8.7.2004

My head hums with that sound that you hear the day after you went to a loud concert and stood near the speakers in the front. Except I didn't go to a concert. I slept for twelve hours last night, my mouth open so that I could breathe and in a Walgreen's brand Nyquil-impostor induced coma. That stuff is trippy, man. For real.

My throat feels as though there are razor blades implanted on each side of it every time I swallow, and until this afternoon my voice sounded like Patty and Selma's. My body gets weary if I have to walk from the bed to the bathroom, and somewhere in the hallway I have to stop and take a break.

And the fog cleared today. This morning was glorious, not a cloud in the sky, and we were supposed to be riding our bikes in the Santa Cruz Mountain Century, but instead I finished A Star Called Henry and ate ice cream in my sweatpants. Gerrummm... I grumble. Never more than when I am sick and confined to the house do I want to be outside. I can't stand being inside all day. And because I am inside all day it has given me a chance to do this.

I went back over the past two months of my life to count how many days I have spent outside all day. Like when I was little. Scampering out the door in the morning and not coming in till it's getting dark, and your battery is completely run down, your lungs full of outdoor wind and sun and probably bugs but hey they are good. You're sunburned, you stink, and you have seen the sun in all of its phases in one day. You may shower and then take a walk outside at night to admire the moon and the stars. Outside all day. The way that your body and soul are designed to live, if you're me at least. The way that I am happiest.

I would say that my total count is more than most people who live in this or any city. But it is not enough. I want to spend most of my time outside. I don't want to be an inside-dweller. It's just not natural. I start to feel contaminated and trapped and like nothing can just flow out of me and into the grass or the sky and it's all just trapped here inside and recirculated and I can't stand it. The shelter of four walls is super relaxing when you seek it, you need it after a long camping trip or a long day at the beach or hiking in the mountains. But to me it is like a cage when it begins to be where I spend the majority of my time.

And for the last few weeks, I have spent WAY too much time inside. Inside is not where I want my life to happen. Inside never changes. But the outside is different every day. Seasons, the movement of the sun across the sky, the planets and the stars swirl and shift and change. I want to know what planet is which. I want to walk the hills and name the wildflowers and know when the salmon swim upstream in the rivers. I want to watch the whales as they migrate and count monarch butterflies as they travel to Mexico. I want to live in the country. I want to be a naturalist, outside all day with my notebooks and hiking boots, drawing insects and spying on deer. This inside city life is not for me, I don't think. I have tried it for five years now, and I do love it here so I am sure that we will stay a while longer, but in the long run, sooner rather than later, I want to be able to wake up and walk outside barefooted and naked in the middle of the night and stand in my yard and count the stars and breathe in the scent of the river.

Driving the point home even more, today, sick and trying to rest in my bed, I at least wanted the window open so that I could hear and breathe the outside. Our neighbors who are usually busy sawing things at 7:00 in the morning had moved a speaker out into their (lumber) yard so that they could listen to bad rap music really loudly all day as a backdrop to the belt sander or whatever it is that they've got over there. Do they really think that EVERYONE shares their taste in music and that we are all glad to be entertained by their poor musical decisions all day? And another neighbor's dog barks incessantly, probably because it isn't right for a dog to be cooped up in a city either.

We're planning a trip to Copenhagen for a friend's wedding and then to Ireland where we will meet Mat's family and then go on a week-long backpacking trip through the Irish countryside. We are going to be hiking about 10-12 miles a day, chugging the green Irish air and devouring the mountains with our eyes. I need it. I gotta breathe. I have got to see some dynamic earth, some changing, shifting and swirling before I lose my mind. It is never more than when I am sick and trapped in the house that I long to be free and a part of the planet.

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8.3.2004

I have watched this probably 30 times since Saturday night when I saw it first at a friend's house. Will Ferrell - A message from White House West It will not get old, and it might make you laugh so hard that you snort. We need some comic relief in these dark times of three-year old terrorist threats

Did you know this yet? Did you have a hunch that perhaps the new Terrerr alerts for New York and Washington were simply a reaction to the way-too-successful, way-too-hopeful, way-too-inspiring Democratic National Convention? Well, here you go.

The administration is just so pitifully predictable. Bush's approval ratings threatened? Just strike fear into the hearts of the American citizens that he supposedly cares for, respects, and wants to protect. Then they will obey and not kick him out of the White House for a job badly done. If this administration cares one bit for the American people, they will not continue to manipulate them with fear and terror. it is disgusting. I am nauseous. More people must talk about this and be aware of this.

Another thing. The administration seems to be taunting the American People. What else can they get away with? It is amazing the number of horrible things that they have done, and they have had to answer to no one on most of it because NO ONE reads the news sources that truly inform. Rolling back nearly every environmental protection that the Clinton administration established, meeting with big polluters to compose our energy policy behind closed doors, turning a blind eye to the Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear secrets to countries who hate us, rejecting the 911 commission's recommendations to protect our country, ignoring North Korea (who could very well hit this country with a nuclear bomb), robbing the poor to give to the rich, allowing the constitution to be ignored, sending our civil rights backwards...

And this is all during his first adminstration when he knew in the back of his mind the entire time that he would have to try and get reelected!! Can you imagine what they will do with a second term? Who cares what the people think of them? Approval ratings? What do they mean? It will be no holds barred, balls to the wall dictatorship, and our lower and middle class, our beautiful envrionment, and our standing in the entire global community will not withstand it.

I think that it doesn't matter what he does with his first term because he knows that his friend is the one who designed the voting machines which will be counting our votes come November, and the machines leave no paper trail. Wake up America! Read the New York Times, for God's sake. It's not super liberal... it actually **is** fair and balanced and it provides actual facts and information that everyone should know before this election.

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