numb and number

a little-known fact about me is that i am really good at remembering numbers. well, reasonably good. better at remembering numbers than facts or dates. a lot of people hate the idea of being assigned a number, at, like, university or for a social insurance number or something. they think it contributes to making the whole system impersonal. not me. i like my numbers. i like going through them in my head. my social insurance number, my driver's licence number, my passport number, my old king's university student number, my new u of a number, my debit cards' numbers... i like them all. i have old phone numbers of former friends kicking around in my head, and i like to pull them out and roll them around for a bit. i have our old innisfree phone number still milling around up there. i even have numbers that i can't remember what they refer to (to what they refer?).

once, a few summers ago, i lost my debit card, and i was really upset because it meant i had to be assigned (and therefore learn) a new number. i don't think people understood how losing a number could bother someone like it did me.

i think i can remember numbers because it is easy to assign your own rhythm to them. like, i can remember poetry (because of its rhythm), but am terrible at remembering speech quotes or prose lines.

perhaps surprisingly, i've never taken up trying to learn the digits of pi. maybe i should look into that....

be still my heart, or, where's an interrobang when i need one?!

i've just been informed that there is a FREE pepe moreno concert tonight in boa vista, brazil (just two hours west of lethem). why am i not there!?! oh, because i don't have my brazilian visa yet. the brazilian government is paying for pepe to give this free concert. does that seem crazy/wonderful to anyone else!?!

Capitals City

since my last post:

YLP travelled to Shulinab, a village of about 300 people in the South Central Rupununi district (so, about 4 hours south of here). We took the bus to Lethem, and then got a ride in the back of a pickup truck. Unfortunately, it was raining that day, so we had to tie a tarp on top of the box of the pickup. That meant that we were squished like sardines in the back: our luggage took up half the truck box, and the rest of us (ie. 7 of us) were crammed on the bench-seats. Crystal sat in the front seat, with a little girl and some eggs on her lap. Fun times. We arrived in Shulinab around 7 p.m. (after dark), slung up our hammocks, and went to bed.

The next day, Saturday, we held a "cultural camp" in which we brought together youth and elders to share games and crafts and traditional teachings. It was good fun. I made another mokro basket, but this time, I did the WHOLE THING by myself! A lot of the kids came over to watch me, which was kind of irritating, but good too, I guess. I think it gives them a sense of pride in their culture, and sparks their interest in traditional crafts, when they see a white girl take interest in those things. This basket is a lot smaller than the first one I made, and it ended up breaking a little bit because one of Rawle's kids stepped on it on Monday, but I am still proud of it.

Our camp continued into Sunday, and we held a big bonfire on Sunday night. I usually go to bed as soon as it gets dark, but I stayed up this time. It was really neat. Most of the community showed up - about 200 people! There were all kinds of neat presentations: there was a traditional Macushi band/dance group (pictured here), some Scottish/Irish teachers who taught us to dance a Ceili, lots of songs and traditional stories and even a pork roast. Ha.

Driving back to Lethem on Monday was more enjoyable than the trip into Shulinab. We took the same truck back, but it was a sunny day, so we didn't need the tarp tied over the truck box. Most of us stood up in the box of the truck all the way back to Lethem (a 2 hour drive). I was very dusty and dirty when we got into Lethem. We were supposed to catch a bus back to Bina Hill that night, but it never came, so we ended up staying the night at Rawle's wife's house. It was nice to just chill and watch movies and music videos. Strange that my current favorite artists include Shakira, Sean Paul, and The Pussycat Dolls.

I walked around Lethem barefoot on Tuesday, and I got a chance to call my parents in the morning. I haven't talked to them over the phone since September, so that was nice. I bought a ton of chocolate and some Christmas presents. We caught the bus back to Bina Hill at 10 p.m., and got back home after midnight. The bus breaks down every time it starts, and Tuesday was no exception. We would be driving down the road, and the bus would just turn itself off and we'd coast, in the dark, until the driver could get the engine to turn over again. That probably happened about 30 times in our 2-hour drive. Ugh. Also, there was some creepy kid named Terrence sitting next to me. Apparently he works at Bina Hill as a construction guy, and he knew who I was, though I had no clue who he was. Anyway, the whole way home, he kept trying to touch me. He would try to rest his head on my shoulder, and several times he brushed his lips against my upper arm, and he also put his hand on my thigh underneath my backpack! He kept it there for 20 minutes (I thought his hand was there, but I couldn't tell for sure, so I didn't do anything about it. But later I DEFINITELY felt him move it off)! Little shithead. After the thigh thing, I decided I would elbow him hard in the chest if he tried anything else, but luckily for him, he didn't.

