Sickn' Tired

Hey everybody. I am so sick it's disgusting.

I think it might have something to do with swimming in the hot chlorinated sun two days ago. Ever get sick after a long day in the sun?? Well I certainly did. And no fun it is. Now I'm listening to the cheesiest Sarah Brightman music ever and feeling weird and restless after a bad nap with scary dreams.

I tried to watch Indiana Jones, I tried to play World of Warcraft, I ate a huge dinner, I canceled my barbecue plans and dinner with Alanna plans, and I might call in sick at work tomorrow all on account of this weird inner-hot dryness that's sickened me o'er. These things creep up on us so suddenly!

So if I die before I wake, well, I will all my valuables to you guys! Matt gets my screen. Joey you can have the TV. Um, that's about all my valuables!

My mind wants to get out on the town and see people and do things- but my body knows better and is yelling at me to stay home.

I'm lonely. There's nobody here. I wish someone would take care of me in this grossness. Ahh well, I'll find something to do. Maybe I'll read.

"She may not remember me, but I re-mem-ber her."-cheesy Sarah Brightman CD

trail of ghosts

charleston south carolina. as soon as you drive into the downtown area all you can see are grand old houses and giant oak trees and verandas with potted plants and people talking in the shade. the houses themselves and the narrow streets and the great trees make you feel a little like you are in 1850. then you see college kids, walking in twos or threes, boys in baseball caps and cargo shorts and jaunty windblown hair, girls in jersey knit 80s style dresses and strappy flat sandals and smooth blond hair, all headed toward some party and talking in southern accents which never fails to sound charming unless it is too loud and drunken.

strange to be in such a historical place that, despite its beauty, i do not want to romanticize too much because you have to remember what all this was built on: slavery. enslaved human beings. here in the south you can never forget that. it doesn't seem so very long ago. there is an unease in the thick humid air. although people are altogether friendly and welcoming and careful with each other. here in this part of the city i don't see many black people. it is all college kids and rich southern whites (parents? anne rivers siddons? descendants of settlers and plantation owners?) going around in fancy clothes and suits and springtime hats to the theater or out to eat and being charming and using impeccable manners that are so deliberate you can't help to wonder what is beneath all that.

stranger still to be in a historical place with all these implications and have the people all around you be blithe young white college kids who are in their own little world and seem oblivious to the haunted city around them. this city is called "the holy city." because of all the old churches, whose tall steeples and spires make up the skyline, between the rivers and out to the sea.

i am so glad to be able to explore our country and feel like a tiny little part of it all. and here in the south in a weird way (and this is simply pride talking) darin and i are unique and i feel good about that. scared too, because i think more people should be sort of like us no matter how conceited that sounds, i think you know what i mean, but i guess what i have to remember is that you cannot judge a book by its cover. and even here, where money and family names and old greed and power are still so tangible and vital, i have to remember that all these people are doing their best to live out through that history and maybe even make positive changes.

so i haven't even written about savannah georgia which is similar to this town only the college there is an art and design school so all the young people walking around look a tad bit more "bohemian" or tybee island where we spent the night in a beachside village and did our laundry and drank beers and walked out on the beach.

when we get home if anyone wants to know more details, you guys can read my trip journal/scrapbook thingie. i write in it every single day. some details get left out, and some inane details get added that i wonder about later. like no one needs to know where we went to pee first thing in the morning or whatever. but i get obsessive about details sometimes, at moments when i should be paying attention to the place more and not ourselves in it.

i am missing you all and imagine you guys all the time, what you're doing and how you are and how much you'd like various parts of our travels. we are headed up to myrtle beach today. big vacation spot (maybe not our cup of tea) and then over to north carolina tomorrow.

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

I dont fall in love with characters

I fall in love with actresses.

Common themes here:

1 - Years of singularity in terms of relationship-status.
2 - Extremely selective taste in women (leads friends/family to question sexual orientation).
3 - Of selected extremes, the few emergent females are predominantly actresses.
4 - This predominance, like science, interweaves between everything else in my life.

So what am I learning?

