essentials kit

big red
hairtie and bobby pins (2)
jumbo sharpie
gun
multivitamins
ginger

slow your roll and switch your role

ahhh

The last 6 months have been mindblowing. I quit my preschool job of two years (heart-wrenching because it meant ending 50 friendships in one day); visited my grandfather for the last time ever, afterwards trying to absorb his wisdom more actively than ever; crossed thousands of miles of the country westward and back, largely alone, only to reach home and almost immediately head north; visited a bear, moose, and coyote filled paradise for five weeks, living on more books and adventures than I could promptly process but on no electricity or running water; and now finally at home again, am caught in the middle of a stressful charade of an election, knocking on strangers' doors for at least 40 hours per week. It strikes me as funny that in the last four weeks I have probably met more people within the vicinity of my own home than I did all summer, across the whole country.
Anyway things in my head have been different lately.

bon voyage encore

I hate putting my bike in storage! Haven't had to since Switzerland and I wasn't really in love with that bike.
Geez I am super behind on posts and yet am about to amass A LOT more material. I'm going to a backcountry Maine apple farm for a month and a half. Not really with the purpose of working but I'm sure I will end up picking an apple or two. Probably not going to see many people for a while. The farm only has two official permanent residents. Eeeeee I might not be able to post the whole time I'm there either.
I'm just hoping I can get clear reception for a top 40 radio station.
XOXO, Gossip Girl

Day 4. Wednesday May 2nd.

Heading to Asheville. On the way out of Boone I got gas at a pump before you pay. The cashier knew everyone and was smacking gum, wearing red lipstick, and flirting it up. Very distracted, very faithful in the trust system of paying. The diner in the gas station was serving more livermush and all flavor chitlins. Then I set in for the drive, heading into the thick woods and mountains of Pisgah National Forest, in which the drive from Boone to Asheville is almostly entirely contained. I was behind trucks and a motorcycle for hours, left to jealously imagine myself with no baggage, no bicycle, and a smaller gas tank. And to be frightened that the trucks would topple off of a cliff. The nerves and envy got to me, so I pulled off at the only stop I'd seen for miles, Linville Caverns. I drank a soda on some rocks, wrote a postcard with a lizard at my feet, contemplated going underground to see stalactites and mites, and talked to a country boy who worked in the gift shop. He filled me in on the political landscape of Marion, NC. A lot of furniture manufacturing plants were closed about eight years ago due to outsourcing, and the area had been through some truly rough times. Many residents had been forced to move away from the land where generations of their family had born and died. But going on welfare is not seen as an option by most in a town with an old time mentality like that of Marion. So eventually with a little innovation, new industry cropped up...literally hehe. He said that tourism farms were now big in the area. They capitalized on peoples' interest in buying and growing locally, bringing folks on tours to see how they do things in the country. Linville Caverns didn't always have such an extensive gift shop. They had expanded it to something of a convenience store and art gallery. And as the one-time Christmas tree capital of the world, Marion had also created an attraction of the remaining giant evergreen forests. They couldn't profit as much as they had in the past, nor produce such volume as to keep their old title, but at Christmastime people like to spend a lot of money doing extravagant shit like driving far distances to see megawatt wonderland forests. So they capitalized on that, too. When I questioned whether anyone had looked to the government for help back in when times had been really rough, he explained the very reason why they were living somewhere so remote with such limited business opportunity: Marion folks just wanted to be left alone. They would as soon ask for help as they would build skyscraper and a white house in downtown Marion. In fact. They need to be left alone! He told me the craziest Marion practice which sort of needs privacy to be able to continue in tradition. ugh sick of typing