August 2002

Thursday, 01 August, 2002:  
"The sword of time will pierce our skin,
It doesn't hurt when it begins,
But as it works its way on in,
The pain grows deeper watch it grin."

Saturday, 03 August, 2002:  On the road again, and settled down again. Feels odd to be staying in one place (other than home) for any length of time. Not that I dislike the destination or anything, but being committed to be in one place too long is quite uncomfortable. Been in NH for 4.5 hours and I want to be on the road agian. Wanderlust in my soul.

Tomorrow's pretty much set in stone, which may be what's "off" to me (or at least part of it). I'll be able to lose myself other days though. To hell with being "social".

Nothing against my travelling companion, but next trip I make I need to go alone. I don't plan well enough to synchronise my schedule with another person. Also, it's just not the same freedom to do whatever when one has another person along, especially one who has things of her own to do and has people she needs to see.

Memories are the strangest things, you never know if you've made one until it's triggered by a sight or a smell or a song. All along Route 4 I had isolated flashes of recognition, but what really brought this to my mind was hearing a song tonight that triggered a memory of Shanna that I didn't know I'd made.

All in all a trip worth making so far.

Sunday, 04 August, 2002:  I am the cat who walks by himself and all places are alike to me.

NH is beautiful but I doubt if I'll make another trip here any time soon. There is nothing more to be learned in NH than there is to be learned in my air-conditioned house in OH.

Monday, 05 August, 2002:  I'm not feeling that my mood yesterday was anything other than a bit of heat-induced malaise. Whatever it was, it's gone now. Good.

Road-tripped into Vermont to vist a used/rare book store. Ended up with an 1868 copy of Robinson Crusoe. If I go back, I may have to pick up that copy of Johnathan Livingston Seagull too.

Checked all the sparking plugs and the air filter in my old Honda. Better than 14 years and 212,000 miles on the old girl and she's still running perfectly. Every sparking plug was white and clean. The car's not doing anything it's not supposed to.

Rained today and brought the heat down. Very nice.

Driving down to Walden Pond tomorrow, must remember to bring along a pen so I can post a card to Shanna. She seemed eager to see a picture of the pond and this seemed to me to be a neat way for me to surprise her with one.

I opened yesterday with a phrase from Kipling's Just So Stories. The phrase is me all over. I completely sympathise with the cat. Kipling's cat is a loaner. Not that he is without friends, rather that he prefers to wander on his own for the most part. I'm not a misanthrope, I just seem to want more time to myself to think and reflect.

I keep thinking about home. Mostly I worry about my new kitten and hope that he still is bonded with me when I get back.

I've spent time thinking about this whole thing with Shanna too. Everything seems to be going well and I'm not used to that. Plus there's the whole deal with my leaving for Pitt in two and a half weeks. I can only guess at the size of the monkey wrench _that's_ going to throw into the machinery. If nothing else though, it's wonderful while it lasts and I'm content with that. All places may be alike to me, but all _people_ are definitely not alike to me.

Wednesday, 28 August, 2002:  Been back at Pitt since Saturday, I'm far more accustomed to this place now than I was two years ago, but I still prefer home. Of course, this year I prefer home more than ever because of Shanna. There are still moments when I can't believe everything that's happened between her and I in the last five weeks. There's no way I would have thought that something like this would come along. Of course, it does always seem that the best things happen when I'm neither expecting them nor looking for them.

There are downsides to all of this though. Being 248 miles away from home is a little difficult on a beginning relationship, not to mention incredibly distracting to me when I find myself missing Shanna's company in the evenings. A part of life though I suppose, part of growing will involve learning to deal with this. All-in-all I have it much better than most since I do at least have my car here and I am free to make a little trip home every now and again. It's not like I'm in the service either, so I'm not going through anything that's nearly as bad as what a couple of my friends went through in boot camp. Thankfully there's always the telephone and E-mail so we keep in touch.

"I like it, I love it, I want some more of it." (Dang it, she's even got me listening to Country Music now.)

Wednesday, 28 August, 2002 (later):  Got myself caught up on reading Paige's journal. It seems she's not having an easy go of things right now, or rather, that she is reaching that point in life where the familiar patterns of childhood are well past beginning to fade.

She was talking about the nature of love and wrote of how if love were truly unselfish she could not allow another to tie his life up with hers. So now I'm pondering one of my favorite subjects to ponder again. I remember Ashley talking about how she and her boyfriend were trying to list the things that made them love each other but had some trouble in doing so. I put forth the theory that Love is when a person can think of an infinite number of good, logical reasons to run away from the relationship as fast as he can but chooses to stay. Now that I've given that some thought, it sounds more like the excuse of a battered spouse who returns than any kind of deep revelation. So I'm back where I started from.

I should get Shanna's thoughts on this when I get to see her again, I know that she'd fit right into our quirky little group of philosopher college students.

I mentioned Paige being at the point where childhood patterns of life are fast fading. I'm there too. Pretty much everyone in college is. I'm sitting here in college, having a good time, and all the while I'm more scared than I've ever been in my life about what's going to happen once I'm on my own. I want desperately to hold onto the pieces of youth, but with each passing day the memories fade a little bit more and I'm left wondering just how much of myself I lose every time I gain something new.

I miss the stars. I miss looking up into the night sky and being calmed by the myriad of twinkling lights. I miss going outside and not being bombarded with a hailstorm of sensory information. I miss not hurtling headlong through each day.

I wonder what Shanna's doing right now...sigh.