Job Searchin'

I'm in Knoxville and trying to figure out what to do next. I can't tell if I like it here, but I don't know what the sign would be. I had looked up apartments before I came here and picked one complex that looked like it would suit me particularly well. It turns out it's 1.3 miles from the only Barnes & Noble in Knoxville. That could be the sign I need. There's a job in Alcoa--approximately 23 minutes from this B&N--that's working at a no kill shelter. But I have to call them and I hate calling people.

I want to go driving around and look at different neighborhoods and see if I like any places more than any others but I'm so sick of being in my car that I really don't want to.

I can't decide what to do. I don't know how long I should give it before I like it or don't. I don't really know where to stay while I make that decision because I'm at the point where I can't afford to pay to stay anywhere anymore. It's such a drain on money and it makes me so uncomfortable every time I pay for a room.

And then I think about getting an apartment and how absurd it's going to be to be in an apartment with no furniture.

This was really a pretty silly idea. Which I'm more and more aware of. But I knew that when I chose to do it. I knew I wanted to go somewhere new to see what it was like. I knew I wanted some kind of a challenge. But now I'm tired and I want a bed. I didn't sleep much last night and even with coffee right now I feel like I could just sleep for a few hours. I'm thinking about finding a park and napping in the grass.

WELL! What an odd change of events!

While typing this up, I got a phone call from a vet clinic in the area. I sent in my resume not a half hour before and then my phone started ringing with an area code that I recognized as being from the area. I answered the phone and the woman said she had looked over my resume and was impressed and would like to talk to me about the job. So I have an interview for tomorrow morning!

Now! I don't want a job. I want an income, but I don't want a job. I want everything out of my car and I don't want to worry about depleting my savings but I don't want to be settled yet. I know, I know, this doesn't really seem to mesh with what I just said about wanting a bed and being exhausted. But the truth is, I'm having fun during the day, I'm just tired every night and hate having to find a place to stay.

I'd somehow planned on being homeless and jobless longer than this. Now I have so many mixed feelings! But I can always move later. And try to get a start date in 2 weeks. Options! Suddenly I feel weirdly better about life. I've been applying for jobs for 6 months and then one resume gets a response 30 minutes later. Crazy. I might buy a book to celebrate.

SO TIRED!

It's important to to note that I am absolutely exhausted right now, but I want to do this while I have internet for the night since I don't know how tomorrow is going to go. But the exhaustion is a disclaimer for whatever is typed wrong or said wrong or is just generally wrong.

I woke up early this morning so that I could get to Pamplin Historical Park--which appears to be something like colonial Williamsburg but for the Civil War, not really sure though--right when it opened at 9. Off I went! I got there a little after 9 only to find the gates closed. Because it's closed on Sundays. Well, great! I had even checked the hours the night before but I lose track of days so it didn't click that I would be going on a Sunday. So that was a nice 40 minute drive in the opposite direction I needed to go.

Off I went to Appomattox!

That went a little bit better. Except for when the park ranger told me to turn right into the parking lot and I immediately turned left because I don't do the whole right-left thing well. So she watched me do a u-turn and get back into the parking lot.

 McLean house where Lee surrendered to Grant. Fun fact: McLean lived in Manassas during first Manassas and decided to move away so he could escape the war.

 This is a reproduction of the table Lee sat at during the negotiation of surrender. The real one is in Chicago? Or something.

 This was Grant's table. The real one is in another museum, too. There were original pieces, though. I asked. Unfortunately they had little to do with the event except as spectators, so I'm not posting the pictures I excitedly took of the rest of the furniture.

 This was nearby, and letters have been taken off and they said "to 118,000 men under Grant," I think.

 In the Confederate cemetery. They found a Union solider nearby when they were gathering the Confederates and they buried him in the same cemetery, right next to everyone else. There were 18 or 19 buried here, most unknown.

