Sometimes it's a little harder to have this faith after a bad day at work.. ha.. but it still keeps me going when I worry that I'm losing touch.

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."

manifesto?

It's no secret that I graduated a year ago and don't know what the fuck I'm doing with my life.

I have this theory that if I let everyone know my goals and what I'm trying to change, they will ask me about them when we run into each other and keep me inspired and on track and keep me from avoiding the changes that will be hard.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the first Defiance, Ohio song I ever heard: Why am I angry? What am I searching for? Is it a better way to live? - and I realize, that's exactly what my problem is.

This blog is going to be about me finding a better way to live my life, stopping my participating in the things that make me feel angry and helpless in my decisions, growing towards a life where I can be proud of my actions and not think that if I died tomorrow I would leave behind a wasted life.

I want my friends and family to be part of these discussions, to keep me going through the hard parts, to ask me how it's going and to get involved in projects together.

Big plans are building up in my heart. A combination of lists from my sketchbook will follow soon.