(Mary) home

Michigan will always be home. It always has been and always will be, until I die.

things that anger me.

"you're from where? I'm sorry"
"I can't wait to get out of here"
"isn't it all a bunch of crime there?"
"it's so flat"
"I would never raise a family there"
"so you're from the hood?"
"you know all about the ghetto, then"
"isn't it winter all the time here?"
"and you haven't been shot?"
"I heard it's not doing so well"
"I miss my mountains"
"there's nothing to do here"
"it's too cold"
"it's too hot"
"that sucks, that you have to deal with winter and 100-degree summers"

things that are beautiful.

four seasons, all intense
blue-collar work
car mechanics
freshwater lakes almost the size of oceans
flat land and big sky -- "you could watch your dog run away for days"
muddy shoes, worn
baseball
homeless people in libraries
alleys
brick showing through the asphalt
African art
live music over lunch
pumpkins, apples, blueberries
cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice
no tics
maple trees, and oaks
panhandlers and street preachers
American cars
empty buildings
hard knocks
hard work
home

I walked four miles this morning. Felt really, really good.

I badly want to build and paint.

My basil plant looks like a palm tree. It's lost almost all its leaves, and is an empty stalk until the top. My ivy is doing quite well.

I finished all my library books.

Yesterday, we were going to celebrate by going to a Mud Hens game and watching two sets of fireworks afterward. It was 100 degrees and there was no parking, so we came back to the apartment, intending to start season 2 of 30 Rock. (It's a little embarrassing that we got through a whole season in a week.) Unfortunately the librarians had forgotten to unlock the DVD case. We youtubed methods of unlocking DVD cases and tried a few, but ended up calling Blockbuster. The guy said he'd try to unlock them if we brought them in, but when we got there we discovered that Blockbuster uses a different locking device than the library.

We celebrated by reading. Silently.

I can't wait till I have a real job and a real place where I'll be for more than six months, where I can actually move in. I can't wait till I have a salary big enough that I can pop over to the craft/hardware stores anytime and buy things and make things.

Domine, ut videam!