August 12

You know that summer's on the outs when the thought of winter isn't cringe-worthy anymore. Not to say I'm excited or anything. Tomorrow we're going to the beach and it's going to be really fun. I realize that this is the last week of summer that all of my friends are still here. Next week, they start to filter away one by one. I will be the last one at home. Even my sister starts school before I do. I'm going to feel like the only one left alive. Depressing. Anyways, it's my birthday next Tuesday. Every year my birthday is after all my friends have already had theirs, so it's not even a big deal when I become one year older. This year is cool because I'll be 18 on the 18th. Today Liz showed me all the stuff she bought for college and it made me excited to start writing a list. I would do it now if I wasn't already going to bed. The song of the day is "Wasted & Ready" by Ben Kweller. 

My throat hurts weird. Stella lost three pounds, which doesn't seem noteworthy until you consider that it was one fourth of her total weight.

August 11

I love weather. Today I did a lot of pointless endeavors. I went to get my third Gardisil shot only to learn that it was actually two weeks too early, and then I went to the Verizon store, hated every phone available to replace my sick and dying one, and left. The song of the day is "So Everyone" by Bonnie "Prince" Billy.

At home I napped on the living room couch for three hours. I had bizarre and vivid dreams. In the most predominant one, I was holding a large gathering in my driveway in the middle of an intense rainstorm. I decided to drive my car down the driveway and into the carport, with Zach Kent in the passenger seat. As I drove the length of the driveway, I lost control of the car and it lumbered off the pavement and onto the dirt and brush on the left side. Moving slowly like a grazing animal, the car completed a series of revolutions, sliding on the watery earth. But we weren't worried. We casually went through the motions of using the emergency break and shifting gears, both aware that the car would continue to move through air and earth and water and would eventually drive off the steep drop at the end of my driveway. And we both knew that ultimately, we would be okay. When we finally approached the drop, we proposed to each other the idea of jumping out. As wheels touched the ground for the last time and the massive mechanic animal tipped over the edge of the earth, Zach and I fell out of its doors and tumbled gracefully and slowly into the ethereal and waterlogged forest, luminous under the sunlight. The painful impact we could have encountered never came and we had no fear of being hurt or even of dying. Immediately before I woke up, I left my arms and legs and hands below me, on the ground, as I thrust towards heaven my chest and heart, opened my mouth and eyes, and drank in the sunlight that bursted through the bright wet evergreens.

August 10

The word "stifling," to me, connotes "suffocating," and both of these adjectives are relevant in describing the heat that was today. I took this picture before I went to work in the morning, and although the sun didn't reach its peak until hours later, the heat was already saturating the air in the form of vaporous rays of light. The heat was not abstract but a concrete presence: able to be not only felt but seen. Farmland made me so tired. It wasn't an abnormally bad day though because I talked to a lot of people, saw a chick hatch, told an interested couple every fact I know about Poitou Donkeys, and sprayed a baby alpaca with a hose to cool him down. After work it took me a while to feel completely like I had beaten the threat of heatstroke. 

Lately I've been feeling the weight of my trivial (but maybe not so much) burdens increase every day. Today was the first time in a long while I haven't felt stifled by worries and anxious anticipation, which was ironic because I was so stifled by the temperature. I sweated off my confusion and my little pieces of sadness, sprinkled around and shared. Today I feel happy and new and not afraid. Sorry I'm being so vague, but this is just a photo blog anyways. I have three days off from work, and I will spend them by being not-at-Farmland. What a great feeling.

Today I gave a guitar performance and the bad news is I still can't play guitar. Oh well. It's so hot, that's the problem.

The song of the day is "Don't Be Scared" by Andrew Bird.

August 9

I keep thinking that sleep will help clear my mind and order my thoughts but it never does. Or maybe it's that I never seem to find quite enough sleep. Things are starting to go faster than I'd like them to. For example, Liz leaves for college in two weeks. When did this happen? When did it become so there are two weeks left of her summer? I'm not ready at all and I don't know when I will be. What if I'm never ready and I have to leave for college anyways? I'm so tired. This summer was the best of my life, but I really am so tired. And my brain is mush and I don't know what making me happy or sad or both and I'm going to go to sleep but then wake up too early, for work, and pretend to be happier than I am all day.

