The clock on my laptop reads 1 38 AM, which means it's 11 39 PM here in Mount Langley. Bear and I set up our dinner just a few minutes ago. Deep breath.

Olympia oysters pan-seared then topped with a dot of herb butter. After learning to shuck an oyster, and considering that these water-filtering gender-switching creatures are still alive through our sticking a knife into their most intimate spaces, sweeping through the muscles to reveal them in all their vulnerability, I still find myself silent and focused at the counter with a small knife. I've read that oysters are the only food we eat still fully alive. I guess I did have squid in Korea that was still moving, but I think those were "just" nerves reacting - the way a daddy longlegs' leg still spasms when you rip it apart. I know. I know. We're talking about food here. What I mean to say is that shucking an oyster is a dangerous and serious ability - like slaughtering a chicken to feed people you care about, to entice their senses and provide sustenance. And they taste so good. Even as they shrink to the size of dimes in the pan and take on the coloring and flavors of the butter, we taste the ocean.

Roast tomato. As simple as ripe, organic tomatoes, marinated for fifteen minutes in sea salt, black pepper, chopped shallots and olive oil then slow roasted at 225 degrees for... must have been almost two hours, slowly filling the kitchen with an escalating dance of comfort and sensuality. We topped with a few drops of balsamic vinegar right before serving. It was more subtle than sticking your face over a pot of tomato sauce with the music going, and friends laughing in the tail end of spring semester, but along the same lines. This bowl of tomatoes is so precious, we'll keep the juices that are left when the last piece is eaten. It might be the base to a sauce we make, or we might sop it up with a nice piece of...

Olive baguette. We purchased this at the Mount Vernon Food Coop, but we believe one Nate Smith could (and probably has) reproduce such a crusty, tasty canvas for a forkful of...

Roast vegetables - zucchini, red bell peppers, leeks and fava beans with olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt and pepper. This was probably the most visually vibrant plate we had, and a wonderful salad to behold. We could eat this all week, but we'll have polished it off in two days. (You don't understand how much we made of this. If we stuffed it in a bag and placed it under Beardface's shirt, people would ask if we were having twins.)

Salmonberry Wine, picked in May of this year from the back 17 acres of Child's Creek Farm, among the creek and muck, bottled the 4th of August... which is just last week. Beard has a winemaking store owner friend Bob who, with his dog, caught up with us on the way to the co-op for afternoon coffee. Beard gifted him four pounds of Salmonberry when he picked them so they could both make their own wine and share. Bob ranted and raved about how good Beard's was - he shared it with some winemaking aficionados (read: nice snobs) and they thoroughly enjoyed it. So we opened it tonight to see and record notes.

8/15 First Bottle (w/ Alvin) + oysters!

- tang, good berry bouquet and flavor

- very bright and refreshing

- reddish rose color

- lemon on back of tongue?

He's right and there's a very, very clean and appealing finish. It's almost a buzz on the roof of your mouth, but there's no fuzzy film left on your tongue which adds greatly to the drinkability. Right now, I'm not trying to sell this guy. It's a great wine and I'm not a huge fruit wine drinker. So, ladies, first year winemaker and single bearded guy. Must be great with kids and OK with asian life partners and goats.

I was going to take pictures, but most of the food is gone. Later, photos of wine.

---

D9 was... well, it's an interesting story of how it was made... apparently a Halo movie (the xbox game) was in the works, but it fell through... and that is somehow related to this... where Producer Peter Jackson approached Director Neill Blomkamp and basically said, "Do whatever you want and I'll support it. I'm Peter Jackson." Whatever Peter Jackson touches is studio insurance (even mediocre, three-hour King Kong with a world profit of well over $250 million). So previews were all over the place, a creative marketing strategy for the bigger cities was executed and a bunch of girls rolled their eyes. When a movie gets well over 90% on Rottentomatoes, it's kind of a big deal, but those usually aren't movies that might be described as "Not enough like Time Traveller's Wife," or "Too much like Transformers, not enough like... insert geeky sci-fi movie here," or even "Where are the boobies?" Let's talk about the flaws first.

The first half or so of the film took a documentary-style to relay the exposition of the plot - interviews and "stock" footage of anti-alien/non-human regulations. The second half is the Transformers/Harrison Ford/Bourne with shakier camera and quick cuts. There was one POV of the alien looking out the window, he is dejected and... claw-cuffed and hopelessly observing some physical abuse and the POV shot itself is swooping all over the place. That, and the gross content, with the cherry coke and theater popcorn, led to a pretty rough headache.