I am on a quest. A big one. The superceding massive quest, one tying together all my desires for acting, my love for education, my lust for genuine care-freedom, my social interactions every day-

"do not, for one repulse, forget the purpose you mean to effect"

And I never have. I moved to Santa Cruz for that purpose. I plowed through school with it. Standing in front of every auditioner with it ringing behind my ears. Every delivery it rings. Every blog and poem, it's ringing. Right now, last night, tomorrow, Jurassic Park, Lauren Moore, J.R.R. Tolkein, Financial Aid, plays plays plays ring ring RING! it never stops ringing, singing, stinging me awake at night, driving me, pulling me, tight with motivation, on a string, rope together what I need, bring me that horizon, eletrical towers lining up along the distance, down a valley towards my future, ringing singing stinging Future, Purpose that I certainly can never forget -

I mean, how can you forget something when every time you lay down to sleep, it's laying right there next to you, reminding you:

You're still alone.




PS - Shakespeare quote is wrong, and I don't really care.

hi y'all: i am terribly sorry i can't post any photos - this computer is kinda screwy and i had a few picked out but it wouldn't let me upload them. so just a few words - a word is worth a million pictures right? oh wait...

we are in lovely and historic natchez mississippi. we are parked by a white gazebo on the banks of the great mississippi river. matt you would go crazy reading historic markers in the south. you would need a week in each town. we just came from vicksburg which is chock full of civil war stories, antebellum houses, blues legends, catfish, juke joints, barbecue, etc. the downtown there is actually the cutest one we've been to, not quite as depressing as helena, clarksdale, greenville.

in vicksburg we jumped around in a water park/fountain area like kids. i was so wishing jarom and bella could be with us. there was a childrens' art park anda large play area made to be like a steamship. not quite as cool as it sounds, but fun nonetheless.

there is a diner here which is a fast food chain called The Waffle House. It is small, grungy, cheap, and open 24'7. sorry for the typos, i'm on darin's laptop and i am a very bad typist on here. anyway we sat in the waffle house for like an hour last night grubbing on some grits and writing and reading and listening to the black folks talk in their sweet low heavily accented voices.

one guy in arkansas told us we were like a flashback to the seventies. we stand out a little but most everyone is super nice and friendlyu to us. actually, everyone,.

yesterday was church day so everything in the whole delta area was closed up= some places forever. front porches were busy with families out talking and laughing. whole groups of folks gathered round tiny country churches in their sunday best. anyone you wave at waves back with a big old grin. when you drive down highway 61 (yes bob dylan's famous song) you are surrounded by swampy marshes/cotton fields/crimson clover and viney trees and kudzu. out the window is a wild green world.

we also explored some giant indian mounds. here again, i thought of the kids. jarom would have a blast rolling down the great grassy slopes.

i think of all y'all a lot - i mean all the time! - mikie, your blogs are entertaining and i miss you! momma you're the best in the west - for taking care of my cats and for being such a lovely person and you are my favorite person to buy presents for! amy and matt and kids - i have so much fun with you i can hardly stand it. can't wait to see your photos from disneyland! addie - your spirit is catching. you would have been so inspired by this folk art gallery we went into. joey there is a train whistle blowing and we listened to scratchy old blues songs today and you'dbe dying. last and not least, dad you're the greatest and i always love talking to you and you are very uplifting and kind.

i love you all so much! greeting and kisses from the road!

sometimes, joey.

have you heard of sweet?

liaisons

I met one heckofa gorgeous chick tonight


but I was slightly distracted by David Arquette and PeeWee Herman. All wrapped up in a night of Pizza My Heart with these gentlemen, a downtown dance party and a dive-bar afterafterparty. Pretty exciting business.

What we did this weekend

Okay the pictures are courtesy Heather; I may add some more here later on tonight. The blog to follow is courtesy me. Matthew.

So here's what we did this weekend, with Heather and Darin and Joey and Mom here:

Saturday Mom and Joey got here at about 9 am. Heather and Darin had gotten here late Thursday night I think. So the first thing we did was gather our stuff and go to Sundance. The weather was fantastic and warm--shortsleeve weather for me. We went through the place and walked around the trees, the birches and alders, and we checked out the little food store and the (overpriced, but hey, it's a resort) gift shop. The whole mountainside was covered with evergreens and the sun lit the whole valley and it was beautiful and clear out and the fresh mountain air was invigorating.

