I can't really describe it, but it's definitely the smell of summer: a combination of freshly cut grass, wet pavement, something being grilled on one of the neighbor's grills. And then birds chattering, the rumble of thunder, the flicker of lightning, a cool breeze, and the hiss of cars on a rainy street. The sky peeks out, robin's egg blue, from behind silver grey clouds that lighten at the bottom. The half light is a gentle slate blue and from my bedroom, as I observe this, (and my younger siblings are in the front yard--the youngest one blows me a kiss) I feel safe and truly at home. These are the sights, sounds, and smells of a hundred summer evenings past, this one could easily merge into any childhood one, indistinct in its beauty and comfort. It's balm for my soul, especially the mild thunderstorm (not like the other night: The other night the wind had a grand old time gusting about. It knocked over the empty trash barrels in the driveway under my window and they rattled around, rolling back and forth out of rhythm with the wild waving sway of the shadows the tree branches cast on my window frame. It made me uneasy for some reason, the old childhood fear, maybe, that the tree would be uprooted and crash into my room in the middle of the night. It took me hours to fall asleep, and even then only after I had lit a votive candle and curled up into a ball under extra blankets.), something I've missed while in California.
The leaves on the trees are such a pale and delicate green compared to their deep emerald summer plumage, the lilies of the valley nod in the shadows of the old tree, the two azalea bushes in the front gardens are going wild with their hot pink and fuschia flowers, spreading out onto the walkway to the front door.

I went out to dinner tonight with a friend of mine from highschool. Mandy and I still get along really well, I just wish we had things in common. Like we used to. Still, it was pleasant.

Okay, everyone: road trip to Cincinnati, Ohio!

How, how, how do I find a second job?! How? It's killing me--no one is hiring. (Please, if all who are so disposed could ask St. Joseph for a little help with this, I would appreciate it a lot and maybe not lose my mind this summer...)

Robin in the rain/such a saucy fellow/robin in the rain/mind your socks of yellow...

So, I'm back east. It's a lot cooler out here on the right coast, that's for sure. For example, the high here today was 55 degrees and it's only expected to get that high for the rest of the week--we've got a very rainy upcoming week predicted. Spring showers, I suppose. It's very obviously still spring here, the leaves on the trees aren't all the way open yet and the ones that are opened up are that yellow-green color known as "spring green" in the Crayola crayon box. There are tulips and lilies-of-the-valley everywhere and the air smells incredibly sweet.

School feels very far away and forever-ago right now. I got home and felt kind of shell-shocked (which I'm sure has something to do with the jet-lag). This past semester really whipped by and so much went on, I don't think I had time to catch my breath and process it (I still don't think I've fully processed it). By the end of the semester I really didn't know what end was up, I was so burned out. Fortunately, my grades turned out to be good (yes, I checked already!), so I guess I wasn't quite as burned out as I thought. Which is a huge relief. Anyway, bottom line, it's good to be home (even though it feels a little less like my home every time I come back).

I've been teaching myself guitar with my Dad's much-neglected Yamaha (he has a capo and all sorts of chord books, plus there are tons of tabs on the internet, so I'm all set) and my fingers are killing me, but I can already play one song (sort of...), so it's worth it. I've also been working (lifeguarding--it's nice to have a job to come back to, even though I don't have very many hours yet), job-hunting for a second job (combing the classifieds is more fun than I've had in years, let me tell you), reading Don Quixote (Before any more people yell at me for doing homework already: have you seen this book? Is it long, or is it just me?) and other assorted books I picked up from the library (possibly one of my favorite places ever), cooking (I made lemon-parmesan risotto for the first time the other night and it's like crack, it's worth all the attention it demands... So good!), driving the kids to various places, making it to church almost every day, and burning a bunch of cds (oh, the joy of having access to an internal cd burner and downloading capabilities once more!). Well, that's a somewhat comprehensive summary of what I've been up to. I still haven't finished unpacking, or done any laundry, but clearly I've been way too busy with Very Important Things to bother.

