MIA.

I’ve been out of town, out on the town, and mentally preoccupied for most of the summer, but I’m still sorry I’ve neglected you blog.

I went off the grid in July for a refreshing trip up into the Sierra Nevada mountains.  A lot of people take gorgeous sunset pictures, but for me the prime nature image is of trees silhoutted by a night sky dotted with stars.  I don’t think I’ve ever lived anywhere with low light pollution so it seems amiss to say I miss the night sky, but every time I see it away from the city I become intoxicated by the depth that it makes me feel.

Then I was up in the Bay Area for an unofficial high school reunion that I somehow thought was a good idea to organize after watching Workaholics  and Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion.  I got a bit of a bad attitude about it right before it happened, probably as some kind of preemptive defense in case  it fell flat.  But luckily it was nothing but success!  A crap ton of high school friends showed up – even more than RSVPed.  I think we collectively expected it to fail, but we all still really like each other and get along, which makes me think there is some sort of miraculous mojo to the class of Kennedy high schoolers I was lucky enough to end up in. (I have one of those on-the-cusp birthdates where I could’ve been old in my class or young in my class and my parents chose to send me young – thankfully! As another side note my Mom always likes to say I was born 40, which is one of my favorite parental compliments.)

Most recently I was back out in Palm Springs for a friend’s birthday.  Unlike earlier this year when I had the pressure of a conference presentation and a looming illness, this time it was all pleasure.  It was pretty much a 24/7 poolfest in an airbnb rental house and so ridiculously fun I don’t know how to cram it into words yet.  I’m still distilling last weekend’s experiences.

In between all that there’s been a lot going on at work and my personal life has been a circus with very fantastic friends and very interesting new additions to my future relationship experiences fictional short story compendium.  There are also still some echos from earlier this year that I should damper the sound of, but sometimes (in my imagination) they sound too good to ignore. (Definitely one for the poetry and short drivel blog.)

I’m reading Bernard DeVoto’s The Course of Empire for a reading group at work, and I’m definitely going to have to work through some of those thoughts here.  I’m also going back to school starting in January (cue simulatenous cries of joy and despair).  If there’s one thing I am a rockstar at, it’s going to school.  Too bad it costs lots of monies.  It’s an online program and all my computers are too old and weak sauce to be able to meet the program requirements.  I’ve had my current computer for 8 years and I kind of want to invest in another machine to get me through the next decade, but I don’t really have the funds for that so I’m torn between severely cutting back on groceries and working on that aspirational anorxeia or tossing some more borrowed money onto the loan pile.  Ok, I’m getting a little too bitter and stream of consciousness.  More travel photos/experiences/thoughts and genealogical explanations to come, now that fall is on the doorstep and my fingers are at home to tap some more words against the keyboard.