It dipped, for just a few scenes, into the sentimental. The rogue alien and cast-off human kneel before each other, wounded and bleeding with bullets tearing all around them. They look each other in the eye - one set is kind of gray and blue, the other is yellow and black. "We stick together! I'm not leaving you!"

That being said, it's pretty impressive that the film had the audience to resonate emotionally with the aliens. Glory had us caring about Denzel Washington, WallE had us crying for a robot that only said one word, and District 9 had us rooting for a prawny, skeletal creature from space. Nice.

The metaphorical significance somewhat dissolved itself as the specific resolution was being sought out. I think I'm OK with that because it gave way for character structure and decision, but I'm not too OK with as simplified a resolution as, "They have the thing we need, let's go Die Hard on their asses. Thug life." I should have said that I'm not a big sci-fi viewer, and maybe it all dwindles down to the geeky guy getting really mad and picking up a gun that makes people explode in order to make a movie.

I guess the previews led me to believe that the black muck the guy gets sprayed with is some sort of initial infection that would spread, of course, to other humans, which is why the aliens are there in the first place... like several other alien films or, even worse, some vampire flicks and, even better, a handful of zombie flicks. One guy gets infected and starts spewing his business on everyone else, the aliens successfully plague another planet. How many movies are coming to mind right now? Independence Day, Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, 28 Days Later, The Faculty etc. That's not what happens here. What happens is, the guy goes back in time to see what his wife was like when she was, like, six years old. It's OK! It's not creepy because he tells this little girl, while they're standing alone in a field, that he's going to marry her someday. Not creepy. Romantic.

Right?

Happy Allison's birthday. Allison, all my friends like you better than they like me. Enjoy it.

Eerie.

...I feel like a part of my blog was put through Google translator, brought back to broken English and then posted on this clusterbone of a blog. Or maybe it's a rogue non-English speaker teaching him/herself by tediously translating word-for-word with an outdated dictionary. If the latter, keep at it Poytiki. Either way, at 1 30 AM, after crosswords, Entourage, wine and laughter, this is nothing short of terrifying.

But anyway.

Tonight marks the last of nights that I'll stay here in Langley because tomorrow, the minute that Stina and Jess return home from work, to the waiting arms and greetings of Paul and myself (two able, educated, competent and healthy American young men), we will journey past the border into Washington.

I hate to say this, and many will scoff, but I'm looking forward to being able to use my cell again. Simultaneously, I wonder that I may have been happier, more calm, with a stunted ability to make calls and texts. There are voices I miss, so I have calls to make - especially back in Mount Vernon, contacting Beardface as we run our circles around.

I miss watching movies. I had this big idea to walk through a

District 9 VS. The Time Traveler's Wife

, which would have been very fun (and would have put a few people in their places), but I would have been largely going by trailers. Still would be interesting, I think, but I guess I'd like to see more movies than I have been lately. Also, I'm tired and there are a few others out that look interesting.

I've started about five different paragraphs, with five starts on five different subjects, but they are boring and I'm not sure how/that I want to talk about them here.

A moment. Thursday, Paul driving the Passat down Hwy 1 back towards Langley. Having had picked up Christina from work, and abandoning the Buick from where it stood in the parking lot, after a tantrum and shutdown with the engine (and the brakes, then the ignition and...), we sped back to Ralph's, a semi-outdoor produce place, before they closed. We were hungry, Stina had a big day, and we wanted to get groceries so we could make Mexican food for dinner and relax together into the evening.

I sat in the back, staring straight ahead and occasionally sipping my carbonated lychee drink. They softly chatted and talked out their day, and current decisions - small as they were - to each other. Paul offered Christina a sip of his drink each time before he took one for himself. He wore jeans and a t shirt, both dirty from having had worked construction in the morning and staining the deck. She in greys and blacks with her hair partially up in elegant swoops. The sun was on its way down, and I looked at the empty seats next to me, the landscape flying by, and two good friends of mine, trying to imagine, and hang on to, what we must be right now, in a moment. One college grad, working an actual job. Two students - graphic design and writing - entering their senior year. A week ago, the border patrol asked us how it was we all went to the same school when we were from Langley, LA and Iowa. I guess I've been turning that question over in my head since we drove away, baffled at how we were supposed to answer.