It's all of the good that won't come out of me
And how eventually my mouth will just turn to dust
If I don't tell you quick
Standing here on this frozen lake

August 7

August 6

Today I babysat for most of the day and it was fun. We went to Friendly's on the condition Livi and Eli would pay for their ice cream with their allowances. Eli whined about this decision the whole way there because he had been saving up his money for a long time and didn't want to spend any of it. He only had four dollars and a small handful of pennies. I ended up paying for half of his ice cream, and when he wasn't looking, dumping most of my change into his wallet so he only actually paid about seventy five cents. 

Here is the truth: I want to be done working at Farmland. I feel like I wasn't even a real employee there this summer because I was so unattached. The song of the day is "In The Aeroplane Over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel, because I learned to play it on the guitar. And by that I mean I learned a progression of four chords and when I am done playing one chord, it takes me about five seconds of silence to find the next. But my mom said in passing, "Hey, that actually sounds like something!" so I guess I am making music sense now.

August 5

August 5 doesn't really matter to anyone, and I don't know anyone who'd refute that statement. I forgot to announce that I had blogged 200 times when it was true; now I've blogged somewhere around 216 times. That means I am approximately 28 days away from being two thirds done blogging, which means this year is two thirds over. On a completely unrelated note, the only productive things I did today were watching So You Think You Can Dance, with Liz and Steve and Ann, and painting my toenails. Clearly my definition of productive has shifted a little since the school year. I am actually very excited to return to that whole intellectual stimulation thing.

I am trying not to let myself become really stressed out by a lot of little things. It's not an easy task. The song of the day is "Easy" by Deer Tick. I can't decide if I feel like my summer is passing slowly or rapidly. It seems like one week is such a huge unit of time, because so much changes in one week, but at the same time, weeks fly by. I don't want this to end and everyone's starting to talk like it's over already.

August 4

In the end, what really defines my year is taking pictures while driving. It's a habit which everyone would benefit from my quitting. Today was my dad's birthday. I drove from my guitar lesson to meet my parents at the Bean Counter to celebrate. I didn't have anything to listen to because I forgot my iPod at home. My mom has recently unearthed a Backstreet Boys cassette and has brought it into the car, believing it to be of use to someone driving it. Last night, with nothing to listen to, the cassette struck me not as a piece of meaningless scenery, as it usually does, but something I might actually consider listening to, if nothing else than to pass the time. I saw it as something detrimental and maybe even harmful, but provoking curiosity. Maybe a similar situation to one in which I arose every morning to find a cigarette and lighter on my kitchen table. While I would never consciously plan to smoke it, I might just decide to out of curiosity and of sheer convenience. So, long story short, I listened to the Backstreet Boys. It's the first time in a while I've not had even a slight inkling of pride at knowing every word on an album.

Sometimes I wish I could

Turn back time, 

impossible as it may seem

But I wish I could

So that

Baby

Quit playin' games with my heart

Oh, to be so eloquent!

August 3

Do you ever feel so disorganized that the disorganization and disorder pollutes your otherwise orderly mind? Tonight, before I fall asleep, I will lay awake in my bed and think, like I always do. But tonight I will mentally make a list of things to think about during this time, so I don't waste any thinking time on the massive amounts of clutter in my thoughts. This might be the first time I've blogged while being at least partially asleep. A combination of very little sleep last night and nine hours of what is considered by the majority of ordinary Americans to be manual labor is making it extraordinarily difficult for me to keep my eyelids from blocking my vision. 

This weekend, all of it, was so much fun that I don't even think it's fair. Like I should share my fun next time I have so much. Liz and I were together for four days straight and didn't once regret it. I should probably come up with a sentiment with which to wrap up this post, but instead, I think I'll go to sleep.

August 2

His name is Andrew Tobiassen and he is in Deer Tick. I really wanted to go talk to him when he was standing under the tent when everything was closing but I would have nothing to say since I don't actually listen to Deer Tick. I'm pretty sure we made eye contact though.

August 1

It's August whaaaat?! Also, this is Fleet Foxes.

July 31

July 30