Then we drove on up further to Park City. We parked and walked up and down the main street strip. We went into a Native American store and I think most of us came away with some goodies. Amy and I bought two little hand drums for Bella and Jarom--the kind you spin back and forth between your palms and they drum themselves (they're going to use these at the drumcircle next Sunday--and a small (but "authentic"!) dreamcatcher that we hung up over the kids' window to keep night terrors and any nightmares Jarom might have away, a long strand of Indian (as in India) colorfully sewn bird-bells that we hung up, and a box of piñon incense block that smell awesome and I've been burning multiples of them each day.

We walked further up and (at least I did) read some historical markers. Believe it or not Park City is at least somewhat historical for Utah. There was some interesting business about the fire bell, how the whole of downtown burnt down in 1898 and so they built this three-story tower to house the fire alarm bell. The tower's still there, too. Every place is historical in its own way really, it just matters more to certain people than to others. And either way, it's always interesting. There's an amazing amount of history in everything we can imagine!

At the bottom of the strip, near where we parked, Amy went back to the car to nurse Orion and then Joey started scaling this wooden pillar that held up the concrete platform we were on. I joined him, and it was hard, but fun. We have pictures (maybe I'll post these later). Then Jarom and Bella wanted to do it so we had them climb a short railing near the stairs. And they were great pseudo-climbers.

That night we came back and we were starved, so we went to eat at Rumbi's which was delicious of course, and I ordered a full bowl and became overfull but satisfied.

Sunday we went to this canyon in Pleasant Grove, up 200 South all the way to the mountain. There were these four horse trailers parked there, owned by these four cowboys with horses and a mule that we ended up seeing on the way back down. It was another perfect day in Utah. The trail was this gravel "road" that appears to have been built to cover a water pipe. My guess is that the trail was about a mile each direction. Mom was the biggest trooper (and Amy too, with a newborn practically), who hiked the whole thing! Her first hike in twenty years she tells me. We all had fun. There was a little dammed-up pond about halfway up that we stopped and tried to skip rocks on, and Joey did some rock scaling when the walls started jutting out like steep ledges. Once at the top, we all waded in the cold water, pure snow runoff, and most of looked out over the edge (including Jarom) for at least a minute or two, until it got too nerve-racking or others were getting anxious about your tomfoolery or what have you. It was beautiful; out between the two canyon edges you could see Utah Lake in the distance and little townish parts of Pleasant Grove and chunks of the big blue sky. The waterfall was small, thirty feet tallish, but all rocks everywhere, dual products of natural processes and mankind's lovely TNT demolitions (that's just my conjecture). No one slipped off. Then hiked down to the bottom of the little falls and took quite a few pictures. Darin and Joey and I all got in the waterfall a little; I hiked up the mossy and licheny rock wall, got about six feet high (not very) and became entirely soaked. But the water seemed clean and fresh and was cool when it was so dry and hot out, so I didn't mind. Then we said goodbye, hiked back down and talked horses and jackasses and mules and burros with the cowboys.

We made a brief stint at the gas station for some pickmeups and then to Walmart where Amy and Mom could get some burpcloth fabric, then we went home to make dinner. But first we went down to the field at the Farrar school to try and fly the new kite that Adie bought for Jarom and Bella, before the rain fell. We got there just in time--the wind had picked up and it wasn't too cold. Darin got involved in a little game of soccer with his new best friends, some Provo kids. The rest of us flew the kite. Or watched it being flown. I was mostly in charge of it, but I had never flown one before, so forgive me, it was addicting. I got the hang of it after a few sprints up the field. Both Jarom and Bella also took turns, as best they could, and the kite really took to the wind, whipping and soaring in all directions, sometimes swooping down and about taking Darin's head off or maybe that guy on the bike that I almost decapitated.