"After this week, the next time I'll be riding in a car with you two up front... your kids will be here. Your firstborn will be named Quincy."

They did laugh, and went along with the premonition, which is great (because the premonition is great) and I wondered if it would be true and, if it will, how accurate it will be.

(Their next kid will be named Alvin.)

Because in a little more than a week, I'll be back in Iowa and the semester will start, and end, much sooner than we will be ready for it. Friends will go for their semester away, others will come back for their last, and we will all still be adjusting to having the '09 class gone. And who are all these little kids running around? Paul will follow a few days after. Christina will stay and work and continue to seek out jobs with better pay and more to offer in the motivation department.

Yikes. I just freaked myself out. Again.

The Man

Say what you want about Bill Clinton, rehash any old jokes and supercilious comments about any decisions made in the past. And then read this story and watch the video. I'd honestly like to hear any ideas about what a former American president would say to the dictator of the most secretive and arguably the most oppressed nation in the world. Do you shake hands and smile in the face of a childish monster?

I'm in Langley now. Up in British Columbia. Paul and Christina came out this morning to pick me up from Mount Vernon, to stop by in Bellingham and to cross the border.

Border Patrol: How is it that you three went to school together?

On the ride out here, she told me about a book... something about searching for rose (the wine)... and a couple traveling with a friend who is hilarious and a womanizer to... search for rose (the wine). I'd like to read it after she's done, because she recommended it. Guess who the hilarious womanizer is. How ya doing?

So we're back together... another sort of triple threat, if you will... with the addition of Stina's sister Jess, and spent a big exhausting day in Vancouver and came back to chat and enjoy libations with John and Lynn, to laugh at hiccups etc. etc.

At one point in the evening, Christina slammed her hand down on the dining table. "I don't care. We're going to have pillow talk tonight. It's going to happen." It's not very often that Paul and I exchange bewildered looks without erupting in laughter. We were confused, for slightly different reasons. She went to... contain her excitement, to get more wine, to get some pillows... I don't know, but when she was out of earshot, I whispered to Paul,

"... ...what does she want to pillowtalk about?"

In a regular situation, my answer might have been.

"Bitch, I don't know!"

"Hell if I care!"

"Whatever I want, ho!"

...and so forth. But we were tired.

So we stay up - Paul, Jess and I - quietly listening to soft music, writing letters, searching for lost computer files, sipping more beverage... winding down, one might say. After some time, Jess goes to change into sleep clothes, and Paul disappears shortly after.

Jess came back into the room with her hair tied up. Paul returns with the slightest, most reserved of grins on his face.

"Hey, where's Christina?"

"She's asleep."

It's strange to remember that I'm in Canada now. And with the Beimers at their house, and not at Sandy Hollow sitting outside of their camper as a sweet escape from campus life. The Pacific Northwest is agonizing in its beauty and I'm doing my best, also, to soak in familiar friends in their settings. It's exhausting, the thoughts that constantly stem out from being in the same vicinity with everyone here, everyone I'll hope to spend (more) time with for the duration.

Anyway.

I watched a family in Vancouver earlier tonight. They were young - mom, dad and son. I think they were Chinese, but we weren't close enough to hear what they were saying to each other. They sat upon newspapers that they brought along to wait for fireworks. Just like us, and the 500,000 others. Not a lot of people reading this will know really what I'm talking about, but the young Asian couple... dressed in bright colors, simple garments... very skinny, and looking as if they can live efficiently, as if they're sensible around a calculator etc. etc. Tiny people really, all three of them. Stina reported that the mom and son could comfortably sit on one newspaper square together. They laid back against the gently brushing waves, the sun and water matching each other in exploring the possible colors as the evening dripped away, and the boy rolled about his parents. At one point, the father put his forehead against the back of his son's as he sat quietly on his lap. The child was, no doubt, mesmerized by the dancing water and the father might have been exhausted, working tirelessly to give his family the best start that he could provide. They sat like that for what seemed to be ten minutes. The boy's hair was the same as his father's - cut short to reveal the same efficient, simple head with nothing to hide from each other.

Why do people become fans of Pissing People Off! on facebook? Why do some of those people have to be kids that were in your group at Dordt Discovery Days last summer that you want to encourage? And if you had any words to give them... they would be to be confident about who they are. That's what we want for anybody we know, right? And if they're young (and so much moreso if they're bright), then we want them to grow enthusiastically and enjoy the time of their youth... pre-youth.

