It's been such a long time, guess I should be goin'...

That's right, kiddos, break up the routine with a little classic rock lyrics title... Name the band and get a snuggle!

So it's been about a month since I last posted, but my current mood echoes the mood of my last post. Namely because I don't have to really work again until August. And that's just awesome. Pretty much everyday between now and then is Saturday, and I even get a paycheck all summer, so that's reeeeeeaaaaaallllllyyy sweet. Salary ROCKS.

My last week of school actually kind of sucked, but it was such a long time ago and I just don't want to think about it. I do miss my kids and my Chicago culture, though. Who knew that even Tucson, Arizona would have too many white people in it? I miss my peeps...

This past week, for a drastic change of scene, I decided to join my parents and sister camping up in the White Mountains, in central Arizona. Despite what many of you assume about my home state, Arizona is home to pretty much every type of biome ever invented, and so we spent five days up at 9000 feet among the mountains, fir trees, robins, lakes, and anything else that might seem about as opposite the blistering desert as possible. It was a lot of fun - I haven't been up there with my family since high school, but I still fell right back into the old camping routines of not washing hair, loading and unloading canoes, and tripping and falling while hiking so that I could boast a number of scratches and bruises upon returning home. I built my first fire all by myself, too! IN THE RAIN. It was pretty awesome.

In addition to my already cultivated wilderness skills, I also applied some more recently developed skills of a culinary nature. While hiking, I harvested a little wild mint and oregano and added them to a sweet and sour chicken stirfry I concocted using carrot, pepper, and celery sticks, canned chicken, leftover pineapple, cranberry juice, and some ketchup packets my mom brought along for some reason. I also built a strawberry chocolate shortcake trifle out of ingredients I'd prepared at home. The last day we had pulled pork on buns, slow cooked with other random condiment packets that were tossed in the cooler. All in all, I was very satisfied, feeling a little like a combination of Bear Grylls and Bobby Flay, but with a WAY cooler personality, and a lot less testosterone.

I'm going back to the Chi in a couple days - I have lots to do, including planning for next year, organizing all my crap from this past year, tending a garden, and finding somewhere else to live, or someone else to live with, or both, or possibly neither. If you know of anybody in the Chicago area with a place to rent or a need for a roommate, let me know. It's weird, and I've told a few people about this, but this is the first time I've been back to Tucson and been sort of impatient to return to where I came from. Tucson was always home throughout college, and, of course, while I lived here the year after college. But it's not anymore. I'm not sure Chicago is HOME either, but it feels like where I belong for now. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that sensation, yet, but it's the way it is.

Anyways, time to go.... do something else, I guess. Name the band if you want a snuggle.