hasty entry

I just returned from one of the priciest shopping sprees I’ve been on. Stuff for Nepal, stuff for backpackin’.

REI has some crazy awesome expensive stuff, y’all. Titanium sporks: $11! A waterproof, windproof jacket that must have been made of tissue paper: $70! Underwear called: “17 countries, 6 weeks, one pair of underwear”: $18! Silk sleeping bag liner: $65ish! Oy. Whenever you find something reasonable, there’s always something considerably more expensive and approximately 3000x lighter and 3000x better.

I picked up my dream zipoff pants: gray, the least dorky I could find.

At Best Buy I bought this camera:

The Canon PowerShot SX120 IS. I am not sure how I feel about it yet–it’s still in the box. I want to take a camera to the Desolation Wilderness tomorrow though, so I have to get over my uncertainty and get it set up. I have a memory card that holds 2000 pictures.

Time to pack.

concert envy.

Dang. The Pogues and DeVotchKa together is one killllllller concert. Too bad it’s US$45.00-US$67.00, before adding the other extraneous fees they always charge you. Also too bad it’s the day before I leave for Nepal. Daaaaaaaaang.

to and fro

I just wanna say, I hope my blog has evolved…reading early entries embarrasses me…I was trying so hard, yet sounding so unlike myself. Oh well. It’s going to evolve much more profoundly in the next few months as I prepare for, journey in, and reflect upon my time in Nepal.

my dream

Last night I dreamt I was on the back steps of a large fancy house, reading. A tall man with a large black mustache and a black shirt with large, fancy, puffy sleeves walked in through the front door, and then walked past me and out the back gate (I said hi to him but he didn’t acknowledge me). Then he knocked on the front door once, and walked in. I looked at him. He got large scissors (the kind used to cut fabric) out of a drawer in the kitchen and tossed them at me. Then he walked over and stabbed me several times in the neck with them.

The End

don’t be skinny

let’s take a walk

What do I like? What can I be happy with? Slower, please.

I think I just have to go stream-of-consciousness on this one, because for some reason (no matter how many drafts I do) I can’t seem to write something worth publishing.

In a few days, it will be my 20th birthday, a day I (oddly, morbidly) never expected to come. I loathe my own birthday–what a selfish holiday! But I’m uncharacteristically proud that I am so close to this one. Twenty sounds better than nineteen, and for once, I feel like it’s right, and I’m ready.

My mind likes to plan, but never likes to follow through. Some days, I hate the idea of graduate school…shouldn’t I be done with college when I’m done with college? People say: you’re crazy, grad school is the new college. Then I realize how close I am to that end and think: but what then? And then grad school seems like the most appealing thing in the world because 1) I love colleges, and I wish I could attend so many of them and 2) it would allow me to procrastinate on the monotony of entering the cliché “real world” and getting  stuck at some dumb boring job in some dumb boring place and decide that all my former aspirations were childish fantasies, completely unrealistic and unattainable in real life.

I have found that my most rewarding experiences have come from me finding something scary, doing this scary (often irreversible) thing, and then living with it. I’m hoping this is what will happen with Nepal. This was all my idea, and it’s the most remarkable idea that’s ever been this close to coming true. I begged my dad to do this, but I only kind of expected him to agree. And then he did and I was thrilled but now I’m thinking it over. I never thought it over before, because it’s easier to be enthusiastic about things you don’t think over, but now I am and I’m starting to scare myself. I have a lot of stuff to do to prepare but I don’t do any of it. I think I need to be thrown into it, soon. Stop my mind running circles around the concept and ACT. I’m terrified for it. I’m unbelievably, gratefully, excited for it. I’m impatient for it. This is going to be big, and it’s going to change my life.

This Summer

I have…

• flown somewhere on an airplane
• learned new songs on guitar
• been to many garage sales
• attended an outdoor concert
• picked wild berries and made a pie
• gone camping
• attended a sporting event
• painted
• slept under the stars
• gone to the beach
• finished books
• improved my cooking
• ridden on a train
• watched countless movies
• discovered new favorites
• sung around a campfire
• floated for miles down a river

I still need to…

• road trip
• backpack
• go to a Giant’s game
• make some money

As far as they go, I’ve had a pretty successful summer. And there’s still plenty of time left.

stalkers

Sometimes I feel like I’m being stalked, but by things, not by people.

Once, I was stalked by snakes. I would dream of snakes. I would see ordinary objects and think they were snakes. I would see real, living, snakes everywhere. I would narrowly miss hitting snakes with my car. People would come up to me and inexplicably start telling me stories about snakes.

Right now I’m being stalked to a lesser degree by French cinema, hot Orthodox Jews, and friendly, likable murderers. I have yet to see either of those two groups of people in person, but they’re on my TV, on my computer, and in my conversations. AKA everywhere.