---

I'm talking to a friend, let's call her Dianne, about whether people have types or not... and I just asked Beardface's mom (I almost called her Mrs. Beardface, but Paul Westra doesn't have a beard. Her name is Sharon... er, Mrs. Westra, but I can call her Sharon... and him Paul) because she is the only one awake. I came away with a few chuckles and the knowledge that she wouldn't have dated a Hindu party animal... her red flags were guys who were 1) non-Christian and 2) obnoxious party animals.

That's different from having a type, I argued later. Having a series of red flags, especially for a young Christian on the dating scene (do Christians have dating scenes?), is expected in everyone to some level. For example... I wouldn't exactly ask a girl out to coffee if she were a fan of Pissing People Off! on facebook. Girls don't look cute(r) with ironic phrases on their t-shirts.

Some people have a type, or types. Dianne has a type. There are certain characteristics that she either consciously ascertains from guys, or that she's noticed are common attributes with guys she's fallen for... or both (the latter, then the former). Guys with dark hair who aren't stringy tall and have calm, clear eyes. Not loud guys. (Dianne doesn't like me that much.)

Dianne and people like her are, generally, the same people who have separate mental lists of People I Could Date and People Who Are Just Friends... and there is some transition that takes place between those ladders, but not so often, and the criteria... ... ... I have a headache, and anyway, it's much more interesting to have someone explain it to you for themselves.

I don't have a type. Sorry. I maintain that I don't have a type because... it's so interesting when you talk with someone, and you walk away saying, "Who is this person?" as in, "I want to see this person again," and "I want to know this person." Girls who can be mean... that's hot. Girls who laugh when they want. Also hot. I could go on for pages...

Other friend, she'll be Isabel tonight, says that the people we don't find intriguing on some minimal level are the ones that guard themselves. Sadly, perhaps these are also the people that bore us.

Or, more truthfully, what I said was that some people bore me. That might be the most pompous thing that could be said about another person. "Maybe there's a correlation between how guarded people are, and how boring they seem to be."

...maybe I'm just bored by people who have different interests than I/people who suck.

No, because really, guarded people are intriguing initially.

And there are things that catch your eye with a member of the opposite sex. I don't mean being an ass-man or a breast-man, because that's a totally different, generic conversation. (It's still a fun one to have occasionally.) I mean things that you talk about when you haven't seen your bearded friend in awhile and you're up late playing Cribbage and having some wine. It's not that you're immediately interested in a GIRL when she wears black with silver jewelry (for example)... but you notice it, and think it looks nice and wish more girls would do that.

And then THAT girl (any number of them) does it, and you crumble.

But anyway.

That's all different from having a type. I just thought it was interesting. I mean, if I met a girl from India with a British accent... that'd be great. Mostly because of that frickin' movie Bend It Like Beckham... and then she was on ER later. That was cool.

/Someone who will die for you and more, but it ain't me babe! No! No! No!

The only way to enjoy the sun

An old, fat, happy looking man sat in the shade outside of his house. He wore gray sweatpants and a western-style shirt on the sidewalk, shaded by an unfettered magnolia tree (it seemed) on one of the hottest days during one of the hottest summers that Mount Vernon has seen in several years. Jeremy and I were walking back from the town (library for books, coop for coffee, groceries and late gifts for my sister's birthday). We passed the amtrak station, a few pubs, a small movie theater that's doing outdoor screenings for the summer. With onions, oats and yogurt in our packs, we made our way back to the neighborhoods, walking mostly uphill in 90+ degree weather. We met a nice guy on the way.

--

Just now,

"You might want to put some pants on. Maybe even a light jacket. And if they start swarming you, don't swat too hard. Just swat lightly."

"...don't freak out?"

"Yeah! Don't freak out! If you're five feet away, you should be fine. Just walk away if they come after you."

"..."

"And maybe... you might want shoes and socks."

Jeremy manages two medium-sized bee hives and we're going to set in some frames he assembled this afternoon. I will not freak out, and take photos. Hope to write more, and hear from you, later.

Five Operators and Me

I felt like the worst kind of person when I picked up my phone tonight. It was some 360 number that I was unaware of. Jeremy on the other end, asking if I had landed in Seattle yet.