After Appomattox it was time to go to Lexington to see where Lee and Stonewall were buried. Lee is buried in Lee Chapel on the campus of Washington and Lee University. There was no photography allowed in the chapel or in the museum so you will be without those images. But it was a really pretty chapel, painted all white with black accents. At the back was the Lee memorial, which is him carved in marble, lying down. In the basement of the chapel is where he is actually buried, in the wall with his family and descendants. Also in the basement is his office, which has been virtually untouched since he died. It's exactly as he left it. With some papers having been taken out in order to be preserved. Then, in the center of the museum, there is a marble slab that marks the spot he was originally buried in the floor of the chapel. Except then, the basement of the chapel was a library.

The museum talked about Lee as president of the university and his relation to George Washington. Lee's biggest rule at the university was that every student be a gentleman. How perfectly southern!

Outside of the chapel, Lee's horse, Traveller, is buried. Traveller died after Lee and attended the procession at the funeral.

 People leave coins for Traveller. I left the change in my purse after I took this picture.

 The outside of Lee Chapel.

This is where Stonewall Jackson and family are buried. He was originally buried in another part of this cemetery but was moved when the built this memorial. It must suck to be famous because your remains move around like whoa.

The last photo was taken at about 4:45 and I decided I would make the 5 hour drive to Knoxville and save a night of hotel spending. Full tank of gas and off I went!

An hour into the drive and I got caught in traffic. In the mountains. You know those signs that say "Traffic Advisory When Flashing, Tune to AM station"? Well, that had been flashing, but they flash a lot and there's rarely anything spectacular about it. But when it got to the point where I turned off my car because we weren't moving, I wanted to know. But! My radio wasn't working. Every once in awhile the display will go nuts and then the buttons won't do anything, so I couldn't change the station. I tried downloading a radio app for my phone, but that didn't work.

I got out of my car, saw a cat in the car in front of me, got back in my car and then the radio was working! Sort of. I still couldn't see what station I was on but it was letting me change stations so I found it. It just said there was an accident up ahead and both lanes were closed. Hooray! Everyone was out of their cars and walking around and after an hour traffic started flowing again. No sign of an accident anywhere when I drove by. I believe I was lied to.

Then 4 hours of driving left.

Exhausting.

Most driving in a single day I've done so far.

Any other stories?

Oh, I drove through mountains again today, windy, twisty, roller-coaster roads and I really thought my poor little car was just going to give up and leave me stuck. We made it through, though! So proud. The mountains here are different but so so pretty.

Alrighty! Super tired! Off to sleep. Have to wake up early enough to eat continental breakfast. Might go back to sleep after until checkout. Errggh I have no idea where to stay until I get a place or decide if I like it here. I certainly can't afford motels much longer.

Easy Day

I arrived in Richmond last night and went to the Civil War museum. I did more Richmond stuff today and some non-Civil War stuff to give it a little bit of a break. I'm staying here one more night--thanks to a very generous hostess giving me a bed--which is a nice change of pace from all the driving.

First, pictures from yesterday.

This is Chatham house, which I mentioned yesterday. This is the back of the house.

 These are the gardens in the backyard, which unfortunately did not come through in the photos as well as I would've liked. But rest assured, it was gorgeous.

 From the front yard you could see the river. This is the river the Union soldiers crossed to get at the Confederates who were stationed up on Marye's Heights over yonder. They waited here for something like 12 days for their pontoons to arrive so they could cross. Fredericksburg was not a success for the Yanks.

 Pretty mossy statue peeking through the trees.

 This is at Chancellorsville. These pictures are sort of out of order but oh well. This was on one side of the monument and it says "Let us pass over the river and rest under the shade of the trees." These were Stonewall Jackson's last words. He was in a sort of delirium when he said it, but it seems like an awfully beautiful set of last words.

