borf revealed

oh my gosh, borf IS something! it's a graffiti campaign thing. click here for the wikipedia page.

Greece! The Acropolis and Borf

I have never in my life been as thirsty as I was on our first day in Athens. I mean this seriously. I drank an INSANE amount of water that day. We decided that I was plagued by a water vampire that kept draining me whenever I wasn’t paying attention. I imagine he looked something like this.

(Though Britt and I decided that Jared Leto would undoubtedly spell it “vampyre.”)

After we stocked up on water, we started our walk up the Acropolis. The first thing we came across was the Theater of Dionysus.

by britt

by britt

Greece! Plane Ride and Arrival in Athens

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Brenda who wanted to travel the world. For one reason or another, she never quite got around to it for quite some time. Then, one Labor Day, she went to visit her Aunt Charlene in southern Utah. One night, sitting around the round table in the kitchen she’d visited nearly every summer since she was born, she and her aunt started talking about travel. Charlene (who had been almost everywhere in the world, it seemed) asked Brenda where she wanted to go. Brenda, without quite knowing why, answered “Greece.”

Charlene told Brenda how much she loved Greece—how beautiful it was and how much she would like to go back some day. “So save your sheckles, sweetheart, and you and I will go together.”

A month later, Charlene passed away.

Nineteen months after that, Brenda’s plane landed in Athens.

the trip to north carolina part iii: the final showdown with chicago

in case you've completely forgotten about the trip to north carolina i started telling you about, you can read my past posts here and here.

and now... the finale of our saga.

when my sister and her husband dropped me off at the airport, there was some confusion with my ticket. for some reason it was showing up that i'd already checked in, which i obviously hadn't yet, since i was standing there. they got it sorted out eventually and i said my goodbyes and headed to my gate. it wasn't long before the plane took off and i was on my way back to (dun dun DUUUUUUUNNN) chicago.

remember that time i had a blog?

oh hello, gentle readers. just got back from spending two weeks seeing things like this. no big deal. :)

i promise to write the conclusion to my eons-old trip-to-north-carolina-saga this weekend. you have my word, now that i'm not being eaten by school. also, i'm hoping to get some other posts ready to go too, including posts about the aforementioned trip to greece.

moar poetry! i {heart} southern utah

more poetry, kids. we will return to our regularly scheduled program soon.

if it were possible for a person to have a crush on a location, i would daydream about southern utah. SU+BJ=luv 4-evah. it's where i was born, and every march for the past three years i've found myself drawn there, either consciously or not. the weather starts to turn, and i feel that pull for my annual pilgrimage home.

so here. have a poem about it.



I have red dust in my blood.
My skin is layered with eons-old silt
and my ribs
are framed
by rock canyons:

Grand to the lower right
Bryce the upper left,
Zion just over my heart.

This is the clay that formed me.
This is my inheritance.
And when I die,
return my body to the red earth

south
by southwest.

unbelievable

sometimes, i wonder what i did to deserve my friends.

last night, i got my taxes done and found out that i owe $500 in taxes. i was counting on that tax return a bit, though i could live without it. but owing $500? i've recently been racking up some medical bills and related expenses. went in to check for a sinus infection, went out with blood tests, ultrasounds, and some news that isn't entirely unexpected, but no less unwelcome.

change your life right now, or it will change for you and you won't have a chance to go back.

i was a little overwhelmed trying to think of where i could squeeze an extra $500 out of my turnip of a bank account. i sent a text to one of my friends as i sat in the driveway of my family's tax accountant, teary and looking for a bit of sympathy. i feel like i can't catch a break right now.

this morning, she called me, asked me if she could stop by. i said of course, despite my third-day hair and cluttered apartment.  she showed up with no makeup on, in her pajamas, with a book she'd been telling me about.  she held it while we chatted, and then she handed it to me as she left and told me to look in it five minutes after she left.

there was an envelope inside, with $500, marked brenda's break.