tiring treacherous day. kiddos out of control. to be expected but.  haven't really had to slam against that feeling of inadequacy, doing a bad job, and all that in a while.  so. may the days improve. may they? please?

preoccupation: burning man.  it seems i ought to not go methinks.  my proneness to guilt, concern for mental and physical health.  the increased madness of an understaffed classroom.  the assured fatigue that will persist into the following week.  but my mind was quite set on it for the past month.  so i am having a hard time typing the ticket selling message.  still slightly trying to convince myself to go despite.  silly teacher folk.  "you decide" they said when i asked about missing those days.  egads. tomorrow the final decision will be made.  rat a tat. 

nevertheless, i think a little jaunt elsewhere somewhere, if no burning man festivity.  some redwoods perchance?  maybe not the lost coast just yet.  thinking about a lengthy hike about the redwoods north of santa cruz. though the droves of folk will be out for the three day weekend. we'll see.  yes yes.

i say.  emotional tumult today.  the tense muted crazy children struggle.  messes.  spills.  mayhem.  even once my eyes teared up.  yikes. tired tired late afternoon.  i felt defeated fell asleep.  ug.  took a walk. cuppa tea. finished my book (at last).  felt better.  late night foods to put together.  talk in the kitchen.  hummus pita.  dino kale wheatgrass grape juice. ok.  here it comes, another day. 

meanwhile, through my head on occasion, thoughts of this boy.  our concise emails of where to meet half or pseudohalfway.  one wonders if such an unexpectedly intense affinity over those few days will still exist in alternate contexts.  but. hey.  would like to check and see.  find out.  aha.

though historically i have gotten involved with certain young men.  and a little later find them to be stupid and boring.  not to sound quite so severe.  well i am a judgmental bastard. but if anything it is more a matter of my tendency toward self-delusion when a fairly charming feller is keen on me.  i get all caught up. 

though our mutual abilities to make fits of laughter arise in each other quite consistently across multiple situations do provide good evidence against boring, questionable evidence against stupid. 

ha.

for my next novel reading: which one will it be? tom robbins still life with woodpecker or hiroshi murakami wind up bird chronicle... ?

back i'm back a bit intestinally ill and tired but hey i'm back. 

highlights? well...

my domestic lesbian high school friend is indeed rather domestic.  much time spent with and talking about their two cats.  but yes, we do still seem to have things to talk about.  like, say, how eeksy creepy it is that another high school not kept in touch with pal got married in the passt couple weeks, works in finance, lives in the suburbs of chicago.  egads infant children are a hop skip n a jump. 

seattle left me not so thrilled.  bastyr left me wondering.

olympic peninsula, despite a smattering of rain, was quite lovely, did not want to leave, but had to rush on to portland to visit a wee naturopathic school place.  appealing eek. four years in portland.  what could that do for me?  eek. dunno.  but it felt good in that school place.  and neato collaborations sound all a sizzle with oregon health sciences university.  could be an ND researcher scientist bridge the allopathic naturopathic gap lady.  make no money at all.  then maybe go get an MPH and save the health care world.  ha.

but portland felt so very small.  dense crumpled san francisco hill landscape much preferable to the low flat tiny portland blocks, though the folk seemed happy and nice (though conspicuously all white, which is curious). 

slightly achronological, but logical as there was a return visit too.  charming times with good old summer camp pal one of the best.   first destination was the hippie-ish charms of eugene with my better connected pal of old and her funny pack of high school friends (who i had variously met 2 to 5 years ago). curiously felt embraced by these people i don't know entirely well, a rare thing in san francisco, city of scenes and sometimes slightly larger packs, less replete with nostlagia. or i, anyway have not been in san francisco long enough for pack nostalgia. but hey. much giggling, nonsensical noisemaking pop pop pop, easily extended beyond my little age old summer camp friendship. plus hippie and animal liberation propaganda laden hostel, beautiful dunes, forest, lake to swim. nice...