This is the formal monument placed at Chancellorsville near the site where he was mortally wounded. This is actually the backside of the monument. It was placed so that the front would face the highway and passersby would see it, but when the highway started having motor vehicle traffic instead of horse traffic I think they decided it was unsafe to have people approaching it from the other side. You can see some grey through the trees and that's the highway. Anyway! This was placed by soldiers after the war to commemorate him.

 This boulder was an informal monument placed here by someone to mark the place where Jackson was wounded.

 This sign was placed at the actual place where he was shot, so where I was standing and taking this picture is where it happened. Isn't this exciting?

 This is where he died. He was shot at Chancellorsville in the arm, ambulanced quite a ways away to this place to recover. His arm was amputated and he seemed to be doing fine until pneumonia took hold and did him in. It's likely he had pneumonia before the wound and amputation but the wound distracted from the pneumonia symptoms and his immune system was likely weakened by the whole ordeal so nothing could be done by the time they realized what was happening.

 This is the building he died in. There once was a house behind it but it was torn down by the railroad company. The railroad company also decided to preserve this building because Jackson died there. It was just an outbuilding to the house.

 This is the ACTUAL bed Jackson died in. Everything in this room is original to the room when he died in it.

 Including this clock. Which has been ticking on the mantel ever since.

Now to move into today which actually has very few pictures because the places I went did not allow photography. I slept in and then made my way over to the Museum of the Confederacy and the White House of the Confederacy. The tour of the white house was interesting, in large part because it's neat to see a period house and how it was laid out. After the fall of the Confederacy the house was turned into a school and the original furniture was sold off. The city almost tore it down to build a new school but a historical society saved it and then went about getting as much of the original furniture back as possible. Pretty neat to look at.

The Museum of the Confederacy was really well done, I thought. The layout made sense and was easy to follow and they had a good collection with good explanations of the flow of the war. I don't know why I didn't like the Civil War museum as much, because I know it's new and sort of what a good museum is supposed to be, but somehow this older one did a better job for me.

After those two things, I went to the Hollywood Cemetery. Which took a ridiculous amount of time and turning around because I had left my GPS on walking directions so it kept trying to get me to go the wrong way down one-ways. I didn't realize why until later in the day when I was trying to map a longer distance and it told me it would take 6 hours to get there. Anyway, I got there and got lost almost right away because it was so much larger than I had expected and I couldn't see how anyone would ever manage to find a specific grave.

I happened along the family plot of Jefferson Davis, which was all decked out in memorial decorations from various historical societies.

 I took it from far away, I guess, but there is a statue of Davis in the middle and his wife and children are buried around him. So is a more distant relative that died in 1991.

I was going to give up and leave the cemetery because I couldn't find what I was looking for (I did accidentally find James Monroe, though) so I started winding my way out. I stopped in a parking spot at the entrance to GPS my next destination when I saw a stone map of the cemetery. I got out of my car to look and see what I missed when a groundskeeper of some sort asked if I wanted a map, he had one left. I took it and went back in to see the Confederate section of the cemetery. Which is, oddly, on the opposite side of where Davis is.

 This says "Fate denied them victory but gave them a glorious immortality." Which I liked.

 "Gettysburg Dead."

The granite pyramid built to honor all of the Confederate dead surrounding it. 

 "Memoria in aeterna"

Then I decided to do some non-Civil War activities. I went to Maymont park and wandered around for a bit. It's big and pretty with lots of flowers.

And some waterfalls.

I started to get really hungry and I decided to eat not at McDonalds so I stayed in the city and found a district that is just one long road of shops and restaurants. I walked along it for awhile and then found a barbecue place and went inside and got a table for one. I ordered a pulled pork sandwich and then started trying all 5 of the barbecue sauces on the table. The man working in the kitchen, who may be a manager or an owner or something, saw me and came over to tell me the I should put one of two sauces on my sandwich because they go best with pork. We started talking and he asked if I ate there often and I said I'd never been to Richmond before, he asked if I was a tourist and since I sort of hate that word I said no, just passing through. Briefly explained that I was thinking of moving to Knoxville but was fresh out of college with no job or apartment so didn't really know for sure where I would end up. He said he was from Tennessee and he said Knoxville is a good place and it isn't as hot as some other places and that it would be a good place to start. He said I was brave and then walked back to the kitchen.

