September 9 - I count to 3 and grin

Today it rained. I have been feeling really nostalgic. Fall does that. We all have some latent expectation that something new will start each fall, new things to learn, a new level, but school's out forever. I remember my friend Monica visiting me last fall, when I first moved back to Bellingham. I hadn't seen her since high school, and we've been through a lot of changes. She looked at me and said, Anna, didn't you think that we were on some kind of a progression when we were in school? Didn't you think that we were making steps on some kind of path that tilts upwards? But it doesn't. It doesn't. Sometimes we make progress, sometimes we climb so far, then we slip all the way back down to the bottom. 

Belle hates the rain, but she loves swimming. I can't explain it. I can't explain a lot of things that don't make sense. I lost a friend today. It rains and rains. I have to put the leash on Belle and drag her outside just to make her pee. It's gonna rain and rain and rain and we can't wait for it to stop. We have to keep going. 

September 2 - We made time

This is a long weekend. It's also the first weekend that I haven't left town in over a month. The smoke is gone after the rain came on my birthday. I turned 38. I slept in a tent, I slept in a van, I slept in a cabin, I slept in my giant bed. Today I slept in. I feel like I'm on to something good.

Belle and me went for a hike with Rachel at the arboretum. I hadn't been there in a few weeks, and the fall sharpened the smell and dulled the colors. The leaves are all over, papering the ground, and the only berries left are some dried up salal. I didn't harvest any blackberries to bring home this year, but I ate woodsorrel on my birthday at a cabin on a lake up a logging road with my new sweet heart, which is funny because woodsorrel leaves are perfect hearts. I hadn't seen any since high school, and I've been looking for it ever since then. It was everywhere up there. I also got black cap raspberries in Port Angeles, which were new to me, so I feel like I did alright this summer either way. I still haven't taken a swim, though. 

We walked with Rachel all the way to the tower at the arboretum and climbed to the top. I saw a MAGA carved in the railing. We laughed about how it actually stands for Men Are Getting Arrested. We spent a minute trying to identify a stately looking building way in the distance, but then Rachel figured out it was a La Quinta, and actually her in-laws will be staying there in October. Belle was mellow and happy. She's doing so great lately. We both are.

I learned a simple love song for the first time in a long time, and it's a beautiful song, but I couldn't help throwing in my broken little shitty casio. It was too pretty without it. I love salty love. I love this long weekend. Time has been racing by, breaking my neck, but now it feels like there are some resting places out of time, and I can get to them. I want to learn more love songs this year. I know I have time. 

August 14 - You Took My Breath Away

It was a long day. I had to deal with a lot of things that are unavoidable and unpleasant, then after that I went to work. Belle has been acting weird about finishing her breakfast. She always seems disappointed when I set it down, even though she has a really fancy new elevated dog bowl stand. I think she's nervous. It's this light, it feels like the whole world is plunged in sepia tones from footage of the great fires. The whole world is burning down. 

The sun was like a grapefruit in the smoke, which is a simile I just now stole from a Dear Nora song. We went down to the softball fields kind of late today. There was an old sweaty guy in a blue tank top jogging, just chugging in that forest fire. Belle ate all the rainbow color tennis balls I bought her last week, so I just threw sticks for her. There was a guy in the dugout across the field with a shopping cart, just sitting on the bench. I saw a lot of shopping carts in the trail back to Joe Martin Field, where some baseball people were practicing or something. It's so hard to breathe. I feel like I get in a stride, and I can run miles and miles, but then the air gets all clogged and it feels like I've been defeated before I even step out the door. It is so hard to stick my neck out when I'm choking for air. 

July 26 - Spelunking

Things get noisy. I want some new equipment to make these recordings, but I spend every day at work and don't get to it, and I also spend all the money I make the days at work, so I can't afford it. Sometimes I am afraid of my own sadness. I remember my dad, and other people who have gone. Phil. I wonder what they would say about what is going on this year. I wonder what they would say about my new place. I wonder what they would say about what I had for breakfast. I wonder if they would like my music, or whatever new movie is out, or whatever color I think of, or whatever joke I make. I wish I could ask them about all of these things before I ever made another decision without them. Sometimes I think that's one of the reasons I keep myself apart. I don't want more unanswered questions. I just want to understand. I guess I'm kind of lonely sometimes, but I make myself too busy for it to matter. 

I walked Belle at Whatcom Falls today. We hadn't been in a while, because since the weather got hot, the place is packed with people swimming, and they play their bluetooth speakers and fill the trees with tinny noise. I felt unfocused and tired. Just as we were leaving the waterline trail for the bridge across the falls, I heard a splash and saw some people with a slack line across the creek. I watched a shirtless man scootch to the middle of the line, then carefully raise himself up on top of it with the help of a line above. He balanced himself and then slowly began to set one foot in front of the other, suspended over the water, heavy and complete. I don't think they saw me taking a picture. I wish I could balance like that. 

I miss the frosty cold. I miss the hard ground, and the icicles that would form down at my feet, like teeth in the dirt. No one would be cliff jumping back then. No one would be asking to pet the dog. She's my whole invitation, at least to anywhere without a NO DOGS ALLOWED sign. In those places, I have to think of another way in. I can do it. I can do it. 

