i took the coast all the way up to monterey. camped out along the beach for a couple nights.

i finally took the long way home.

in a way i was afraid i would be shell shocked, leaving long beach one morning and arriving back in shingle springs that very night. how could a whole chapter of my life be over just like that? so i meandered. i doddled along like a kid in the candy isle. stopping. picking things up and putting them back down again. it was so beautiful. so fucking indescribably stunning. i slept in a tent on the beach listening to the waves crash and hearing the wind howl. waking up at 4am realizing in a daze that the swirling wind had uprooted two of the corners of my tent and half of my home was blowing freely in the air. (!!). waking up to tea and soup and taking however the fuck long i wanted to pack up and stopping wherever i fancied because, really, i had no reason not to. listening to The Hobbit audiobook all afternoon and giggling at tales of fantastical adventures. and when i needed a reminder of how blessed my life was at that moment i put on "Pacific Theme" by Broken Social Scene and felt the sun on my arms and looked out at the mighty Pacific to my left. and i swear to you, in those intangible moments between moments, i was full of pure love. it was radiating out of my smile and vibrating out of my soul. i must have stopped every half mile to look out at the ocean. just to breathe in the salty air and feel the breeze and take it all in. i walked along the bluffs last night and again this morning for hours. i stopped to see the elephant seals sleeping in the sun olny to find out that it was birthing season and there were dozens of baby elephant seals that had not yet been alive for twenty-four hours. i drove along again trying to pull my gaze from the ocean and onto the road and never quite being able to. god, the ocean in just so incredible. magical, mystical, full of pure energy. i kept stopping, i couldn't help it. i hiked along trails that were closed down, into the redwoods and over streams. kept finding places that were better than the last. i wish i could disappear into those bluffs. run into the water and hug the waves. pure magic, man. pure fucking magic!

I finally got all of my grades in for the fall semester and I am quite pleased with myself.
Also, I just applied to lifeguard in Yosemite this summer. But I also applied to work in Tahoe again.
But part of me wants to spend one last college summer with my friends.
I guess we'll see.
I'm keeping my head up. Sometimes that means no more daydreaming, but mostly just rid myself of expectations and know that in the end it's all going to come together.

I like to stop here once a day and just let it all fall out.
I can't wait to hear what this song will sound like once all the pieces fall together either temporarily or forever.

Kids are so freaking wonderful.

I can only create you in little bits and pieces. One sporadic illusion and then it's gone. It really is a struggle.

She writes about herself in third person or makes up characters who are thinking about the same things she's thinking about to keep it all a secret. Well, I guess that one is out. She dolls herself up because she knows there will be pretty boys there, and she smiles and makes small talk, touching knees, bored out of her fucking mind. Christ. This is worse than television.

Hey, thank you for that beautiful fragment. If anything I hope it's the last thing I remember about you. I'd put you in a goddamn picture frame.
Why am I always preparing to move on?
Now to something real, more mature. I felt ages older tonight. Sitting in my car with someone I love so much, watching her cry. Fuck I missed you. Please just make yourself happy. Stop living for someone else.
That's what I have learned the most in life. You just have to do it for yourself. I guess you just have to prepare to be alone; not that I'm expecting it. Just know what it's like, embrace it. I tend to find myself after losing myself. Like car keys. They usually turn up somewhere. Or my wallet, even if a stranger ends up mailing it to my house.
We talked about feeling alone. I feel lonely sometimes, just like everyone else. It's not overpowering or a huge damper on my life or anything.
Wow I am incredibly passive.
But really it's just that, perhaps due to my own tendencies, I feel like I can't relate sometimes. And just a little lost. That's all.
And yet in every way possible I'm living out my dream. I am exactly where I want to be, even in every obscure, awkward situation. Hey.
Keep it amazed.

"It's like seeing a picture of yourself with your eyes half closed, you know? I feel like I'm living life like that all the time."
"For me it's more of an open or closed deal. The perpetual struggle between nothing and everything."
"What do you see right now?"
"I want to ask her if I can walk her home but I'm too afraid she'll ask me to come inside."

I have now seen every season in Yosemite, and let me tell you, winter is just
marvelous.
What a way to spend my new year's eve- great friends in the most beautiful place I have ever set my eyes on.

I take back ever saying I hated the snow.



On an unrelated note, I got a raise at work, and truthfully I'm not as excited about the bigger paycheck as I am about the fact that my boss told me she can tell how much I love my job.

Happy New Year friends, the numbers don't matter to me, as far as I can tell life is just getting better and better.

Christmas was good, minus the stomach flu I seem to contract every year. It was great to see all three sides of the family, play music with cousins, catch up.
My roommates and I befriended a foreign exchange student from Germany and he has been living with us for the past week since the dorms are closed, and we all just adore him. I mostly like having a friend who I can spend my Saturday night getting burritos and watching Braindead with.
If I have any kind of New Year's resolution it will be to remember to slow down and enjoy things more. Just little moments, the kind you'll end up remembering in the future. Long talks in cars, laughing until it hurts, the evening sky I found waiting outside when I got out of my car after getting home from work. Finally it wasn't miserable to be outside. It made me stop in my tracks, that's how beautiful it was. "Blue and pink." This is when I'm unbelievably happy and grateful to be alive.
I have a wonderful feeling that this is going to be a good year.

"Nearly every smudge and bit of light in this image is a separate galaxy made up of billions of stars. The faintest and reddest objects in the image are galaxies that formed 600 million years after the Big Bang. No galaxies have been seen before at such early times... I invite you to step outside some dark night in the future and gaze up at the sky, knowing that every bit of apparent darkness above is really filled with the faint light of these billions of faraway galaxies."