On Wednesday, I think I rested most of the day. I did a bit of laundry. Ostrich-lady from Britain arrived that day, so YLP has been spending all our time trying to avoid her. Additionally, a package from my parents arrived! It was wonderful! Among other things, it contained soup, instant oatmeal, gatorade mix, beads, a "Vermilion" t-shirt and "Canada" hat to give as gifts, crochet hooks, hot chocolate, peppermint tea, and "the lorax." Woo! Exciting. I also found out that day that I have officially been accepted into school again! Hip, hip, hooray!

Yesterday, YLP walked to Oasis restaurant and then hiked up the mountain there. I did my hike in bare feet. It was nice. You should try hiking in bare feet, if you've not before. I rested on a big rock on the top for a bit, and then we all slung up our hammocks and just chilled. Nice.

Today we had a meeting to evaluate our program and the events we've held over the last 3 months. I think it went pretty well.

Starting on Monday, we have another week off. I don't know what I'll do with myself. Some people from here are going to Brazil, but Crystal and I can't go because Canadians need visas to visit there, and we don't have ours yet. We'll probably go sometime in the new year.

That's all for now.

writing on stone

exciting things from the last couple of days:

-oasis restaurant, just down the road, started selling cranberry-raspberry juice!
-taught the kids from annai secondary school to play kickball last night. they loved it, which makes me happy, because i think it is my all-time favorite game.
-ray found a tarantula in toka village and brought it back here in a plastic pop bottle just for me to see! then he smushed it under his foot, because apparently they are super dangerous and can kill people. i wish he hadn't killed it, but i am glad that i don't have to worry about tarantulas sneaking into my room. neil told me i didn't have to worry about it anyway because the tarantula doesn't have a key to my room. so silly. i will post pictures of it when the other computer is working, so check back soon.

-an unlikely set of friends: a cranky canadian girl of irish/ukrainian heritage (me), a 30-year-old cree/soto girl from saskatchewan (crystal), and a startlingly unpretentious 25-year-old oxford/cambridge ph.d. candidate from wales (gareth, who is here for 6 weeks and then goes back to the u.k. to finish his ph.d.). we went for a REALLY nice walk last night to oasis restaurant just after the sun set. the walk was about 2 kilometres each way, and although we used our headlamps when we walked through the savannah, we agreed to all walk in darkness along the road. it was lovely! there were millions of stars, and fireflies, and only one vehicle passed us in each direction! the weather was comfortably warm, not stiflingly hot like it usually is here nor bitterly cold like it is at home. when we got to oasis we drank our cranberry-raspberry fruta (gareth had beer), and we played dominos and made fun of gareth's mosquito-repelling armbands and legbands. he is a fount (font?) of entertainment, i tell you. it is nice to have friends here. too bad he is leaving in december (he comes back to guyana after april, when we leave).

i always get really jaded about my work here, believing that it is not as important or valuable as the work that some of my peers (ie. king's graduates, AFL alumni, etc.) are doing at home or overseas. i am not feeding hungry people or saving aids-stricken africa, nor am i equipping ghanian women to set up sustainable small businesses for themselves (arg - that's a whole other story). i am playing kickball with secondary students and going on fishing trips. at times, i recognize the value of this program: youth in ylp are very obviously being equipped with communication and leadership skills, which are vital in a time when their country is being invaded by companies looking to exploit their traditional lands for natural resources. and we are building relationships and community, which are undoubtably important. but sometimes it is really hard for me to see those things.

god is going to make a change. mmm?

yikes. for some reason, blogger has opened my account on this computer in spanish (or portuguese?). at least i know the buttons on here well enough to manoevre around and post.

easily, the most exciting news to come to me lately has been this:
http://www.asthmatickitty.com/music.php?releaseID=63
i just found out about it minutes ago. my heart is racing. whew. anyways.

