Why all the big emphasis on this EARTH thing, olivia?

Well, my friends. If I forget that I have lovers and sisters and best friends, and close-seconds in close proximity (which of course, necessitates remembering that in the context of the universe and our imaginations and maybe other dimensions, we are really VERY close) I would feel so sad and lonely!

Let's talk logistics! My number one roommate and best friend, Karen, is in Barcelona, stuck in a space-time continuum of 10 months; my darling girlfriend is adventuring in the legal pyramids of India, my mentor sister Patricia is in a second-floor apartment in Portland, OR (not maine). My family is near enough to Chicago, in this relative construct I'm creating, that there's no need to specify which immediate suburb of Chicago they're ACTUALLY in. My little bratz doll look-alike sister is probably at Great America, which is after all an amusement park of one square mile, which implicates an area after all much LARGER, the America itself, which is more than one square mile. I bet Annelise is on busey and high, laughing in her living room to people that annoy her, or at Nathan's loveshack! Drinking coffee from a tall glass, earthenware mug that just SCREAMS....."i scream maturity". And Carl, oh alamo carl, my carl, man of the alamo.....you are doing something BAD.

Maggie's visiting Dodi. Maggie will leave back to Chicago, which is a three hour drive by car. I had a four hour flight from Chicago to Portland, and then a nineteen hour train ride to San Jose! I'm further!

And I don't even have a SENSE of where the carolinas are in comparison to this Seattle's Best coffee stand, next to the "general religion" section, in this Borders!! (I'm not even in seattle. Seattle's greatness extends so far that it opens shops in central california). So Ms. Lovins is only an imaginary friend, with a phone number!

Buenos Aires may be the closest thing to me right now. Right, Tones?

BUT IT'S ALL RELATIVE.

What I'm saying is!

As my community gets LARGER.....i want my friends to stay close. 

But more later. Now is the time for the resting pre-bike ride.

Phase One, Day TWELVE, ALREADY.

I'm torn between making this a brochure of my travels, or a diary du jour! OK. I'll disregard the temptation to vent and yearn on this blog. Let me give a sweet SHOUT OUT to all my friends out there that are nooo loooonger in close proximity to my LIFE.

Here's the plan. I'm in California, in the San Francisco Bay Area until the end of July, at which point I fly home to grab my suitcase and fly to Dakar, Senegal on August 2nd!

I'll be doing a pre-session for the month, just speaking French and Wolof and I think helping set up for the copious internships being provided for all us students. Then, classes will start until October!

Then an internship til December!

Then, I might be going to Kenya for a month long farm project.....

And then....well......Ah. The equally exotic Midwest, which holds many friends and loved ones, who will CERTAINLY be nostalgic for this face of mine.

I think I'll go ahead and invite my friends now, and I'll start explaining my reasons for escaping the elegant cages of Urbana-Champaign in my next blog.

loving and doting and yours,

olivia