living at the speed of... blah...
I've been experiencing a funny feeling the past couple of days. It's akin to boredom, related to dissapointment, and not quite serenity. I noticed it when I was biking, a sort of hollowness that hits me when I breathe, almost like I'm coming down with something. It's a dull, spiritual ache, a dread of monotony, a claustrophobia. Then it hit me, I know what it is.

I am completely uninspired.

I don't complain for a lack of contentment, for that I have. I don't suffer from empty living or unenlightened misunderstanding, for these things I sought and found from my family during my visit to Michigan... but what I really wanted was staggering insight, an epiphany to rock me. Instead, I found normalcy.

I sat in airports and airplanes for hours with my journal in my lap hoping for reflection. I watched people walk by, listened to swedish rock groups being interviewed by amateur journalists, saw families fight and reunite. I saw the planes take off and light up, like stars falling from the sky. I was in transit, tied to nothing, at my utmost purest place... and still the words would not come.

I wonder why this lack of inspiration hits me now. Is it the monotony of life? Coming back from the faire, I realized that I dreaded heading home. In Michigan, I went where I pleased and when I got there, someone took care of what I needed. At the faires, I fended for myself but wherever I went people were obliging, playful, and generous. Most men (and some women) treated me like a princess. Everywhere I went people told me I was gorgeous and did things for me that I never would have asked. For these weekends, as Justin says, "I am a God." We don't know what we would do without them. Now faire season is coming to a close and as I look at the world around me I feel... average. I'm not the best dressed, most well-spoken, tallest amazonian. My movements don't call attention to me in flattering ways. I am less than stunning. I just exist to be here, another cog in the wheel.

Headed down I-5 Sunday in the short hour home from Salem, I realized I wasn't yet ready to come back to Eugene. I hadn't prepared myself for bills and dishes and catfood and errands. I especially hadn't prepared myself for nine hours in front of a computer every day. Thinking of this made me want to weep. "Justin," I said, "When we get home, neither of us is going to turn on our computers. We are going to check the answering machine messages and shut the door to the study. We are going to take a shower, make dinner, put a fire in the fireplace, sit down, have a glass of wine and get laid." For once, I actually managed to mostly relax. We did end up going to the grocery store in a mad rush, still dressed in garb (the second time we've gone to Albertsons in garb, the second shopping trip we've made this particular weekend (the other was to Old Navy where I explained to some people that no, I did not dress like this all the time and yes, this was Old Navy's fall line)) and sat down, after showinging, to soup and hard rolls in front of the fire. We skipped the wine and the sex; we were just too damn tired. It was really the next day that the businesslike mentality of cohabitation and home upkeep caught up with me. I realized that though the apartment was sound and clean after two weeks in Justin's hands (at least, until our unpacking trashed it), we really had yet to scrub the place down for having been there five months. So I started on that and, obsessively, didn't quit when I should have. I managed to save some for today before dropping dead but I'm not looking forward to finishing. Ah, yet another thing to aggrivate my Culture Shock at coming back.

I really can't wait for classes to start. I want variety! Excitement! Et Cetera!! If you want an idea of my schedule, take a look. Factor in advanced scuba for the first three weeks, Publishing the Voice, and mentoring a middle school girl in how to be L33t, and you have an idea of my 60 or so hour week (excluding homework time.) Ahhh.... so BUSY!!! I love it!! On top of that, I'm applying for four study abroad/ internships in Japan this spring that will hopefully come through.

I have things to do now, and only a few weeks left to do them in. But I feel no motivation. I feel like I'm biding my time for fall, waiting for the changing of the seasons; the changing of the guard. Ever since I was young, I've felt the seasons inside me. Seasons are not exclusive to weather and temperature. Like everything else, they have an essence and I feel that essence inside. It undulates, cyclical with the turning of the year, spinning through the changing wheel. I can't explain it, but it's something extraordinary and almost blissful; it's a blessing and a gift to feel the seasons like I do. Every year I start to feel and itch when the time comes for the shift from fall to winter, winter to spring, spring to summer, summer to fall. Fall is my favorite season. I love it with every core of my being. But it's not the same here. I miss fall in the east. I hadn't realized how much I craved it until I was just back there, seeing the first hint of the leaves changing on the trees, feeling the cold crisp creeping through the humid days and into the lengthening nights. We have lovely fall here but it isn't as dramatic. I need that drama. Oh well, the long, gray winters drive me insane enough. Everyone in Michigan kept saying how much better they thought the long rains would be than the snow and I kept telling them, "NO!! You don't KNOW what it's like!!!" Blar.

So... more about Michigan....

Be prepared for a long talk. I'll probably keep mentioning the trip through the next few weeks, so I may not go into a lot of depth here, just a summary of the rest of my trip. I'm not feeling particularly emotionally inspired today, so my experience in my home town or with Sian won't be written up to par. But there's plenty of time to reflect on those later and devote more attention to their passing. And so... the adventure continues...

To cut down on excess bloggage, I've chopped up some chapters into links. Click them to read that particular part of my adventure. Or don't, cause they're there for my own chronicallage... lest I some day grow old and forget. And now they're ilustrated!! WHEE!

From Michigan- Beulah to Ann Arbor(continued)
My rather disastrous and disappointing visit with Lesley.

From Michigan- Ypsilanti
The trip to my hometown... a walk through the old neighborhood and the house in which I grew up. A day that ended better than it started, with family and other people closer than friends.