woke up feeling refreshed at 6:20 this am, paul westerberg yelling let's count the rings around my eyes in my head. i had strange dreams. the strangest, a reunion party on a steep grassy hill where all my social anxieties were realized and we then proceeded to careen, sledding-style, down and down and down in a pack, skidding past children and trees and picnic tables, barely missing. i wound up on a totally different side of the hill from everyone else and avoided becoming a human pancake by reaching up and grabbing a gymnastics ring that happened to be hanging down from the sky at a critical moment.

oddly, it wasn't an anxious dream. i was just hanging out, paying attention to what was happening for me. this shows that i am making some progress, i suppose.

yesterday there was sun beating down, baking brooke and i while we lunched on our grate outside the 2100 building, and 3 hours later, rain that verged on freezing, soaking me as i walked through the u district to visit zoe and eat beans and quinoa and talk the easy oldest-friend talk, curl into her bed as she packed, as we have done countless times.

i had a conversation with erin a few weeks ago about how for certain people, people who grew up in the dust bowl, for example, or people who spend lots of time backcountry camping, weather isn't a casual conversation because it's a matter of life or death. and for me, it's not casual either. not because it's life or death, but because it's one of the only tangible things in a day. one of the only things that pulls me out of my reactive state, and into my body.

now it is 9 am, and sun is glowing through my blinds, and i am listening to the replacements, alternating with electropop. it is 4 more days until i go home, and rest, or worry, or most likely, both.