Hello from the Heartland (ha ha!) This is my 4th full day visiting Champaign. I'm kind of brain dead right now so I'm not sure what to write. I did write a little something a few nights ago to put in here when I had the chance so I'll just put that in here. In the meantime, things are going well. I'm having a great time with mom. More on all of that some other time. I hate the humidity and heat but luckily there is air-conditioning everywhere (unlike Oregon and Washington!) I'm not missing Eugene much right now, in fact while in the shower today for some reason I started crying and saying to myself over and over "I don't want to go back to Eugene. I don't want to leave here." Of course, I HAVE to go back and I want to see Larry and the cats, but I just want my life in Eugene to be better and different when I get back, not the same. I think that is what my brain really meant. I feel like I'm entering a "dark" period and I really don't want to but I know I have to in order to figure out what I REALLY want to do with myself and my life. I'm not depressed, I just feel that things are going to be even more chaotic for awhile. I'm just so glad I'm here visiting, it's almost healing in a way being around my mom. I really needed to do this. It's weird, I thought I'd miss Larry and I do ever so slightly, but not much, and I suppose there is nothign wrong with that. I guess we needed a break from each other (or I needed a break from him)..people can just spend TOO Much time together. I feel guilty for not missing him though..like it means I don't care anymore or that I don't love him, all of which is not true, of course! Does this make sense?? Anyways, more on going to Arthur (Amish country) and the other things I've done when my thoughts are more organized...maybe when I get home I'll write a day by day "events and feelings and experiences" log or something or maybe I'll just keep it all to myself. For now, here is what I wrote on the 2nd night I was here (Friday, I think):

******************************

In this dimly lit room, listening to thunder and gasping at how close the freeze frame lightning actually seems to be in comparison to this little cottage like apartment my mother lives in. Watching lightning bugs for the 1st time in nearly a decade, watching them and their amazing radioactive blinkers, I have a child-like awe of the storm and the bugs because I'd completely forgotten what this all feels like and looks and smells like and these are things I've always said I've missed about the MidWest, and though I love Oregon and Washington and I wouldn't move back here, tonight I'm ALMOST tempted..it's all wrapped up in nostalgia and familiarity. Seeing old friends at the Great Impasta (Julie Grubich), seeing Simone's old boyfriend, BOB. We're going to Arthur tommorrow, Amish life..I can't wait to drive slowly behind a buggy, buy a jar or two of the best apple butter on this earth and get Larry a blanket or something. Looking at old photos of my grandma Marie and grandpa Ab circa 1940 something. She in her pristine and clean white nurses' uniform, a fake braid (she told me it was a clip on) haloing her head. My grandfather in a pin-striped suit and a jaunty hat on his head, tilted at just the right angle, looking almost like a mafia member who might smile and charm you to death but never riddle you with bullets. Ah, I love my ancestors. Please bury me next to them so I can talk endlessly to them about my life with and without them. I miss family and that is why it is so nice to be here with my funny, Hawaii-fixated, shamanistic mother.

do the jerk * do the frug