So then I realize that hey, I'm figuring out how to fly this thing, so I let a ton of string go. The kite is hanging, way up there overhead, and the wind is getting stronger. I just keep letting string out. Then it starts to rain. And the wind goes crazy. The kite dips down by the trees and I barely save it--Bella's trying to help me--we're trying to reel it in but I didn't realize how much line was out. We're reeling in like mad (my forearms are sore); we can hardly keep the kite under control. It almost kills that biker guy, like I said before, and I'm hoping the line doesn't break. It's like pulling in a shark with a little fishing pole. Finally after maybe five or ten minutes the kite's low enough but the wind catches it and hurls it into the street, where it nosedives. I want to save it so I hand Amy the reel and hop the chainlink fence barefoot and pull it from the street before the wind or a car gets to it. It's fine, no damage at all. Who'd have thought flying a kite could be so fun? My new passion. The saddest part about the whole windstorm ordeal was that Amy was trying to tape the whole thing, she was so excited that she caught it all on the video camera, then it turns out that the camera never turned on, so it's all lost, lost to the little happy cavities in our minds that remember fun ephemeral experiences and enjoyable days. It's not really lost. Not at all.

All the kite-while Mom was making dinner, and with Heather and Amy's help they whipped up delicious enchiladas in about three different varieties to cater to everyone's taste idiosyncrasies, and I hurry up and make some salsa and everything turns out so good and filling. We eat and eat and then put the kids to bed and watch Everything Is Illuminated before going to bed ourselves.

Yes, I had a fine weekend--we all did, thank you.

smelly Swamp cooler

The past few days, a ton of seaweed and oceanjunk has washed up onto the beach lining the boardwalk near my house. As a result, a mildewy smelliness has been filling all the air. This might seem disgusting to some, but for me, instead, I feel inspired to play my old Game Boy and Battletoads, go swimming in and run around shirtless and tiny and free; wake up late, watch the sun go down, climb around on the roof, takes stupid videos, drive out on adventures to Swansboro, watch big old brown television, see girls downtown and be raised up all over again.

Nostalgia is a bittersweet monster who never sleeps. It twists our brains through into magic realities, gurgling up worlds long gone past and instilling a weird sense of false-hope for something almost touchable. It can transform the scent of rotting seaweed on the beach into the relieving pungentness of a swamp cooler blowing into a hot summer's window during an afternoon in Placerville, in a house full of childhood clarity, comfort, and hope for life. We are victims to these transformations, to the chemical demons of body and mind, our instincts, all victims, our cultures and pasts, our childhoods- Nostalgia is its own liaison, it works actively, it never rests; Nostalgia is also only a word.

Because, victims or no, we can still win.

See, sometimes I don't want to fight it. As the swamp cooler blows imaginingly through my Santa Cruz beachhouse window, I long for an unknown past only available by my thoughts.

(I smelled it again just now, and my brain says "Zelda!" and it says "Trevor Thueson"
There it is again! And it says "mom" and "javalanches" and tells me about being the last one awake at night)

And so I win. I know better. It's sad, and I know. And it's not that sad... I mean can't we lasso Nostalgia around the waist, sling it over our shoulders use it in battle as an emotional tool? as we trek on future's way? Yes. I harness Nostalgia; the demon power becomes my greater god. I love the smell of the swamp cooler, I'm swooned all over again by Nag Champa or Love Spell, I dream about Jessica, I smile to Erasure, I miss Star Wars game cards and Russell Emch, I'll never stop loving old girliefriends and the Beatty family I'll always remember
- and so, and so, and so,
I win.

*train horn blares nearby*

Something about Failure

to fail to fail to fail to fail.

Fall fail, fall fall
fail fall fall fail.

So many times and ways to fail, so

dance. dance, dance and then we fail.

I'll play my violin and dance,

my violin and little fiddle,

dance n' dance, but first I fiddle,

dance n' fiddle n' fail fail fail

every second, recognition

breeding, breathing brave new brew

a hammer WHAM!, a question mark,

in sludge I slug and heave my legs

in rotten failure, stinking eggs,

I will not stop, I figure out

which way to turn my legs about,

and then the thin

in thick and thumping

slump slump bumping

shines a light!

