Academia.

I have a love affair with academia. All this sitting on my ass, sleeping-in business has begun to cease, once again purpose surfaces. Granted the purpose is much different post-graduation, but it's academic purpose nonetheless. Class is going well, they're fresh outta high school (you can tell) but they're still young and naive and it makes it a bit more fun. And of course my prof is great, today in writing workshop one of the kids whispered to me with true sincerity, "does our professor snort coke before class?"

Tomorrow morning I depart bright and early for the east coast. It's going to be a tiring trip but I'm so, so excited to see AVH again... and who could complain about 4th of July in NYC harbor? (albeit, fear for terrorist attacks ensues... come on, I totally couldn't be American without that fear.)

Ponies have been excellent, horse show was spectacular, perhaps must keep Little R.

And, somethings never go away, like George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."

Amen.

Burnt red.

It's sometimes tough when one realizes they are like their mother in certain ways. Things that I swore I would never to do my children (and, I suppose that includes 'significant others' as well) -- I unknowingly obtained the uncanny way of making another feel guilty.

The concerning thing is, I know exactly how it feels to be on the receiving end of this situation. It feels terrible. And now, I'm only enough to dish it out too-- most of the time I have the faint nudging that I'm doing it but never actually stop doing it.

I just miss AVH, like a lot. It's frustrating lately, feeling so separated from him. Wondering if or when I make the (ultimately very frightening) decision to say 'ok, it's time to be near you now.' (that is, of course, if we ever reach that point.) Of course, if I were left to ma vie en rose I wouldn't let myself have so much doubt, I wouldn't walk so cautiously, I would boldly say, 'yes, we will reach that point' but AVH has influenced me to include such parentheses.

How can I sell them?

They're just too adorable. I want to keep them forever.

Perpetual relaxation.

The skin is still peeling off my fingers... and now my toes. Strange.

This is perhaps the only time in my life where I will have nothing to do. My recent days have somewhat existed in this fashion:

9AM, the kitchen, our house.
Bobby: LG, what are you doing today?
LG: Going to the barn.
Bobby: How long will you be gone?
LG: All day.
Bobby: All day?! All day?! What could you possibly do there all day?
LG: Well, I have nothing else to do...

In some respects it feels strange to spend endless hours at SHEC with the ponies, but it's so, so wonderful.

Of course all of this has a point-- a summer of horse shows is about to begin. This weekend, the SHEC show and next weekend is Stoney Ridge. In my lifetime of horse riding I think this will be the first time I've taken a horse to its first show. This evening I explained it like this:

9PM, the kitchen, our house.
LG: Hey Bobby, wanna come to my horse show?
Bobby: Honey, I really support you in what you do but quite frankly your horse shows are kinda boring.
LG: Yeah, yeah but you never know. This will be Little Rowan's first show, he might go crazy and gallop and jump out of the arena.
Mum: Ohhh now that would be kinda exciting!
LG: Mum! You don't want that to happen at my first horse show!
Bobby: Ok, we'll come!

Actually, I'm expecting Little Rowan to be a perfect gentleman.

Along those lines, I've had a terrible time 'selling' my ponies. Either I'm absolutely terrible at it or Michigan just sucks and no one wants to buy my really cool ponies. On second thought, it could be a combination of both. Quite honestly I would be content keeping both of them but the louder side of my brain is telling me that it's not logical (as much as I absolutely love them) with the lifestyle that I predict I'm going to have some day.

My other horse news is that this evening I checked out a 5 year old Swedish Warmblood that this woman would like me to train for the summer before I leave. I watched her lunge him and couldn't help but think to myself "wow, this horse is really kinda cool." Certainly I didn't tell her that, I would like to establish some form of payment. It's definitely about time that I got paid to ride horses. (wouldn't that be the best job ever?)

In other facets of life, my professor (I need to stop calling him 'my professor' because it's not like I have possession of him, is that really some odd Freud thing?) has hopefully created a syllabus for our course. He emails me, "let's meet soon. When I say soon I mean next week some time." He and I definitely have different definitions of "soon". In fact, come to think of it, AVH and I have rather different definitions of "soon".

Speaking of AVH, I miss him like crazy... and there's not really much I can do about it at this moment. Sometimes it's still tough to get used to the "I'll see you sometime next month".

one year.

One year. That short phrase seems to exist in warped time. My perception of my year reality with AVH is shortened, condensed, nothing quite like what I would have imagined.

So here I am, the skin is still peeling off the tips of my fingers from that strange LA air all of which has been added to my peeling shoulders from an accumulation of afternoon lessons with Rowan in scorching heat. Heat that leaves my pant legs and socks completely wet from the knee down thanks to those tall leather boots. Today was added bonus, the entire backside of my pants were drenched from sweat from an hour long conversation I had with Ella trying to tell her to go more forward.

But back to my Friday evening. It's seriously pathetic. I've had numerous condolences, "ohh I don't keep in touch with many people from college, it's just too tough." But the difference is that I didn't graduate 10 years ago, I graduated a month ago. I realize I didn't really have any U friends despite a select few. (why does my hot french prof from fall '06 keep poking me on facebook?)

One year. Of course, to be expected, AVH is on the boat and I'm here with a bunch of flowers overflowing onto my desk, filling my room with the smell of an exotic paradise. My way of celebrating the occasion was emailing him Sonnet #116. Isn't that a typical English major thing to do?

In light of the day I ordered sushi and ate it while engrossed in the film "What the Bleep Do We Know?" half expecting it wasn't going to hold my attention for more than 30 minutes (I'm terrible at watching movies) and then after about an hour in I had to stop and ask myself if I really was stoned or simply if the film went wacko on me. In the end I realized the film simply went wacko with little red blobs as the wedding singers? Hmm... I'm still thrown in a loop for that one.

So I'm here with my red wine and a stack of thank you cards still to write, I just have to find the dark chocolate...