curiously, most pleasantly, and sad at the last.  a little something sizzle and soft between me and one of these friends of m, r who lives and works at the hostel.  i think it was that last day of visit number one, when friend m and i were the only ones left of the pals gathered there and gone.  and we romped around us three for the day.  food. forest.  games of uno.  beer drinking evening.  up til four in the morning all a chatter.  laughter.  absurdity. nostalgia.  sadness. puzzled. giggle. very good.  these intermittent stares at each other.  silently acknowledged.  ambiguous (back of themind obvious significance).  that always sought instant at ease goofy noisy click click click.  which never happens.  (well apparently it does from time to time...so it did).   i paused when m went to ready for bed.  wanting to be alone with r.  but felt unsure. a bit self conscious.  too much. internal veto. and so.  next morning as we slowly inch out of the place to head to seattle.  i am told perhaps to come back on my way down to pick up this kombucha culture which i was going to take but thought might spoil in my poorly kept cooler. yes i remarked (muted maybe excitement which i learned later was mutual, mutedly, mutually unsure of the mutual same feelingness. ha.)

so i returned on the way down.  to stay the night after a failed effort to find a hot spring outside portland. and a little hustle southward.  chatter.  giggle.  talking for a while with this rather young mom staying there with her seven year old.  starting to get late we are alone sitting outside in the freezing cold on a couch.  both wondering how to maneuver this situation.  both not sure if the other is actually interested in being maneuvered.  hours pass i tell you.   ages it took for us to negotiate these signals.  though obviously we were both right all along.  moreso negotiating doubt and mystery.  absurdity.  but perhaps it was 4 in the morning? or 5? when we finally kissed.  eight thirty when i went to go to sleep and he had to do hostel duties.  and somehow...i stayed for three nights instead of one.  caused him to shirk all sorts of morning duties (and i shirked the redwoods, where i said i was going everyday to leave at 7 or 8 in the morning...and then...couldn't quite get myself to leave).  got all tangled together.  disentangled.  naps nicely fit together.  so nice to spend time in this space all at ease, close, warm, comfortable, with ample sprinklings of giggles, growls, grumples, eyes, mouths, german lessons, hands, funny faces, and even conversation.

so this one is on my mind.  goodbye spanned a few hours.  we wondered how we might keep in touch. we'll see.   our eyes welled up just a bit.   now a curious combination of happy and sad.  not sure what to do with these thoughts of him if anything at all.  but how rare a thing to find a person i am so comfortable with so quick...with whom i can giggle continually...and talk to til wee hours of the morning...and act strange and silly and click and squeek and beep with. 

eek.

thus. after multiple hours goodbye, i left at 2 something. i returned home down 101.  saw redwoods most bemoanedly in passing.  (vowing to drive up again and camp before coldish weather comes). took one hundred and fifty years to get home.  had to nap twice on the way.  the last two hours particularly brutal when some specied of food poisoning appeared causing foods to pass right on through and prohibiting coffee.  egads.  but twas ok.  i fetl good about my absurd unwise delay. 

now...

i'm attending training for the new job ambiguously hopefully mine.  i am tired.  i am thinking i will take an organic chemistry class and hoping i will not explode.  yes. 

sleep!

hey!

i'm going on a petite roadtrip tomorrow early morn. 

eugene, perhaps autonomous mutant somewhere in washington, seattle, maybe vancouver,  quick little stop in portland.  hopefully some hot springs sprinkled in between.  all places never been.  plus two olden day friends long not seen.  interesting. 

i bought a bicycle today from a half deaf old asian man who was very cute.  a bicycle for burning man. hmmm...

i finished these non profit taxes. ahhhhh.

hopefully the universe will prove to be in my favor in the coming days. 

sleep for early rising.


oh. also of note, the theme of late: long conversations with new found and not so new found boy pals.  very good.  male friends should proliferate.  since all girl family and all girl secondary school left a large part of my life thus far fairly free of males.  meanwhile i think the crush of sorts on mister raw food has dwindled and sunk (as planned and hoped) so we sat on the grass in the sun and spoke.  cluck cluck cluck.

conquer the crush grind it into the dust