currently listening to:
i'm back home. nothing really changed. the well overflow has clogged often enough that my father has given up mowing that section of the lawn. i sleep on the top bunk of the bed my sisters used to share--my old bedroom has been taken up by my younger sister in my absence. i buzz my hair to 3/8", the only thing that reminds me of the flow of time. i throw myself into books (of the 30+ i picked off my shelves when i got home and set aside to read for the first time, i only have 4 left), i play with the kids outside and work on rebuilding the dilapidated walls of the stick fort. i go to the library and talk to my best friend, but more often than not i end up sitting in the nonfiction section reading yet another book instead.
i think i've changed. it feels like not much else has.
i spend a week at my grandparents' house, and it feels more normal than my own house. i'm used to being a guest now, not to being at my own home. i sign up for first semester classes and get into all my first choices. i pack for the camping trip. on wednesday i have a presentation and activity event at a nearby school that i wish i hadn't agreed to do. i'll do it anyway. i walk to the small methodist church every sunday. they have a new pastor from mississippi, but i never went much before so it's not all that different to me. i enjoy talking to the old ladies over coffee afterwards. this sunday we finally had the (apparently monthly) communion. the small piece of bread ripped off by hand from a loaf and dipped in grape juice was the best thing i've had in over a year.
i'll be going on a 6-day backpacking/farm service trip with some other incoming students the week before move in. it seems like fun, though i've only met the upperclassmen who'll be the ones chaperoning so far. breaking in new hiking boots reminds me that time is passing. my summer is slipping away between my fingers. i practice putting in my contacts without looking in the mirror (my old glasses don't look good with the new haircut). yesterday, i got a free slushie from one of my sister's classmates who bought it for someone who'd already left the library while i was sitting there. today, the old man at the asian grocery gave me a free ice pop and didn't charge me for the ginger root. with my haircut, i pass in the eyes of both small children and the elderly. when i resolved to cut it all off, i also resolved to come out to my family. i haven't done that yet. it seems silly. pre-orientation events where we have to include pronouns in our introductions suck. you have to unlock that stuff about me after a set amount of interaction, it's not starter information, yet neither she/her or he/him seems like a realistic answer coming from me now. i reread midshipman's hope. the patterns i obsess over in the later books actually start there too, i just hadn't known they were patterns at that point. i get one of my friends to start reading it after i talk her ear off in a decrepit barn full of second-hand books and the small of cat urine. i don't know if i'll ever see her again.
i've only typed a single page of mad dog out on my typewriter onto a blank page meant for chinese character practice that i ripped out from a notebook. i subsequently lost it. i've decided the ending, which i couldn't do in taiwan. i've grown used to endings.
i finally bought a new drawing tablet. i kept up with art fight, but i did revenges only. i've been using screens as little as possible during the day, and i'm usually too tired to use them during the night either. i've been getting laxer with my restrictions as summer comes to an end, but i haven't had much of an urge to scroll endlessly on social media even when i do use my computer/phone. not that i've been being "productive" when i'm not
on them. i've only worked through one chapter of the l latin textbook i planned to go through this summer.
having fun, so it doesn't really matter lol :p