I eat really quickly and don't really breathe or chew my food. I also hadn't eaten for 5 1/2 hours which is a long, long time for me to go without eating. I finished my sandwich in seconds. Then I saw him walking back over to my table and he says "You went through that pretty fast. This is from me." And he put a whole sandwich worth of pork on my plate! For FREE! I ate that pretty quick, too, but tried to slow down so I didn't continue looking like a ravenous monster. When I was done, he said it was nice to meet me and wished me luck.

People can be so nice! And I have the best luck when it comes to free food.

Even though I was really full at that point, I still had ice cream on my mind so I went down the street to get some of that before heading out of the city for the night. I stopped at Barnes & Noble on the way in, too, just because it's my happy place.

Starting off early tomorrow morning and hope to be in Lexington by tomorrow night. Then Knoxville the day after!

Oh, going through my files (i.e. piles of possessions) I found these quite relevant, un-cited quotes I coped down at some point. I think they're all from the same person.

"We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."

"All paths lead nowhere, so it is important to choose a path that has heart."

"It is important to do what you don't know how to do. It is important to see your skills as keeping you from learning what is deepest and mysterious. If you know how to focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos."

Stonewall, Cont.

Yesterday was Manassas, which I loved because of the Jackson statue and his general presence in the battle there. Today, however, was all about Jackson for me. I started off in Fredericksburg--which, by the way, is a very neat area--and saw the battlefield there. I didn't do the driving tour because I was trying to be in Richmond by 3 (made it by 3:30!), but I did walk around the immediate area for awhile, and I drove across the river to see the Chatham house.

My train of thought just branched off in several directions and I don't know where to start.

First, I didn't upload pictures tonight so pictures will come tomorrow.

Second, Chatham house is not particularly significant for any one thing, but it is a beautiful house on beautiful land and oh man. I fell in love with it. Apparently it's the only house that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln ever both visited.

Third, I read Gods and Generals over spring break which goes over the battle of Fredericksburg so this one was still pretty fresh in my memory. I remember having a hard time picturing the battle and the terrain while reading but seeing it in person it all clicked. It was so cool. It felt like I knew the battlefield and like I knew where everyone was.

I decided to go to Chancellorsville, too, which is about 15 miles from Fredericksburg. The visitors center is placed right next to the spot where Stonewall Jackson was wounded by friendly fire. How tragic! There are two monuments for him. One is just a boulder that soldiers put in place almost immediately so no one would forget, the second is more formal and was dedicated shortly after the war. How amazing to have the admiration of so many people. I did the Chancellorsville driving tour but was a little disappointed in the signage and the tour compared to how well organized they've been at other battlefields so far.

I was also TERRIBLY annoyed by the cemeteries. All of the national cemeteries only bury Union soldiers. I get why, technically, but it still seems wrong somehow. The national cemetery at Fredericksburg was on my walking tour, but I was driving through Fredericksburg for over 20 minutes before I found the Confederate cemetery and then there was no parking. It seems like all the soldiers that fought in the war should be given respect and to ignore the Confederates in commemoration doesn't seem right.

Anyway, after Chancellorsville I went to the Stonewall Jackson shrine which was in a very small non-town. All that's there is a small white building. It wasn't even the home on the land, it was an outbuilding. The home isn't standing any more. But the outbuilding where Jackson died still has the bed he died in right there in the room. And the same clock that was ticking when he died is still there, ticking on the mantel. Which I think is amazing to think about. I almost cried when I drove up to the house (because it reminded me of when I almost cried when I read about it). It just reminded me that what I read wasn't just a story, it had actually happened. Whenever I realize that is sort of startles me into realizing the magnitude of what I'm seeing.