ylp went on a community visit to the village of massara this weekend. it is a really pretty community with about 400 residents. i was sick with a bad cold the entire time, and my eyes were burning again for some reason, which made the whole trip considerably uncomfortable, but it was still pretty neat. on saturday afternoon, the toshau (chief) of massara took us upriver in a motorboat. after about half an hour, we landed on a big sandy bank. toshau and the boys went into the forest to cut some trees and collect some bark to construct and tie up a shelter. it was so neat! they found about 8 logs, about 10 cm in diameter, each splitting into a Y on top. they dug holes in the sand and put the logs in there, and then laid two long logs parallel to each other across the Ys. they secured it with stripped bark, and then tied a tarp on top. we slung up our hammocks, and then went fishing. it was my first fishing trip ever! i didn't actually fish, but everyone else did. they just used line and hooks and bait - no rod. they would spin the bait/hooks around above their heads and then throw them out and reel them in. cute. everyone caught at least one fish - most caught piranahs, which were bright orange on some parts so it looked like they had been spray painted. while we were fishing, we saw about 8 or ten monkeys in a tree along the riverbank! they were so close! i think those are the first wild monkeys i have ever seen. we went back to our camp, and everyone ate fish while i ate bananas and peanuts. i was still feeling pretty sick, so i went to bed early. but not before i saw a caimen (crocodile) swimming in the river, about 30 feet away from us! exciting! the caimen come out at night, and apparently they are just like bears - they don't bother humans as long as we don't surprise them. it was right at dusk, so it was a little hard to see, but i definitely saw the caimen's head and back. crazy. i slept in my hammock and had a miserable sleep because of my cold, but was thankful for my midnight pee break because it gave me the opportunity to wander around alone on the sand under the stars and the moon. amazing. i hope we get to do that kind of trip again sometime when i am not so sick.

when i woke up that morning, i felt even sicker than before. we packed up all our things by 6 a.m., and were back in massara around 7 a.m. i stayed in my hammock most of the day, while the rest of ylp went to church and then played volleyball with the villagers. massara has lots of fruit trees, so we enjoyed a lot of oranges and lemons and marvelled at how beautiful the mango trees are. mangoes aren't in season quite yet, but they are just coming out, so there are a lot of little green unripe mangoes everywhere. apparently during mango season, thousands of mangoes just go to waste because there is such an abundance of them. anyways. pretty trees. in the afternoon, i was able to venture out of my hammock, even though the sun continued to scorch my retinas. i watched volleyball for a bit, and then walked to the river with crystal and garreth (a welsh boy who is here to do natural resource management). a side note relating to this walk: a few weeks ago, i succumbed to the allure of flip-flops. i bought a pair of brown havaianas, and have stayed in them since. but on friday, i decided that since my feet were getting dirty anyway, i'd rather go barefoot than flip-flopped. so i have been shoeless for the last couple of days (including aforementioned walk to the river), and it has been wonderful. i read in my "rediscovery" book a little while ago that an elder said if she could do anything over again, she would "go barefoot earlier in the spring and later in the fall." done and done.

in the evening on sunday, ylp had to go to church again in massara to thank the people for having us. i was distracted because i was really sick and really hot, and we didn't even end up doing the presentation we were supposed to. but i'm glad i went, because the pastor was wicked awesome. at the end of EVERY sentence, he would end with "hmm?" he probably said, "god is going to make a change. hmm?" about 15 times during his sermon. my brain registered that that would be something i would normally laugh at, but i was too uncomfortable to actually laugh. i wasn't sure anyone else was amused by it, but when we got out of church, all my ylp youth were making jokes about it on the walk back to our "house." neil especially was super funny. my youth rule.

today? uneventful. sore eyes. oh! i got my first care package! i received a package sent by emilonely on september 18. yikes. thanks, em! i JUST ran out of chocolate today, so the vanilla bean hot chocolate and pirates of the caribbean m&ms are definitely appreciated.

my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied

gesa left yesterday. it was really nice to have her visit. before she left, all of us in YLP went to the hospital because crystal, gesa and i all have bitrouge (a tiny red bug that makes you itch a lot) and needed cream. rawle decided we should all get deworming pills too. everyone here deworms every 3-6 months. i'm glad he made that decision - i'd rather not know if i have worms or not and just be on the safe side, than find out that i have them and freak out and be disgusted. so... deworming party! sick. thankfully, the process isn't too x-rated - just 2 pills a day for 3 days.