Twink ta-Winkle!, tiny light

a shaft of shiney skinny drops....

in sluggy sludge a teeny ray

a glimmer light in wet decay

THAT is my failure
puts you thru,
finally, with sloppy shoes
a rope descending tugs you out
above the squares between the grout
with dangling feet, o'er layered tiles
see new success that stretches miles

I like to fail because I learn
the hurts, the scars, the stings and burns,
so later on I wont' be scared,
instead, like always, too-prepared!

ford econoline blues

well some how we made it to provo, befuddled and nerve-wracked, the van clanking and roaring down the quiet late night provo streets. as you mostly all know we had a blow out on the road outside wendover and therefore darin once again did not get to enjoy the salt flats, but he got to show off his manliness in changing a tire in the wildly blowing wind and cold.

we slept in the van and woke up to play with the kids and noticed a while later that the van was sitting a bit lopsided - another FLAT!!! on the other side this time. we spent the day getting that tire off (with jarom and bella's help) and taking it in the jeep to get it patched up.

then, in the late afternoon on our way to sam's to get two NEW tires, the transmission truly began to scare us. at a stop sign, we basically could not go forward. we transferred the kids to amy's car and she followed us to the car shop in pleasant grove where a very nice man named dusty earnestly helped us out. and we left our little home on wheels there.

so that's where it stands now! i will keep you posted on the status of our upcoming journey. keep your fingers crossed and say your prayers for us!

meanwhile it is bliss to be around these delightful children. they are making me draw "mommacake, daddy cake, bella cake, darin cake....etc..." on the magnadoodle. it's pretty fun.

love you all!

easter enchiladas

for easter we had dinner over at our house. i made tofu veggie enchiladas, mexican rice, a big green salad, and fresh pico de gallo. dad brough a coconut cream pie from marie calendar's that grandma had bought, as well as chocolate cupcakes made by aunt linda, and mom brought a cherry cheesecake. addie and art brought goodies like cilantro lime dressing and artichoke hearts. i was so full that night i could barely sleep. we had a good time though. addie played songs for us on the piano and made a star-studded onesie for orion. it was good to be together as a family but we sure missed matt, amy, jarom, bella, orion, and mikie! i did have a good talk with mikie though.

darin and i are getting ready to leave again. this time we will post more road trip stories, because we'll be on the road longer this time! we will be leaving in the rain. we will see the salt flats in the rain. darin has been wanting to go to the salt flats all his life. okay maybe not all his life, but for a long time. on the way back here we drove through after dark! so here's our big photo-op and it will be raining, but that could be cool.

getting ready: dad helped me de-exhaust-smell the van and we took a drive last night to check out last minute things. darin and i have been obsessively loading new albums on my ipod. not new, but new for the ipod. actually it's mostly old stuff like u2, REM, elliott smith, erasure, red house painters, stuff i used to listen to and makes me feel the LOVE OF LIFE. that is the best for the road.

my favorite sing along album ever is joni mitchell "blue."

welp, I JUST CAN'T WAIT to get back to see the little family and hold those kids! with mom and joey on our heels, and dad safely in charge on my cats!

love to you all and happy trails.

whey and curds

Today I listened to the Counting Crows live in new york album, disc 1.

Yesterday I went to the new Auto Zone on Missouri Flat to buy an air filter and it felt sick being there, but before that I had tried wal mart (which doesn't get capitalization) so it was almost slightly refreshing as well.

Friday I fell asleep watching a kid's film called Meet the Robinsons alone at the dirty old Placerville cinema I know so well. I woke up while it was still playing and left.

Thursday I went to an old fire lookout called Big Horn Lookout hill and I heard the raspy roar of what may have been some sort of mountain cat, and it was pitch dark out save for the big white dinnerplate moon and the weak beam of my mini maglite keychain, and I tried climbing spiny precarious towers and deliberated the prospect of breaking into the heavily secured wooden shacks for summer residents, found some snow and ate cheetos.

projectionist blues.
lonely and hungry. tired.
numbing noise all 'round.

Today I wrote the above haiku.

I don't really have much to say. Some day, tho, I'll say everything.

maybe i'll write a poem. the conclusion of the following poem will mark the conclusion of this current posting. good day to you all.

boom-zoom estate rambling dooms day gate
stark naked all the way dancing like cashus klay (?)
stevie wonder remi bleu princess leah the boardgame clue
smiling ferby in the landing riding elevator rhinoceros
wont you feed my clam he severely craves ham
these words are "bitch, please" bling words
how could you organize my missing turds
or whey and curds
no whey!

from joey

groaning wheel after breakfast

I don't laugh at jokes, really.