I might post more later, but tonight is Family Movie Night and it's time for me to watch... (wait for it) National Treasure! Too exciting.

edit: Yeah, another good thing about being home is definitely the fact that I don't have to be on a plane again for another three months. There is very little I like about flying, something which was confirmed yet again this past Tuesday. The recycled air is nasty and makes my nose, mouth, and eyeballs feel like the Sahara, I can't stay awake (which doesn't help the desiccated contacts situation), and every part of my body somehow manages to have a cramp in it by the time I stagger off the the second plane. And I can barely carry all of my luggage by myself.

So, Stephen King says it well:

Stephen King delivered the commencement speech at the University of Maine. He is evidently not a Da Vinci Code fan.

"I can find out where you live," he said. "I have my resources. And if I show up at your house 10 years from now, and find nothing in your living room but Reader's Digests, nothing in your bedroom but the latest Dan Brown novel, and nothing in your bathroom but 'Jokes for the John,' I will chase you down to the end of your driveway and back shouting, 'Where are the damn books? ... Why are you living the mental equivalent of a Kraft Macaroni & Cheese life?'"

Posted by Michael Schaub | link

(courtesy of Blog of a Bookslut

Three finals down, three to go. That is, if you count seminar--I guess there are really only two more to go... Lab and philosophy. Which, considering the fact that the Math final is out of the way and it was fairly painless (And, to be perfectly honest, despite the fact that at numerous points last night I referred to our good friend Johannes Kepler as a son-of-a-bitch it was really awesome to see the progression from Ptolemy to Copernicus to Tycho Brahe to Kepler and his elliptical orbits. Sometimes it does all come together.) and the fact that I've been getting a reasonable amount of sleep (8 hrs. total for the past two nights), might just go okay. Actually, as finals weeks go this one has been pretty nice--lots of Disney songs (and quotes from The Emperor's New Groove), late night Angel's Donuts runs, cigarettes in abundance, some damn good review guides, and low on the drama. Hey, I might make it through in one piece.

Song of the Week: Vaka -- Sigur Ros (because I can study to it, and it puts me to sleep, and it's just flat-out beautiful)

good memory: swimming in the first pond on a sunny Friday afternoon after class, with H. We went swimming in skirts (and t-shirts, too!), just for the hell of it. White skirts. So, not only was the water numbingly cold, but we definitely had to do some damage-control with our towels once we were done swimming. We walked dripping wet and towel-swathed all the way across campus to our dorm, singing loudly the whole time.

Oh gosh: I leave this infernal place in thirteen days! Less than two weeks left, dammit, and life is a bowl of cherries. More or less. I'm going to be so thrilled to be done with this semester, done with this year. Not that the year has sucked completely, but it has been fairly rough and I just want to go home where I can sleep, cook, go to the beach, catch up with friends, spend time with my family and just recuperate from all the drama. Once I start to feel a little more together I have some plans to follow up on, namely: look for a second job (Because my regular job won't have any hours for me until the beginning of June, and as far as making financial aid payments and having spending money left over goes, that's just not going to cut it.), read a lot--I would go into how excited I am that I'll be able to spend quality time at the library, but it would just make me look like a total nerd--especially literature, which this curriculum really lacks (And man did I feel the lack this year, even in seminar which, as arrogant as this sounds, consisted largely of people who had no idea how to read literature, had no idea how to analyze the text... I don't remember how many times it was suggested that Chaucer's Canterbury Tales be censored, because, you know, it's just so, well, pointlessly gross! Ugh. ), spend some quality time in NYC soaking up art and culture and, yes, good food, and last but not least, work on spiritual growth while I'm not so distracted by drama that I hardly know my own name anymore (the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak). Those are just the basic plans, and they probably sound boring to most people, but right now I want to be back home so badly I can almost taste it. (Not to say that everything will be complete bliss once I'm there--the whole second-job situation is hanging over my head and probably will be for a while.) Of course there will be things that I'll miss, and by "things" I mean my friends. And maybe Theology class with the Mac-daddy. And fresh oranges a short walk away. Bottom line: Right now finals week is looming over me and I don't remember a damn bit of lab or philosophy. Okay, maybe a little, but not enough for a final. It's taking all of my self-control to not hyperventilate and pull all of my hair out. I probably won't end up failing out, but I'm being paranoid right now. Good thing: tomorrow night I'm making dinner at my math tutor's house for my section. (menu: fettucine alfredo, grilled chicken, green salad, garlic bread, and strawberry shortcake) There might be some finals week updates, there might not be.