I went on to Richmond and hurried into the Civil War museum and went through it. The museum is spectacular, really. It's new and pretty to look at but it's set up in an old iron works building. It's also an interesting concept--they have it set up so that every aspect of the war is told through the Union perspective, the Confederate perspective, and the African American perspective. So it's three battles: the battle for union, the battle for home, and the battle for freedom. They thread it all the way through, and I do think it's interesting, but I thought there were a lot of gaps, especially in the parts about reconstruction. There was also less focus on the timeline and individual events and more focus on the broader theme of events at the time. Different compared to the other museums I've been to so far, but a little strange, too.

They had some films going that were a little cheesy and I only sat down to watch one of them all the way through.

I missed the film at Chancellorsville and I kind of regret it.

I really do love this trip. It's so neat to actually see everything. And every gift shop I go into adds another book or five to my list. A full car means I can't buy anything now, and no mailing address means I got order on amazon. All probably for the best. But it's killing me a little. I've also wanted tshirts from the last few places but have restrained myself there, too. If I get anything it's a postcard.

Tomorrow is the Museum of the Confederacy, Hollywood Cemetery, and maybe something non-Civil War just to take a break from it for a little bit. And tonight is early bedtime! And no alarm clock.

Stonewall

I took a lot of pictures today but it seems like they're all of fields. They make sense to me, but as pictures they all become a blur. Here are just the most important photos of the day.

 Burnside Bridge (formerly Rohrbach Bridge, which was also the name of the B&B I stayed in) over Antietam Creek. It's such a serene place and  it's hard to imagine all the death that happened there. It's so quiet and beautiful I would want to spend the whole day just sitting by the creek, but when soldiers were there it had to have been one of the most horrific places to be. This bridge had car traffic until 1966 when they decided to build a new bridge just for cars. One of the things I'm really starting to appreciate about the battlefields is that preserving them keeps places like this--quiet and beautiful. Antietam hasn't really been threatened by growth it seems, but there's a community college almost on top of the Manassas battlefield and a mall a few blocks away. Crazy.

 Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson monument at Manassas. He was on this hilltop when he was given his nickname. He's my favorite Confederate, without a doubt. But I'm not entirely sure why.

 Indeed.

So, I tend to miss the funny or unusual signs that people seem to collect on road trips, but this one caught my eye while I was at a stop light. Dual car and dog wash. There was another sign I missed while I was driving through Gettysburg--the battlefield--that was handwritten, stapled to a small post and said "BEWARE OF BEES." There was another one, too, but I've forgotten what it was.

I'm enjoying this whole thing quite a bit. I like driving and then walking and exploring and being in new places and talking to new people. I don't feel lost or rushed, and that's good. As long as I've got a full tank of gas I don't really care what's going on. It's still a little frustrating at the end of each day to have to worry about where to stay. I keep thinking I'll be a certain place by night and ending up a step or two behind. Then I have to figure something new out on the fly and I'm exhausted and don't want to deal with much.

I was going to camp tonight but every Wal-Mart I found was sold out of 2-person tents. A friend suggested going to Dick's Sporting Goods, so I googled the nearest one and it was 20 minutes away and already late so it just didn't seem like something I was up to. I drove to the grocery story to get dinner and on my way back to my super cheap motel room found a Dick's not 3 blocks from where I had been when I googled the nearest one. Absurd! BUYING A TENT SOON! I think I'll be camping while in Tennessee. I also think I'll be getting a storage unit so I can get my stuff out of my car until I figure out the next step. It's so uncomfortable being so crowded! And having to dig for 15 minutes just to get a clean shirt.

Introspection, introspection, introspection. (Sorry I've been too tired to do more of this, I do it mostly while I'm driving and that's the time it's most difficult to type.)

I'm going to bed EARLY tonight, because I look beat and I feel beat and I know I want to try to wake up at 8 tomorrow. Yeesh. I didn't even get up this early for class.
It is so hard to not buy up lots and lots of books every time I go into one of the gift shops.