This happened a few hours ago, when it was still Tuesday, July 21. It's now Wednesday, July 22 and the original plan that my mother and I carefully arranged online for was tomorrow, Thursday, July 23, depart Sioux Falls, SD to Seattle, WA to arrive back on August 18, the day before Symposium prep. meetings with Troy and Bethany began.

I thought Jeremy was kidding, and he thought I was kidding.

And then there was panic. A rush of anger, disbelief, sweat and blood to my brow. I felt like the worst kind of person and flipped open my email.

The itinerary online said Depart: Sioux Falls August 18, Return August 19.

We were both wrong. Actually, all three of us were wrong. I don't know how. I don't know how. I don't know what happened and, as I said (I hope kindly and patiently to the five operators) I don't really need to know what happened. What can we do from here? It's not about why/how the flight changed twice since whenever it was earlier this month that I booked it.

"Red Quail Dog Six Gopher Kansas." That's my confirmation number. I gave it four different times, and they always typed before responding "OK, Alvin Shim? What can I do for you?"

Gina, Andrew, Mike, Elaine and Cassidy. The last two are supervisors, and very courteous and straightforward. I don't want to say whether any of them passed their job on to another operator in another cubicle, though Mike did consider passing me back to online connection, which was Andrew's department, and I just wanted to say, to all of them, to please not waste any of our time.

One by one, they found me an alternate schedule, applied the flight change fee ($150) and calculated the difference in flight cost from the original reservation ($311.99, considerably more than the original ticket price), waived the change fee and discussed the various options I had from there. Cassidy felt that the best option would be to shop around online for a cheap(er) flight that would work into my schedule, assuring me that the credit I had with the original ticket would carry over so long as I gave them the correct numerals and informed the agent to document the "remarks on ticket" with the waiver code.

Mom says that maybe God doesn't want me to go to Washington. It should be noted that Mom doesn't want me to go either. Hani says maybe I should've asked God about it... which I did, but I think God and Mom talk more anyway.

The semester starts in one month. After the frenzy in Honduras, and rearranging the flight and summer schedule, building anticipation, having it broken and rebuild, I'm now sitting in the living room at 2 in the morning, trying to gather up the energy to search for another flight out... by this weekend hopefully. And if not, I'll have less than three weeks to (at least start to) make some sort of a living before the semester starts.

And Jeremy (and Elbert) drove out to Seattle to pick me up. And a 40-year-old pastor in New Jersey, with three kids under the age of 5, died of a heart attack. He was on the treadmill at the time. Isn't that ironic, and terrible? My family grew up with his apparently. I don't remember, but I probably would if I saw their faces. I did see my friend Poel's face tonight, under the light of the SV/East Campus parking lot. He and two dudes were launching water balloons at Sarah and I, practicing for when campus security showed up, but ran out before he actually did. (What a bunch of amateurs.) Poel's mom, as you may know, suffered an aneurysm last week and died Thursday morning. Mikey's little brother, the super intelligent and quiet (like all the Olthoff boys), will be in hospital for months more of healing, but he's doing better than anybody would have imagined. Sarah's home in Godfrey will be her former home officially very soon. Hani's mom doesn't want her to drink. Her dad just doesn't want anybody to pressure her. Scott and Margaret celebrated their two-year anniversary yesterday. Bree's car broke down on the way to Sioux Falls. Hani's broke down IN Sioux Falls. Caitlin said to yell, or cry, on the phone... maybe she really should have called for me.

What happened after I became the worst person ever? Bree decided she was too tired and finite to run about at midnight, so as Hani and I biked over to East Campus, we said a small prayer passing by her house. Sarah passed by in her car, cutting through that beautiful Sioux Center-in-the-summer air, and I relayed the evening to her, feeling like I was about to hurl the bike across the lot. I hate that anger and frustration bleeds over to unrelated people and irrelevant things.

Tease

I normally hate trailers for films. Even though I love (and miss) the guy who performed the "In a world..." voice-overs, I often can't stand watching trailers for films I've seen, even if I hate the movie too. Don't get me wrong. I love watching them, but so often there seems to be a tried (but not necessarily true) formula for enticing an audience... even if it isn't necessarily accurate to the content, tone or story of the film in question. The narrator says something very brief, but largely unnecessary, clip of the actors saying something entertaining, maybe something more indicative of the story, flash cut to action, flash cut to action, louder music, more action, explosion/blood/sex scene, CUT MUSIC, witty line of dialogue, titles up, release date. What's the purpose of a trailer? Like a book cover, it's generally for publicity - so more people will buy tickets, or pick up the book. "Here's what the story is, and the big name actors, maybe some awards it won already... and some A.D.D. video editing." Go!