I mean, when was the last time you sat around in a group or a movie theater and actually laughed?
Laugh laugh? The laugh that is accidental, that comes from a place surprised and unexpected, that bumps you around inside, squeezes your face and clenched neck, smiling, wet stuff in your eyebuds. WHEN?

Nothing is ever really funny, really. (only, I feel bad about other's not-funny jokes so I've conditioned myself to laugh when it seems most socially beneficial for everyone). If I was as honest on the outside as I'm being on the inside, I would laugh maybe once a day, maybe.

Things don't have to be funny. Smiling is wonderful, and when laughing is uncontrollable it is a rare and precious gift. I smile a lot; my face is strong. But it doesn't always have to be funny. Sometimes the best times are very sad, very angry, very ugly, very resolving, etc.

Qualifiers. We qualify everything. "That wasn't funny, that wasn't good enough," We qualify based on people around us and what temporary, social results they produces. We have a variety of qualifiers - there are denotative (or literal) qualifiers that exist in the moment, the one reality. And then there are the connotative (or abstract) qualifiers, that construct a bigger picture to think about, include a collective whole of your life and your social surroundings. I find myself using connotative thinking a lot because I am rarely satisfied with merely the literal moment. Don't get me wrong, I adore reality and the moment. But like jokes that aren't funny, I don't find enough in it. Temporary fun and pleasure is great, but

I dig uncontrollable laughs over forced ones.
I dig results that may not seem funny or fun.
I dig the moment,
I dig reality,
I dig I dig I dig
to escape.

I believe that life exists in a massive spinning circle moving forward on a path; my life is a groaning circle. It rolls round and around on itself, all the while tracking forward on a path of ideals.
Spinning is reality, spinning and spinning.
Paths are the greater, resolutions, endeavors,
Paths lie ahead,
for shape and tread
we lick up the earth with our pokey gears.

Got it? So I sit here in Santa Cruz, a plain piece of bread with jam on it. You can give me friends and fun, you can fill my days with freedom and discovery, you can throw at me games n' drinks n' songs n' money but, no!
You need peanut butter bananas and applesauce too!
orange juice and pancakes, milk and strawberries,
some sweet sun sweat, hunger, and the rest all again, see
Satisfaction is never easy or temporary
but when it comes it so comes like a breakfast
filled up with completeness, in color and flavor
you'll never go back, but pursue it forever!

Bread and jam are a thing of the past.

Happy Easter everyone,
and let us be jocund!

*Mig

RIP 06.18.2006 - 04.07.2007

Shame, isn't it. Sorry I just wanted to post this for fun, because it's affected my life today. I'm a bit sad about it but it's okay, really, because it's nice to be able to do something like this--have longer hair then cut it really short and sort of reinvent yourself all in one day. I don't have to have one steady length of hair all the time; it grows back, so I can change it if/when I please. It's depressing and exciting all at the same time (life anyone?). So here we have it. Am I really as sad as I look though? Maybe.

Plus I should be writing my long Catcher in the Rye paper but I'm procrastinating, not wanting to do online cultural research or finish the book, more feeling like studying trees or getting into bed with Amy and Orion or maybe going for a fifty-degree midnight bike ride because it's perfect out and this is a little town where some are awake and others are asleep and I want to see it all, and it wouldn't make my feet cold even in sandals even on a bike because it's nice out.

Need nimble fingers for typing.

I still have a lot of other things to post, like my "to do" list that everyone else before me has finished, our pictures from Vegas and from the Mayan and othersuch and oh yeah! all our Easter egghunt pictures from today. The kids loved it. It's Easter, right? I'll try to do some of those things sooner. Many more things too, I'm sure. But here's just a couple few pics for now.

I don't have kids. Instead,

In five hours and forty minutes I get to wake up, take a shower, put on some clothes, and go

perform a Shakespeare play for some San Josean junior high school kids.

I smell like campfire smoke.

I climbed a 200-foot tree today to overlook the cloudy Monterey Bay from the top.

I delivered a free pizza to Lex from Survivor about a week ago, and he gave me a ten dollar tip.

