i've been absent for a while. 57 days according to my buddy list. my heart hasn't really been in "it". it? i don't know. since i've started school i don't have energy (or time) for any of the things that i used to 'enjoy'. my politics. reading articles, educating myself. perhaps that phase of my life is ... well, it's not complete, but perhaps it's just time to change the medium?

i guess i'm really just not sure where to go. i know what i want to do with myself, but every day the impracticality of it all looms larger, like that fence they want to build across the southern border. people will still get around it. i'll still get around this.

i just need to spend less time with people so entrenched in living a "normal" life. how to do that? get out of school. i feel i owe it to myself to graduate though. i've put a lot of work into school, even if all of it has been last minute and half assed. you'd never know it by my grades.

as if that matters.

sondra and i have been looking for a house to rent. time to get out of the apartment. the people in the rental office are pissing us off, the quality of the maitenance is pissing us off, the declining quality of life is pissing us off, and, most importantly, being around so many people with no land of our own is pissing us off.

boy, we're picky for college students, aren't we?

but, i think we've found the perfect solution. it's going to take some hard work, once we get the place. a lot needs to be fixed up. the richardson's have accquired a new store - the 85 year old walker's florist and greenhouses. huge piece of property, with a house that was built in the very early 1800s (complete with chicken shack and resident ghosts), a sprawling maze of greenhouses, and lots of unused land. right behind it all sits a vacant prefab home. up to three bedrooms, two full bathrooms, add on deck, and a beautiful yard. all mine, assuming the water still works and the heating unit doesn't blow up. haha.

all mine for mad cheap too.

right behind work. where sondra will soon be employed.

things at the hospital didn't quite work out.

there have been medical problems too. looming questions of cancer hovering in the background, as well as ridiculous hormonal imbalances - facts, not questions - to deal with. this hasn't been a great year for us. mostly her. but i'm along for the ride as well, and i really don't like to think of us as separate individuals. when she's not around, i'm really not sure what to do with myself. i should probably get over that, just a little bit. we're two years into this journey - that doesn't make a lifetime. but still, i don't see either one of us ever leaving.

i'm not sure either one of us will ever be so bold. bold in other ways, perhaps. as for our relationship... we're not the type to let things go. we'll stay up all night having miserable tear-filled conversations before giving up to our ever increasing exhaustion. we refuse to go to bed angry, so we always wake up together.

not that that ever happens with any kind of frequency. it's just nice to know that we can handle things when they come up.

my friends? oh, my friends. i look around at us all in our own little lost worlds, each of us trying to establish a place for ourselves in this world. none of us are on similar tracks. i barely see most of them anymore. some of us have finished school, many of us are still trudging through it, or staring at grad school applications, pondering our next bold moves. plans are flying left and right, succumbing to reality, only to be reborn again with a different twist. every day we're becomming less like ourselves, faced with such an insurmountable reality. in this age of interminable adulthood, youth refuses to be relinquished. why should we? there is discord all around us, unrecognized, unspoken, but present at all times. no one is putting the pieces together. a revision: not enough people are putting the pieces together.

sometimes i feel like this is the 1920s repeating itself - as comedy or tragedy, i can't tell yet.

but maybe that's because i've been reading too many writers from that time period lately. i can't help it. first of all, i'm required to. secondly, their stories fit the best. the present can't teach you all you need to know about itself. sometimes we must look to the past, always with an eye on the future.

i am far too philosphical today. what has gotten into me?

uncertainty.
i suppose?

i've been working on some new poems. my novel has languished a little since its baptism in the flood waters. only on paper though. in my mind, pages have been filled to the point of overflow. if only i could somehow translate all that into english.

i'll share soon. maybe in 57 days.

erika