But! Look at this!

You should (eventually) see the film because it's haunting, brutal, beautiful and terrible but I've never had as much fun with a trailer. And it goes against almost everything I've just whined about.

The thing is that films rarely are enticing when you describe the story itself. It shouldn't be this way, but take a look at the tops of the box office lately. According to imdb, they are...

1) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

2) Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

3) Public Enemies

4) The Proposal

5) The Hangover

What are the synopses for these films? By themselves, not great movies. (Are any of these great movies?)

Robots come to earth and explode things, nasty "actress" bounces around, nerds freak out.

A bunch of semi-famous screen actors provide the voice for some animals running around in the... um... ice age.

JOHNNY DEPP kind of plays John Dillinger (but not really), robs a few banks, breaks out of a few prisons, has a few suave lines of dialogue.

A strained, forced relationship between a cold boss and a promising assistant turns romantic... Sandra Bullock, people!

And finally, a bunch of guys (including Andy from The Office) go to Vegas for a bachelor party and it gets out of hand.

So you need big name actors, and the right compilation of scenes (action, dialogue, sex appeal etc.) because the story isn't going to sell it... ... ... by itself.

WHICH is why the A Clockwork Orange trailer is so hilarious and awesome, because it tells you almost NOTHING about the story, not even bothering to tell you the most basic plot points or any actors involved. Instead, it vomits the most generic buzzwords that will be attached to the film - WITTY, SATIRE, METAPHORICAL, FUNNY, BEETHOVEN (that was my favorite). The crazy is that the story is, by itself, pretty enticing... even without mention of the director, or that it is based on the Anthony Burgess novel, or that it's set in a dystopian Britain.

Remember whenever it was that The Simpsons Movie was coming out? There were a few brief trailers out there that was merely the title, the release date, and Homer doing the Spider-Pig bit. That's a different scenario - a Simpsons movie is a Simpsons movie, and I'd read an article, that I'm too lazy to track down and link now, that said the writers really didn't want that clip to be given away in the trailer (it was, undeniably, the best part of the whole film) but the studio producers were adamant about it. Something about keeping the only funny clip out of the trailers and having half-empty theaters... etc.

But I forgot to ask the question. What makes you want to see a movie?

What you might not know, because we're drifting apart and that's only because you want to.

My hands smell like tomato plants, the taste of peaches lingers on my tongue and hot Dominican coffee is probably not the best thing for a post nap-in-a-hot-room dehydration headache... but it is delicious.

Manuel Zelaya is the ousted president of Honduras. The man is friends with Hugo Chavez. Earlier this summer, he (Zelaya) organized what he claims was merely a poll on whether the president should be allowed to serve additional terms than the current one. It wasn't official. Its outcome was not supposed to be a deciding factor, but perhaps a note for future motions. Chavez pulled it off, but he is apparently more popular. Anyway, the Honduran Congress ordered the army to confiscate the elections materials (ballots and so forth). They did so, which led Zelaya to lead a mob to retrieve said materials from... was it an army barracks? I don't think so, but something very exciting like that. In the morning of the election, one hour before the ballots were to open, masked soldiers apprehended Zelaya at gunpoint (reportedly, he was still in his pajamas) and flew him to Costa Rica in exile. The Honduran people are more than split on this... some support Zelaya and are protesting the Congress and their actions, some don't necessarily support him, but are concerned about the (illegal) coup, others are all, "Zelaya was a tyrant anyway, let's move on."

I know this from BBC, CNN and Time and not because I went with Dr. Woodbury, Bekah Ahrenholz, Megan Pothoven and a few other Dordt girls to Tegucigalpa for GEN 251: History and Culture of Honduras, as was planned. We were to depart the Friday after the coup took place, which was Sunday and perhaps the deciding factor was that the US Embassy advised against any "unnecessary travel" into the country.

The housing assignments - details of the families, pets, etc. - were sent out and all the speakers/seminars were finalized. I had a not-very-rough outline for the video written out... loosely inspired by Matthew Gray Grubler's video intern work on The Life Aquatic dvd (hilarious AND informative). The texts for the course were purchased and read and marked, our bodies were getting adjusted to the chloroquine.

