I really think that this is the most self-indulgent form of writing.

More so than in a journal. Because in this format, not only are you sharing personal thoughts, you also expect someone else to give a crap.

I just want you to know, dear reader, that I think you’re great. You have pretty eyes and a smile that gives my stomach a kick, but I have no expectations of you and I hope you have none of me. I expect that, like me, you’re just here because you’re either (a) procrastinating or (b) also up at 5 in the freaking morning. Let’s snuggle up and enable each other, shall we. Cup o’ tea?

I woke up at 4 a.m. this morning and put my shirt on backwards.

So here we are again, just the two of us. Should we say things like, “Sorry I haven’t been in touch” or “There’s so much to catch up on!” Nah, let’s just hug and kiss and jump right in like a set of worn sleeping bags.

I took the Collector home with me to OH. When he disappeared with Uncle John, that was the only time I really worried about him. But the worry was almost immediately replaced by relief when I realized that Uncle J. was just bubbling over with joy to have someone new to tour his fishing rods and guns, and that I was now off the hook from having to look at fishing rods and guns.

My family drove me absolutely nuts for the first time ever. I feel like this is some sort of right of passage where the “home” baton has finally been passed from Ohio to Maine.

Thank god for small favors in the shaped of the pork truck down the street. Damn! That’s some good brisket.

Rainy day activity:

Something I think has grown up in my bones:
the sound of white water.  I didn’t grow up around water, rushing or otherwise, so I don’t know how this deep interest became embedded in my psyche.  I spent a fair bit of time on Lake Michigan as a child, and along a rust-colored creek that spat into it at the end of the Palisades Park beach.  But white water was something I only experienced when we went on our yearly family camping trip.  My mom has always been very into waterfalls.  We’ve driven and hiked to every fall and trickle between Darien, Ill., and our various tent-parking destinations.  Some were magnificent!  And some were overly disappointing.  Mom’s also a self-described babbling brook lover.  Maybe it’s a sound-love passed in utero.

The best part of my day yesterday:
was an argument the Collector and I had.  It was one of those laughing-while-squabbling ones where you really feel like a couple.  I was complaining about him taking up too much of the bed and he was complaining about me stealing the covers, which makes him move towards my side of the bed.

Something I’ve been really enjoying recently:
is fall!  I’m really enjoying it.  Colors stand out vividly against the gray cloud backdrop and thin sheets of rain or mist.  The whole landscape has changed, dried and opened up for my viewing pleasure.  On my walks I can see deeper into people’s yards and watch them play video games on giganto theater-sized TV screens when they switch their lights on at early dusk.

Something that I really don’t like:
is rain drops on my glasses.  Really annoying.

I saw the cutest, babiest thing on my walk down the Shipyard Road today: a tiny painted turtle. I nearly crunched it with my sneaker, but luckily I was looking at my feet trying to keep the rain off my glasses (I really don’t like that). There it was, this shiny round shell sneaking across the blacktop.

I don’t usually pick up amphibians – human hands dry out their skin, which they use to breath and need it to be wet in order for that process to work – but turtles aren’t amphibians. They’re reptiles. So I scooped this little guy right up.

The turtle fit right in the scoop of my palm, as tiny as a large quarter. If a stranger had been passing by, I would have made them come over and coo at it.

I had an opportunity to return to my former off-grid residence this weekend.  The drive in was a bit bumpier than I remembered, possibly owing to the additional 160-ish lbs. in the front seat.  After a few bangs to the muffler I got my bearings and sailed on down the 2-mile gravel drive to the Gooch.  Welcome home.

The Collector and I started our evening with a hike, hoping to squeak it in just before the sun fell.  The overgrown undergrowth closed in on us and we lost our way.  Some people find adventure in situations such as these, others fall to desperation and death fantasies.  I ascribe to the former.