I learned how to say "I'm hungry" in spanish, then I forgot. (yo tango something)

I made close friends with an older Oklahoma girl the past two days who loved the outdoors.

I hosted a barbecue last night that fed a bunch of hungry returned college kids.

I bought an illustrated map of Los Angeles from Santa Cruz bookstore this morning.

Tonight we took about twenty loaves of free bakery breads and layed them out spread on our

table and counters when we got home.

My room's a mess. My car is dirty.

I walked all day.

I live a street away from the beach.

I saw a plenty of beautiful women and tourists today.

I have a wad of cash under my nightstand.

I have a college degree.

I have a great car.

I imagine life hits a point of satisfaction that is constant and reassuring.

I imagine that we discover an ultimate solution that takes us and nourishes where's dry, curing

our diseases and filling up our ears.

-I also pretend that this satisfaction exists nowhere and it's all my imagination, so that I won't

ever achieve it,

and then I believe that my imagination is more accurate than reality and that I can achieve the
impossible.

So I play thick video games.

I don't have girlfriends.

I never stop looking through bookstores.

I always ask questions.

I am honest.

I overexpress.

I am never satisfied.

So, I'll get up tomorrow and entertain a bunch of kids in another city. I'll love them and then I'll

leave them.

And for sure I'm alone tonight, and I'm used to that.

Bye love Mikie

True Bliss.
I love this picture of Heather and the kids. It was so fun to watch them. Heather looked so adorable running up and down the hill in her cute bright dress trying to get a broken kite to fly. Addie thank you for all the fun little gifts. The kids loved them. They play everyday with the chalk. Our walk way to the house is just beautiful. Yesterday, Jarom told me, It's a good day to get a new kite.
Our little mama. Every time I turn around she is right by his side. Her new thing is picking him up when I leave the room. Jarom was worried about it and told on her right away. I just tried to act calm so Bella wouldn't get shocked and drop him. And then I hurried and took a picture.
I miss Jarom and Bella so much. I have to spend most of my time with the baby. The other day their friend came by and wanted them to come play at his house. I didn't want to let them go but they were jumping up and down, running around trying to find their shoes, even though they were still in their pj's. That I just had to let them go. When they left I was a little sad but glad that they were so happy. I then went into my room to check on Orion who was sleeping, and found a little stuffed bunny at his side. I just broke down and cried.
Back story. Orion got that little stuffed bunny as a gift from someone. I didn't really care for it and just threw it into the kids room. But when ever the kids would find it they always bring it to him. So you see, long story short- I'm turning into your mother. All these little things choke me up. I didn't know seeing that little stuffed bunny placed so carefully, so they wouldn't wake the sleeping baby would make me miss them so badly. Even though they are so wild and crazy, they are still so sweet and loving.
And the big news of the day. Orion has been an angel for the last two nights. No screaming. We are hoping it will stay this way. I have taken dairy out of my diet. A very hard thing to do this time a year for someone who loves chocolate. I had to dig through Jarom and Bella's easter baskets for jelly beans. I couldn't believe how little there were. I guess this is the year everyone is giving out chocolate. It's a good thing though, because for once in my life I have to use self control. Something I was really lacking in.
Any ways, nothing new. I love and miss you all. And hope you all have a wonderful Easter.

sleepytime

WE HAD SO MUCH FUN!!

amy - i didn't get your message until too late to call you back! i don't want to interrupt your all-too-important sleep time which you are HOPEFULLY getting right now! how is orion by the way? is he still seeming to have a cold? anyway, yes we did arrive home in placerville safely around 11:00 this morning. we slept for a while at a rest stop outside lovelock. it was a nice drive with the full moon. and tonight i showed all the pictures/videos to nana and she gets the goosebumps looking at orion he is so cute!

we miss you guys so much. we talked a lot about how fun it was to have the kids' voices around us all the time and all the crazy and interesting and adorable things they'd say. how is bella's baseball hat? and did mattie cut his hair? i miss talking to you and matt too. there is never really enough time, i can just hope and pray that someday we all live close together and get to have our dream or some version of the farm/country/family life!

thanks again for everything. by the way, do you have your own email account or do you and matt share? i figured you'd see this first. i love you and we'll see you SOON. i'll call and let you know around when we'll be back.