Saturday, June 16, 2001
Made it to Houston today, and despite ciro's hotel confusion i am snuggled into the hotel he thought he was booking us in to rather than the one he accidently did. He's out on an apartment hunting spree among other things. I'm playing it cool by relaxing in a very nice room and tinkering with my computer. I got an ethernet card from poetry alive so i can plug my computer in at work, but i hadn't installed it yet. So, that was today's project since this hotel offers free t-1 line access. I have it up and running and i must say this is a huge improvement from last week where i had to pay per minute for a slow dial up connection. Too bad i can't get this at home yet. It will make work a whole lot easier as i set down to do some real work finally on the website. I suppose i should get to work, but i thought i deserved a little play time today to test out the new toy.
My life seems awfully strange at this point. I feel as though i've been cruising along in some dream world and i'm about to wake up. One friend aptly put it that i'm "returning to civilian life" as i go back to a world of sleeping in the same bed every night and working in the same building every day. I feel like it's a huge experiment to see what direction i'll shoot off in next after sitting still for a while. I'm glad i at least know my way a bit around Asheville now, but it's still going to be interesting adjusting to living in a community instead of just passing through. I found myself strangely nervous today as i drove myself to a little restaurant i had seen here in Houston and wanted to try it for dinner. It brought up the fact that for four years now i've had a constant dinner and entertainment companion (even if sometimes we felt stuck with each other). I've become very good at entertaining myself in my room by reading and playing with the computer, but there was always someone to come knock on my door and remind me that it was late and i was hungry. I had problems with that even last weekend when i was home. I was out of my regular schedule and let it be 10pm before i'd realized that all i'd eaten were a couple of eggs for breakfast. I was just caught up in running errands and helping friends move and let it slip my mind. Today i did better, but it helped that ciro dropped off the car keys before a friend took him to dinner.
Well, maybe i should actually do some work...~w
wendi's 9:06 PM ravings
Friday, June 15, 2001
Ciro and i did our last show for kids together today. Monday we perform and workshop with teachers as our last day of Poetry Alive! work together. It seems kinda weird to think we won't be meeting up again in the fall for rehearsals.
Other than that, we drove from near Augusta, GA to Baton Rouge, LA today. Long drive that left me mushy brained.~w
wendi's 11:47 PM ravings
Thursday, June 14, 2001
We worked with reluctant summer school students today. They seemed to enjoy the show and the idea of playing with poetry, but we had a hard time getting them to be silly with us for a bit. Perhaps they were self conscious (they are middle school age after all), perhaps they were tired of being in school, perhaps they were too tired to be silly. I'm not sure, but i felt like it took every ounce of my energy. I guess that's my excuse for doing nothing but reading and watching tv the rest of the evening.
I feel like i should win some kind of lazy award for today even though i did work for several hours. I suppose it's the anxious anticipation of returning home soon for good. I have all kinds of projects waiting for me at home, but none of them are things i can start from the road (remote weeding is rather difficult). Online access is limited to 800 service with a per minute charge in this small town and there is nothing much to go out and do here except wander around Wal-mart that we have found. So, i've settled for an evening of tv and a good book. Ciro's going stir crazy though, i can tell.~w
wendi's 10:53 PM ravings
Wednesday, June 13, 2001
I'm sitting down to write while feeling disgusted with the media and the NBA. Ciro has tried to get me excited about watching basketball, but the game is no fun to watch when teams don't have to play by the same rules. I'm listening to officials saying "yep that was a foul" to a brief touch by one team and saying "wow what a great play" when a member of the other team literally shoves a player in the face to get them out of the way. It's disgusting. It looks like one team is playing football while the other is trying to play basketball. So, rather than get madder by watching the rest of the series i'm swearing off ever watching an NBA game again unless i hear that they've changed the way they officiate. I suppose there's a lot of money that they think they will make selling big yellow tank tops or something, but i ain't buying. I suppose i may sound like sour grapes or something, but i was interested in watching some players who i thought had some real finesse. Instead i'm seeing them get literally beat down, not out finessed...at least that would have been interesting.
On a happier note, we had a lot of fun today in the little town of Dearing, GA playing with elementary level summer school kids. They were wacky and creative and fun. It was also interesting to see them come out of their shells as they realized that creativity was more important today than guessing a "right" answer. I felt lucky to get to spend time with them.~w
wendi's 11:59 PM ravings
Tuesday, June 12, 2001
We drove through buckets of rain today. We're in Thomson, Georgia and caught some of the tail end of Hurricane Allison. I'm glad we're not in Houston until next week. Word has it that our favorite theatre there, the Alley is ruined from flooding and they're still pumping water out of downtown. I guess i won't get to see a show there after all this year.
So what do you do in a hotel room on a rainy day in a small town? I've been recording some music, watching Frank Herbert's Dune on the Sci-fi channel, and reading the last of Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies during commercials (Like i said, no shopping for me for a while. That means avoiding advertising that makes me wish i had things i don't need). Lords and Ladies is a particularly fun read with it's nasty elves and it's various references to Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. I only have a few pages left, so i must get back to that before i fall asleep.~w
wendi's 11:22 PM ravings
Monday, June 11, 2001
I made a list of things to do today and selfishly spent the day doing most of them. I'm nesting, and that requires hunting and gathering the proper materials to make my home just right.
Usually when i come home to Asheville i try to be social, but i guess i used up all my social skills for the LEAF weekend and now i just need to get some things done for myself. It could also be that by creating little obsessive projects i'm avoiding thinking about the fact that my best friend and co-worker for the past four years is moving to Houston in a couple of weeks. Who knows. Fact is, i've sworn off shopping for a while.~w
wendi's 11:23 PM ravings
I ran a bunch of selfish errands today. So, to make up for it i joined the Poetry Alive! moving crew this evening and helped move 3 couches and a lounge chair to their new homes. It's amazing what four people can accomplish when they all decide to work together. I figured it was my turn to lend a hand since all three of them had helped me when i moved into Asheville. Besides it was kind of a fun way to spend an evening since i wasn't the one stressed about unpacking boxes. Watching my friend unpack though i couldn't help thinking about all the extra junk i have packed away that needs cleaning out of my house. Mostly clothes are the problem.
I've been thinking though that it would be handy to have a sewing machine to make use of recycling good fabric left on worn out clothes. Of course i'd have to learn how to use one again since the last time i think i touched one was in a home ec. class in high school. I still have the bag i made, unlike many bags i've had it's endured carrying my coffee pot, coffee and teas for about 2 years now around the country in addition to the use it got before. Hmm, imagine that, a well made bag and i made it! Funny to think about it. Oh, and of course new fabric for things like comforter covers and curtains should be much cheaper than buying something that another person made (although i should probably take the cost of the sewing maching into account) since there's a textile mill just down the road a bit from here. I'll have to add that to my list of i wannas right now though and see where it falls into a budget.
I have a lot of i wannas right now. There's something about knowing i'm finally going to spend time in my home that makes me want to fix all the little things i've noticed as soon as possible. It's nesting season for the wendi-bird.~w
wendi's 1:01 AM ravings
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help?
