Today feels like San Francisco

Today's been a quiet day, and that's how I like it.
The most exciting thing that happened to me today was coming around the side of the house with my bike and discovering that the pine tree in the front yard was full of Psaltriparus minimus, (Bushtits), tiny little grey birds (about the same size of finches or chickadees). Yesterday they were in the buddleia (butterfly bush). Today they were in my pine tree, playfully hopping around from branch to branch, chirping away. They are absolutely adorable. I just stood there hanging on to my bike watching them for several minutes until they all flew away.

One of the greatest and most glorious things about NOT being in school right now is reading...or rather, reading exactly what I WANT to read. Right now I am reading Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama. It is a book that I will be teaching with Ms. Ediza to 10th graders at Parkrose High School this fall. It's been seven years since I last read it so it's time to brush up a bit. Last week I read "Pretending to Be Normal" (which is about Aspbergers and in a sense a former student), "Growing up Global" (which is about me), and "Brotherhood of the Wolf" (which is in a sense also about me...I'm Binnsmead in disguise).

Today I think that I am feeling reclusive. I need to call people but I really don't feel like talking. It's too hard to put my scattering thoughts into words that make sense. And even though I've been outside twice, I'd really rather stay home and not have to understand how to navigate being around other people and their conflicting rhythms.

Today I look like some kinda poster child for Goths Anonymous. I'm wearning shiny black pants, a black t-shirt with a skull on it. I'd wear sunglasses but it's cloudy. My socks are the only thing fucking up my membership status...I'm wearning rainbow colored toe-socks.
I'm pretty sure that's not allowed.

Today I think I miss several things. I miss my family of course. I miss Eva who I really wish I could see right now. I missed the Hobo Film Festival on Friday because I thought it was on Saturday.
But here's just a little thing from the past that I miss...I miss wandering into the kitchen at Declerye and partaking in the ritual at the shrine of perpetual coffee adoration (somebody there was always fixin' coffee, day or night)...I could count on it, like you can count on rain in Portland, and I'd be sitting around the table shootin' the breeze with whoever was home at the time, or you could find me sitting in my hammock out on the carport watching the cats be cats, and the garden growing outside.

This weekend has gone by too quickly. The weather is strange, more like San Francisco than anything...it's been cool and cloudy which is beyond odd. If I were in Memphis, I'd be sweatin' like mad bein' chased up and down Orange Mound by skeeters. Here it is just quiet and cool...and just wrong.