Hooray!

I ignored this blog, and I'm aware of this. But it's okay because now I'm coming back to it! Because this is what it was meant for--this awkward period where I have no commitments.

Here we go. It's only been a couple days, but it's been a pretty long two days.
Graduation day had its ups and downs, as expected. Was irritated in the morning because I was awake so, so early and then had to stand around the arts quad for 90 minutes before anything happened. Then we walked.

 

There was a procession around the quad and then by the professors, by Uris, and then up to Schoellkopf. 

It was the fullest I have ever seen that stadium. Sat through the ceremony, which made me almost cry once or twice, remembering the last four years. Skorton mentioned Brian Lo, and I teared up there. He also mentioned "The Pickup," our freshman reading assignment, and there was a collective groan from every undergraduate. He mentioned the video "This Is" which two seniors made about Cornell. I miss it. I knew I would, but it still seems strange how much I really do miss it. Just the feeling of it. Not the classes, not the hills, not anything specific. Just the feeling there. The last couple of days there I had to block it out, not think about leaving, no more thinking about lasts or finals or goodbyes. 

The English ceremony was good, too. "It's not easy being an English major, you get made fun of a lot, sometimes unfairly." But I was hot from sitting through commencement and hungry because it was 1. Afterwards I was miserable and started getting a really bad headache, which then ended up being a migraine. Hurt to see, to move, etc. And it hurt so much it made me nauseous. Yeeesh. Drove to Outback for dinner and promptly threw up. Glad I made it to the restaurant, though, because I really thought I was going to have to pull over. After that I just had a headache and was a little tired and dehydrated, but felt comparatively lots better. So, rough day. Long day. Anywho.

I left Tuesday, because my lease was up at 8am and I didn't have a place to stay after that. Heading out of Ithaca, maybe 40 minutes into my drive, I panicked a little bit. Okay, well, actually, I panicked quite a bit the night before because it just occurred to me how ridiculous my plan was. I thought "I can't do this. I absolutely can't do this." I moved on but then, driving away from Ithaca it was incredible. I was doing it. What in the world!

I started listening to a country station because it's what comes in nowhere and a song called "Knee Deep" came on and it made me feel better. It reminded my why I wanted to do this trip in the first place. I want to be with myself in a place where I don't have to worry about the things I usually worry about, so I can really figure out what it is I want to do/be/whatever. And I want to see new places. Anyway, it brought me back to a good place and I kept on my way. Until I found a Sonic. Which was completely awesome, especially because my strawberry limeade was half price. 

I got into Gettysburg at about 5:30 and all of the monuments close at 5. I went into Wal-mart to buy a tent, but then couldn't figure out where to go for a campground so I gave up the tent and then spent quite a long time in the parking lot trying to figure out where I would stay for the night. I found a cheap motel with good reviews for $55 a night and thought I'd go for it. Good part of town, decent enough looking. Get my room, lounge about, then walked around Gettysburg to see the cute buildings.

Went back to the room after my stroll through the cemetery and around town and set out to find lodging for the next night so I didn't end up stuck in a Wal-Mart parking lot again. While doing this, I found a gross round, red bug in that little welcome folder that's in rooms. I freaked out because it looked kind of like a tick, but bigger and pushed the folder in the corner away from everything. I was still a little grossed out but figured I would just sleep on top of the blankets since it was warm anyway. I keep feeling squirmy and then felt something sharp on my leg, like a bite, and I flinched. I shifted and then saw an identical red bug scurry out from underneath me and into the folds of the blanket. NOPE! I very quickly packed all of my things and took them back to my car and decided to sleep in my car. 