our after school program is going remarkably well. the students love us, and our youth feel really empowered by the work they are doing. it is neat. i posted some new pictures on my flickr site today, so be sure to check them out.

i want to have a logo for our after school program, and in my usual un-artistic fashion, i've decided to have a contest for the schoolkids to design the logo. the prize will be supper at oasis restaurant for the winner, one friend, and two YLP youth of their choice. should be neat. the headmistress of the school fully endorsed the project and prize, saying the kids will "surely be motivated" to submit artwork because of the prize. cute. i think it will be great.

our garden has pleasantly surprised me with a new crop of watermelon! so exciting! i bought one a few days ago, and even though it was significantly underripe, it was delicious and a welcomed break from my daily dose of fried chicken/rice. by the way, i am putting on weight. which, as some of you may know, is good news, because i weighed 114 pounds before i came here. i'm not a fat girl yet, but i'm getting there. so expect it, and don't say rude things to me at christmas. one of the girls who was here last year started taking starch neutralizers to keep the weight off, because all we eat are carbs and fried food, but i don't know if i really want to mess with my body like that. but don't worry - i will make sure to get back to my usual twelve-year-old-boy physique within weeks of returning to canada for good in april.


in other news...

i think a lot about my breakup with darcy, and although we never actually said it (well, maybe i did), one of the reasons the breakup happened was because we both needed time and space. it is neat that i am in a place that has an abundance of both those things. i don't have a lot here, but i definitely have more time and space than i know what to do with. and i like it.

also... everyone: please make a list of good books you like and think i might like. i am running out of books and will need to buy a mountain of them at christmastime to last me the next three months. keep off the list jane austen, margaret atwood, and cookbooks. poetry books are acceptable.

an update on pepe moreno: it is getting more and more out of hand here. the only music people ever whistle is pepe moreno songs. the only music people play on guitar are pepe morenos. he is a keyboard-playing god.

too tired for titles

gesa, our "program officer" (a.k.a. the girl who hired me for this position) from calgary has been visiting us for the last couple of days. it has been really nice. nice to talk with someone without having to sift through a strange accent to decipher words, and nice just being able to talk with a white girl from alberta.

after gesa arrived on friday, we all (YLP youth, crystal, rawle, gesa and i) went to annai for sports days. i never really like sitting around, and it was very hot, so i went home after about an hour. the kids were pretty cute, though. they all had white undershirts on and colored matching shorts and hairties. each school had to draw and color their own banner, and they were all very well done. EVERYONE shows up to sports days. old ladies, horses, babies, donkeys. this was the regional meet. the craziest event was high jump, because they don't have any crash mats. kids just flew over the bar and crashed into the sand. awesome. we ate supper at oasis that night. i'm pretty sure i am averaging 10 meals of fried chicken per week. ah, well. better than eating fish.

on saturday we had meetings with gesa in the morning. then we drove to annai and aranaputa and kwatamang landing. the best part about saturday was barbecue, though. i think i've written about it before. anyways, it's this family from aranaputa who sells fried rice and barbecued chicken and cold drinks on the side of the road from 5-7 p.m. every saturday. they have a generator that powers one light, and they have benches and chairs set up. it is the cutest thing ever, and it is really amazing food. i look forward to it every week.

on sunday we stuffed 20 people into the cab and box of an extended-cab truck and drove to surama and the iwokrama canopy walkway. we visited the animal sanctuary in surama again and played with the monkeys there again. gesa and rawle held the anaconda. i saw a red-footed tortoise (like the ones we were going to get, kelsa!) there too. then we went to the benab at the top of the hill and had an AMAZING picnic of fried chicken, fries, mashed potatoes, and lime juice. our youth had prepared it all just before we left. delish. oh! and, while we were eating, we watched my celebrity crush pepe moreno on dvd. EVERYONE was mesmerized. apparently the kids just watch that dvd on repeat all day long, every day. ha. what a dreamboat, that pepe. it's so funny to me. my brain can't handle how ridiculous he is, or how incredibly in love with him everyone is. after pepe, we went to the canopy walkway. to be honest, it was kind of a letdown. we only saw a few green parakeets, and nothing else. but it was wonderful to walk through the forest. i love it. when we were walking down the mountain, i fell behind the group to take some pictures of the trees, and i was far enough behind that i couldn't see anyone ahead or behind me. it was wonderful. i love the forest. i like to walk barefoot in the boreal forest, but i was kind of afraid to here because i might have stepped on a snake or scorpion or something. the trees had neat clingy vines all over them.