July 25 - It'll be a breeze

Belle and I have been mostly going down to the ball field lately. We found a new place by Joe Martin Field, where the Bellingham Bells play, that is usually deserted and full of sticks. Last night was two dollar tuesday, and the parking lot was full of people carrying camp chairs and coolers. Belle wanted to smell everything, and I felt self-conscious because I kept saying "Belle! Belle! Come on!" The game hadn't started yet but I wondered if people thought I was just ranting to myself about the home team.

I went to Value Village the other day, and I ended up buying nine CDs. My car stereo only plays CDs or the radio, so I always peek at the selection, and this time it was as if I was looking at my own collection from about 2006 or 2007 sprinkled into the chumbawumba and whatnot that I usually find. Deerhoof, 764-Hero, The Long Winters, Metric... some things that I let fall away and some that I still have but just ruined by packing them around with me to work. Here they are again, brand new and mirror-perfect. Listening to music that meant a lot to me at a specific time in my life is like looking at a snapshot of my mind back then, with the distance of all the years. I feel like I am seeing myself from above, and I finally understand the landscape that was around me. I wonder what I would've done with that map, if I'd had it back then. I never thought about the specific direction I was going. I guess if you'd asked me, I would have said that I was following my heart. I think it's more likely that I was just trying to hang on to whatever I felt like I slightly understood, or what understood me. 

Or who understood me. 

July 19 - don't expect nothing

I can't overcome my tech hurdles. I can't decide what song to cover. I should be working on something else. I don't have time to post this. I should have stayed up and posted this. I need more sleep. The gas light came on. I am never just doing one thing at a time. BUT I realized that I know this song. Belle and me hung out in the yard. We've been hitting up the ball fields a lot lately. 

July 4, 2018 - There will never be another one just the same.

I went to a ball game with my friends today. We lost, but it was a beautiful day. We even got to sneak into the VIP seats at the end because the score was looking bad, and the ladies behind us said "Serves them right for leaving!"

This morning I took Belle out early since I knew I would be busy later. I have been having a hard time wanting to leave the house lately, but Belle smiles the whole way down the hill to the softball fields. When I got down to the first field where you can cut through to the trails in the tiny woods there, I let her off the leash. She bunny hopped into the tall grass by the ditch, and emerged with a baseball in her mouth. We ran along the trail past the fence, and the sprinklers were on watering the outfield. Belle ran ahead of me, and I saw a rainbow arching over her - I laughed out loud. I wish I could have taken a picture, but the best things there are can't be photographed, and that is what made it so beautiful. Sometimes I feel like we are all getting snared more and more tightly by the tyranny of instant gratification. This Independence Day, I made a pair of cutoffs from some jeans that my sweet friend Jess gave me. When she gave them to me, she said "These would make good cutoffs" and she was right. I freed the knees. I saw a ball game. I held my hand over my heart, while my friend Sarah sang the national anthem. I mourned a little. I wish I could say I hoped a little. I want to. 

Tonight, I tried to set off an old firework I had from when I was living in Port Angeles. It was called a "Crazy Chicken" but when I was a kid, we always called them a Hen Laying an Egg. When you light it, it is supposed to squack and shoot fireballs. I stuck the chickens in my jean jacket, and I set off down Puget to the big parking lots. I wandered around a while. I love the way stadium lights look in the sky when no one else is around. I tried to walk down to the skate park, but there was a guy there who tried to motion me over, so I said "I'm good, I'm just trying to find a place to set my chicken." 

I finally found a dark spot in the middle of the parking lot, and I unwrapped my explosive chicken. I lit the fuse and waited, but it squaked and burned. It didn't shoot any magic colors out. Instead, a man came out of an apartment building across the parking lot so I walked away, very very casually. 

I have had a hard time wanting to leave the house lately. I have had a hard time doing any of the normal things I usually do. But I am trying to still be here. I love you. 

Sunday June 24 - Bonney Lake/Civic Field

This old world keeps spinnning round. It's a wonder tall trees aren't laying down.

I woke up in Bonney Lake at my brother's family home. My mom and stepdad and all the rest of them were up in the kitchen, still in their pajamas. My neice turned one, so we were all together. Time passes differently depending on where you are, what you are doing, and who you are with. Later in the morning I was speeding up I-5 and made a couple of mistakes that ended up in a lost wallet. Being without your wallet also changes the way that time passes. I feel like time is a wet paper towel, and everything that happens is a marble that you drop onto it, until the whole thing just collapses. But I love my family, I love my neices, I love my dog, I love my home, and I love eating. There are other things I love that I won't get into right now. There are things I hate. I listened to the news a little on the freeway, then I listened to music. I didn't even think of my wallet until I was an hour away. The truth is, it's totally fine that I lost it. It doesn't matter. Things just keep moving.

I walked Belle when I got home, but she was already pretty tired from being at the dog hotel. She is like an old flapjack flopped on the bed right now. I feel like I'm one cake short of a stack, but I'm gonna flop down anyway. Goodnight.