I squeezed myself into the back but couldn't get comfortable. For reference, my car:

Quite full. I tried to take a picture of me sleeping in it so I could show people how ridiculous the situation was, but I couldn't extend my arm far enough to even get a shot. It was about a million degrees inside and I was lying on my bag of shoes so it was just impossible. I finally gave in and went to the Motel 6 a few miles away. By this time it was already 1am and I was super exhausted because I'd gotten up at 6:30 to finish moving out of the apartment. I paid for my room and realized I didn't know where my credit card was. I had used it to pay for gas and dinner and then it was gone. I thought I left it in the bug room. So I drove all the way back and looked for it. No card. Decided it probably fell out of my pocket while crawling into the backseat to try to sleep. It hasn't been used by anyone yet, but I'll keep checking to make sure. Went back to the Motel 6 and fell asleep right quick.

I hit snooze a bunch in the morning and didn't get started as early as I would've liked, and I had to go turn the key in at bug motel and ask if I could get my money back. She seemed just as grossed out as I was, but said I would have to talk to the owner when he came in at 11 (it was 9:30 then). She said she would call me when he got in. I went on my way for the day.

 This is the Virginia monument, with Robert E. Lee and his horse Traveller on top. I liked this one a lot, but every state has one.

 James Longstreet and his horse. I liked this monument quite a bit as well.

Appalachia! This is a terrible picture, and all the pictures I took were terrible, but it's absolutely a beautiful place. I love it just after driving through, in a mildly frightened way, with no cell phone reception. But it is crazy beautiful out here. 

 

Super cute library in Sharpsburg, MD. Three miles from the West Virginia border and about a mile away from the Antietam battleground.

I got off the highway to go to Antietam, unaware that Antietam is not really a city. Or a town. Or even a hamlet. I did a lot of driving and there were a lot of cars and a lot of homes, but the homes were on big lots and I couldn't figure out where on earth the cars could be headed because there are no stores or anything like that around. I ended up turning around and going back to where I got off the highway so I could get cell reception again and figure out where to stay for the night. The plan had been to buy a tent and camp, but that had been based on the silly assumption that there would be stores in Antietam. I ended up settling no a B&B in Sharpsburg which is close to the battlefield that I want to go to in the morning. It's lovely and I'm very happy with my choice, even if I'm not happy with how much I'm spending to stay here. 

Tomorrow is Antietam, Manassas and Fredericksburg, hopefully. And hopefully to Richmond by evening, but we'll see. So much adventure in just two days! More to come, I'm sure. Hopefully some grand personal insight soon, too. It's only been two days so I haven't had much time for reflection yet.

Unattended

Neglect, neglect, neglect!

I have not forgotten, I have just gotten sidetracked. Re-tracked by an issue of Real Simple, which happens to be my favorite magazine. I spent 20 minutes in the magazine aisle of the grocery store today, trying to find a good magazine about healthy eating or healthy moving or something. But after about six or seven new magazines, I decided to go to my favorite magazine instead. Real Simple always gives me something to think about.

I'm reading in bed, to try to wind down (but also watching Reno 911! so it's a half-hearted effort at winding down) and the question of the month was "What do you do to cheer yourself up?" Readers responded with a variety of different things, and I started thinking about what I do.

I don't have a thing I consistently do to lift my spirits, but maybe I should. One reader said she sets a timer for 20 minutes, and vents for 20 minutes, when the timer goes off, it's done. I don't do that, but I've done it. Ranted to a friend, gotten everything out, until I felt empty enough that I felt better. I look at pictures of kittens. I go for a walk. Or a drive. I want to make a list of the little things that always settle me down and cheer me up. I pretty consistently listen to "Learn to Be Still" by The Eagles. It doesn't cheer me up, but it does settle me down and remind me that I need to slow down and figure everything out.

Hooray figuring it out!

A project in the near future will be a list of things that lift my spirits. Small things. It's good to know what those things are, in case you ever need a list in a really upsetting moment.

In addition, Real Simple has an article "5 Things You Shouldn't Say to a Recent College Graduate." Thank you, Real Simple, for giving good advice to people everywhere!

It's time for bed.