Instead of all that, there's a wedding in Chicago, a farm to take residence and put weeding hours in near the Bellingham area in Washington State... a winery and a restaurant just a few miles from the property that needs summer help, a guy with a beard to live/work with (who gave me permission to fall in love with the women), friends who live SURPRISINGLY close to the area, other friends who are deciding whether to drive up and spend the rest of summer there. Video, photo and fiction can still be had. It would have been very exciting to be in a country that could almost be following some of the recent steps of the Irani people. But we're not.

Apparently writers know that "happy is nice, but it's hard to explain." Excuse me for a second while I scribble it in my notebook. I suppose I agree, but I'm not sure yet. We saw Public Enemies earlier today and walked out of the theatre, collected in a group in a moment of frazzled silence - confusion really - before rubbing our eyes to let them focus and unloading that, "That was the worst movie ever." Dane was already pacing around the parking lot, furiously smoking a cigarette. The next several hours were bound to thinking up the myriad of sins and flaws the film had. In doing so, I think we were attempting to digest it fully so we could wash the tastes from our mouths to let it go. It was fun. Our phrases were colorful and they were said with such angry vigor. And then the corn and chicken was on the grill, the guacamole on the table, the libations in hand and the evening was settling steadily away from muggy to clear and cool. Conflict is the main ingredient for story and, luckily, our lives have no shortage of it. Happy IS nice, and happy should be taken deeply and/but we're complex individuals grasped on all sides by individuals that we might find we're comfortable with from time to time, and maybe that has to do with the layers we build and the holes we dig, but what are we really doing but scurrying about frantically? Maybe another way to see it, to think of what we do, is that we're dancing constantly - slow or frenetic, but we are. At least. What's happy then? Are we happy when we hear a good song and see a good friend? Or is it when we realize that what we're doing, that all we're doing, is dancing?

Cryptic enough? I'm just having trouble organizing my thoughts. My body is worn, especially down at the tips of my toes. It feels good. Fireworks are magnificent. They're almost too dazzling and surprising for anybody older than seven, right? Especially in the middle of an empty tennis court, with racquet and balls and similarly equipped friends.

And it will rain all night, I hope. It's lovely because while your dad sleeps off the jet lag, you can sit on your sheltered porch with a bowl of pasta and green beans and a glass of wine and listen to the rhythm of it all. And also, after several hours yesterday evening of weeding, tilling and fortifying the plants with compost, the rain is such a divine blessing, it might as well be a sacrament.

Here's the catch up: I'm back in Sioux Center. The Honduras trip was officially cancelled. Otherwise, I would've already landed there and would have been trying to memorize names and documenting initial thoughts upon arrival. Instead and currently, looking for jobs in... Des Moines, Chicago, Grand Rapids and Skagit area in Washington state... finding places to hire rest-of-summer work won't really pan out in this lovely, dinky town. Also, as I said, dad is home and it's been very, very chill with our respective work places. Mom flies back on Monday coming and, hopefully, I'll be out of the house soon after that week. Craigslist is a sprawling beast, but it's much more useful when one has already put a resume together. There are nine rogue tomato plants, three additional ones that I actually planted, three sprawling zucchini and some outrageous, towering hollyhocks. All of them growing like children.

I don't really know what to report... which is the anxiety that manifests when one gets out of the groove of posting... much more often. I suppose. Watched My Kid Could Paint That earlier today... among other things. Which was great, and inspiring for art AND video... thought through the years when documentary film was the focus...

I do love Sioux Center in the summer, and the timing has been great lately... with the productivity, sun, solitude and laughter at the appropriate times. It will not last and the summer will turn again, somehow, hopefully somehow soon. Which is, largely, a problem of my own if it doesn't.

Maybe I'm starting to miss working in collaboration/on a big project... because Honduras video, photo series were to be large projects... say the empty space on the hard drive, the three CF cards and the box of fifteen blank miniDV tapes downstairs.

Another lesson, of course. In self-motivation... towards staying up late AND getting up in the morning, to start the coffee and jumping in the shower, keeping up the cycle with night runs, and hopefully tennis soon. Ross! Matty! Wake up! Spontaneity is great, but it isn't really possible if you droop around on your ass all day.

More to do.