i have experienced some pretty major emotional events in recent weeks, and now i am just gliding through the pacific northwestern summer which i have learned to embrace even though it is nothing like summers of my youth or adolescence or young adulthood. i am one of those skating bugs on the top of a lake, maybe. skating on the top of the water. mostly, the water is calm and i skate. on occasion, i cry. part of being a skating bug is also occasionally crawling down people's bathing suits and stinging them.

the pacific northwestern summer feels like early fall days in the midwest, or sometimes there is a light salt breeze in the air and some cool light rain, or most often it is 55 and slightly windy and gray. every five or six days the sun comes out and the heat jumps to 70 and all the pretty girls leap into their sundresses and people cram onto the beaches. and then it goes away again. i am told that real summer comes in mid-july. i don't actually remember what happened last year. i only remember that mid-september was hot.

i went to minnesota. i was there for two and a half days, which meant i didn't tell some peeps i was coming, and also that i didn't get to do everything i would have liked to do. i have written several letters about this so i will give a flash synopsis. it disoriented and won me in the usual ways: heart friends, heat, old houses, broad flat stunning skies, friendly strangers, an abundance of dairy and radical art. in minnesota there are more blond heavy people and also more people of color. i feel like i am ready to go back. i am going to apply to school there, i think.

in two weeks, i will be back midwest. wisconsin, where i have not been in two years, and then buffalo for an actual, reasonable amount of time.

being a skating bug involves a lot of the porch, the backyard. i have attempted to stop drinking entirely, although this is slow going because people offer me drinks and i want to take them. the hangovers, physical and emotional, come swiftly and aren't worth it. yesterday mark and i spent almost all day together, in the porch backyard and kitchen, and i talked to him about this. i wondered whether it was a phase or not. maybe he said. i told him about the emotions part. oh, he said. that might never change. mark is a person who drinks a fair amount on a regular basis so i was surprised to hear him say this, although in retrospect we share a certain masochism so i shouldn't have been. i have been feeling really terrible even after one beer i said. oh yes he said, laughing bitterly, yes i know what you mean. i know exactly what you mean.

it also involves learning elementary math. right now, fraction/decimal conversion. a lot of algebra and pre-algebra is still ingrained in my head, as it happens, but this particular shit has flown out the window entirely and i am extremely frustrated. looking over my shoulder, tim says that he would do almost anything to never have to do this again. i have to learn this math fast so i can take a placement test so i can get into a community college statistics course so i can get into an MSW program.

i like math though. it's soothing to find answers. almost everything else i like doesn't have answers.

yesterday ryan and mark and i sat around the firepit in the late afternoon as it got colder and talked about aliens, autism cures, sociopathy, old friends, and high school recklessness, among other things. mark peeled roasted chilis, ryan drank sake, and we all ate fancy cheese and blueberries and grapes. ryan asked what foods we hated and the only things i could think of are nicoise olives and salt licorice. when do you even find those lying around?