oh! i forgot. driving to surama was especially nice, because there were MILLIONS of yellow butterflies fluttering around. it was like driving through a galaxy of stars. pretty.

driving back from iwokrama, i was tired and cranky and hungry and squished. gesa and crystal and i aren't allowed to sit in the box of the truck (thankfully) because of ghost river's safety policies, so the three of us were squished in the back of the cab with another girl and her baby. we stopped in surama to drop a few things off, and the girl with the baby asked me to hold the baby while she stretched or something like that. so, i am the only person on this entire trip who doesn't like babies, and who doesn't coo over them and talk in silly voices and make faces at them and want to touch them always. but i am sitting in the back of the truck with this tiny baby, the first baby i've held in years, and she pees on me. awesome.

today we practiced our activities for our after-school program during the morning, and then at 4:00 we had our first session for the program. it was great! apparently, all week the kids had been asking their teachers when we were going to come back, and were also asking if they had to dress up again like last time. the teachers explained that, no, dressing up was just a special thing for halloween. haha. so anyways, today we played a few wide games and then split up into 4 groups, and those of us in YLP led an activity either in pairs or individually. the kids each attended 2 activities today. afterwards, as the schoolchildren ran for supper, i was walking back with my youth and i asked them how it went. kevin bounded over to me, grinning wildly, and exclaimed, "perfect! awesome beyond awesome!" cute!!! it's so neat to have our kids be so excited and empowered by this project. i hope we can continue and expand it.

tonight might be our last night with gesa, so we had a special supper. rawle even had some brown bread made for us! what a treat!

he temperature here is a few degrees cooler than it had been in september/october, which is such a relief. i have even had to pull my second blanket over me for the last couple of nights! so nice!

one of the nicest things here are rupununi full moons. i usually wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, but i don't mind doing it when the moon is full. i like to stop on the way to the outhouse and just stand alone at midnight with myself and the moon and my shadow. the mountains are silhouettes. my shadow hugs my feet. everything is illuminated.


anyways, i am super tired, and i need to sleep.
love cdg

http://marriedtothesea.com/110506/blogmonks.gif

reluctant

it's pouring outside. visibility is less than 1 km. most people from bina hill are in annai at "sports days" (track and field for the school students). i came back here to avoid getting stuck in the crowds and the rain.

there's a horse tied up. i think it's a mare, maybe an appaloosa. looks like my dad's horses. anyways, she's not tied up like normal, with a bridle and maybe a long rope attaching her to a tree so she won't stray. instead, her two front legs are tied together with about a 1/2' length of rope between them. she has to draw up the entire front part of her body and kick forward with both legs to take a step.

it makes me want to cry. i want to untie her; i don't want the person who tied her up to be mad at me. i think it's cruel to tie her up like that; i am afraid someone will look down on me if i let her loose. this is reflective of how i deal with most justice issues i come across. something's gotta change.


*edit*: my dad sent me this e-mail:
"Caylie: Just read your blog and had to write. That horse you talked about is quite probably better off "HOBBLED" than being tie to a single tree. this allows her to have a wider range of freedom and better grass variety, than if she was tied to a tree. Tying a horse to a tree with a long rope has ruined may horses, as they get tangled up and brusie there legs etc. Hobbling may look bad but may people do it here when they are camping with no fence enclosure available. Believe me, that horse is better off being hobbled rather than tied. she doesn't mind either, just can't gallop away and risk being hit by a vehicle."

so... an interesting piece of information. however, my ignorance regarding horses does not excuse my inaction.

right here

i realize i have not really given a run-down of a typical day for me here. so here goes:

5:30-6:00 a.m. - i am waked by roosters crowing, donkeys braying, dogs barking, and a number of other barnyard/jungle animals making their presences known. beside me on my single-sized mattress, beneath my white mosquito net, i keep some books, papers, pens, contact solution, contact case, glasses with case, earplugs, my keys, and my headlamp. i sleep with my alpaca-wool blanket as my pillow, and my blue and yellow crocheted blanket (that i started making for darcy while we were dating, finished making after we'd broken up, and decided to keep for myself, at least for a while) keeps me warm. i try to lay in bed until 6:30, because one of the biggest challenges here is trying to keep oneself occupied for all the hours that make up the day.
6:30-7:30 a.m. - eat breakfast. if our youth are at bina hill, they cook breakfast for themselves, as well as for crystal and me. usually breakfast consists of bake (fried bannock), porridge, white bread/peanut butter, pancakes, or eggs. if they are gone, crystal and i make porridge for ourselves. all of this is done on a propane stove. crystal likes to drink fresh milk that the rancher brings over every morning - i wouldn't touch it with a 39-and-a-half foot pole.
7:30-8:00 a.m. - every couple of days, i do my laundry. we handwash all our laundry, using basins in the outdoor showers. i find this semi-enjoyable, even though i am terrible at rinsing the soap out.
8:00 a.m - the office opens. by now, the solar panels have collected enough power to support the computers. i check my e-mail accounts and my blog. there are never enough e-mails.
8:00-9:00 a.m. - if the youth are around, we have been trying to work in the garden for a few hours in the morning, while it is cool. lately, all we've been doing is digging trenches from the showers to the citrus trees out back so they can soak up our dirty water. mmm, manual labour and gardening! my two favorite things!
9:00 a.m.-noon - putter around bina hill. check e-mail a zillion times, have meetings with our youth to discuss for the thousandth time what we are going to do in the vague future.
noon - eat lunch that has been made by auntie margaret, the cook at bina hill. lunch is the big meal here, and so we usually have rice with chicken or beef or fish, and maybe some potatoes and greens. lunch is the only meal that we have ice for (ray picks it up from annai when he goes to pick up the meat every day), and that is more of a treat than you can imagine. sometimes we have kool-aid to drink; sometimes auntie margaret makes lime juice with limes, water, and sugar. i like that better than the kool-aid. once in a while we get guava juice or pineapple juice or something else.
noon-4 p.m. - more puttering around. checking e-mail. meetings. planning. wasting time. feeling guilty about not doing anything. sweating.
4:00-5:00 p.m. - crystal usually goes for a bike ride to oasis. this is partly for the exercise, and partly because she has a crush on a boy there. i go with her about 10% of the time. i prefer walking to biking. biking makes me so sweaty, and the road is really bumpy and it hurts. usually i sit around bina hill and read or plan or dream about university and how cute i am going to look in a u of a unisuit when i join the rowing crew.
5:00-5:30 p.m. - i eat supper. again, this has been prepared by auntie margaret. she usually makes supper at about 3 or 4 and leaves it on the table for us to eat. yay, salmonella! supper is a small meal - sometimes we have meat, but sometimes all we have is a bit of white bread and maybe some peanut butter. i am hungry a lot of the time! there aren't a lot of snack foods here, so i usually end up eating a million cookies a day. i would prefer granola bars or something remotely healthier, but nothing is available.
6:00-6:30 p.m. - the sun starts setting behind the pakoraima mountains, and the bugs start coming out. i've gotten smarter - i can usually beat a lot of them by just putting on socks and long pants. but i usually end up heading to my bed/mosquito net at this time. it's lame, but i have my reasons: 1. the mosquitos really are bad, and my legs are already really ratched up from scratching them. i'll show you when i'm home for christmas. 2. there's really not a lot to do here. we have a limited amount of electricity at the institute (and none in our room at all, i should add) because all our power comes from solar panels and a small wind turbine, and after dark, all we can afford to power is one or two lights and one or two computers. and there are 10 of us who live here, so unless we watch a movie together, it means that 8 of us are out of luck on any given day. 3. i never get any real personal space. i live in a room ("room" is a generous term. more like a "shack" or "barn") with 3 other girls, and then 4 or more boys live in the same building as ours but outside our room. when i go to bed at 6, it means i have 2 or 3 hours before anyone else comes to the "house." true, i lie alone in the dark, but it's nice to just be alone.
7:00 p.m.-5:30 a.m. - sleep! punctuated by midnight trips to the outhouse, when i am armed with my t.p. and headlamp; the sounds of bats squeaking and crashing into our metal roof (INSIDE, not outside, our room); the shuffle of my roommates coming in to our room when they are ready to sleep; and the BOOM that can be heard as they hip-check our stubborn door.


there y' are. a pretty typical day. sometimes i go along for drives, if i'm lucky.

i miss scheduled activities/classes, if only for the satisfaction gained when skipping said events.