When we got back, I worked on “love tapping” the stove to get the propane moving and then set about thawing some frozen root stew.  I wondered how I had ever gotten saddled into the meal-maker position.  Me, who used to shy from any part of the kitchen that didn’t have to do with chocolate chip cookies.  The oven was always my territory, but now I care-take the whole range, though I like to outsource the shopping as much as possible.

I love being the bread maker in this duo, but I’m also an equal part breadwinner.  And it can be difficult to shake the feminism that tears at my imaginary apron strings and internally screams, “TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, DAMMIT.”

Getting away from the big house was a great idea, but I had imagined we would be forced to spend time together: connecting, talking, sorting out, hiking, playing, being next to each other.  But transplanting bodies to a new place doesn’t seem to shake off our independent bullshit, the old problems, which we still had to wade through like on every other day.  He’s still in physical pain, I’m still in emotional pain, and even in a tiny twin we find a way to not touch each other.

Bun in the oven

I started baking at 8:15 in the a.m. this morning, didn’t stop till 2:30 in the arv.

2 loaves zucchini bread (cause I still have, like, loads of zukes in the fridge)
3 loaves of bread bread (1 for me, two for you)
1 squash galette (pronounced like the razor, and basically a free-form pie)
and
2 apple crisps (pish, tosh. why just make one?)

I left the remainder of the cut-into zuke loaf out on the counter with a welcome note on it for the Collector.  I figured if I invited him to eat that, maybe he would leave the other things alone.  In case that doesn’t happen, I gave myself a little insurance and hid the bread and crisp.  Is it wrong to hide food from one’s lover?

My sister told my mom who told me today that if she lived near me she would just pop on over and say, “I’m here and I’m staying for the weekend.  If you don’t like it, tough.”  She’s been a confidant and major support for me recently as I navigate an unsavory emotional state.  Her comment, in context, was delightfully warming.

So that got me to thinking that if I ever left Downeast Maine, wouldn’t it be so much nicer to be near family?  I mean, not right near them.  But closer.  Like, maybe after traveling around Ireland for a year or two, I could try the Upper Peninsula.  Back in the Midwest, still in the cold, still near the water, still blueberries and apples aplenty.

So that got me thinking that the end of the world is not imminent.  There are palatable options if this one falls to my feet like a heavy wool skirt.

Fall forward flat on your face

It’s upon us, this great season.  Autumn.  Season of leaf crunching and body-fat storing.  It’s here.  The time when hanging clothes on the line is practically out of the question and you begin to wonder why you never got around to purchasing another indoor drying rack.  Now that stanky pile of pickling and canning towels will keep perfuming the bathroom until the next trip into town.

There are so many things I love about this time of year.  Firstly, since we’re on the topic of laundry, clothes get washed half, even a third (!), as often (little sweat = little need).  It’s a good season for walking and night-time jaunts brings wafts of nearby wood stoves burning warm and early.  It’s time to start planning the annual trip to the old home place.

There’s a lot to do to keep busy too.  Putting up wood, putting up food, putting up with the lack of sun and, likewise, finding a way to put up with each other’s bad moods.

The garden’s still giving, which impresses me.  But it’s slowed down considerably, the last things hanging on by green fingers are the pumpkins, cukes, storage squash, Brassica and onions.  I’ve made my final list of things to can: apple butter, apple sauce, beets, sauerkraut, pickles.  If you’re in my family, you’re getting apple butter for xmas; enjoy.

For farmers and seasonal employees, fall usually brings the promise of a slow period.  A time for recouping lost sleep and recovering burned calories.  My season looks like it will be picking up rather than slowing down, which leaves me feeling disappointed at not having an off-season but quite content to have money trickling in year-round.

We didn’t have sex on a big pile of money last night.

“We’ll rip it,” the Collector said, his brow furrowing in concern.  We decided to push all the money into a big pile on the bed and then do it next to the pile which we could reach out and rumple with our hands if we wanted to.

We got paid!  We’ve been hosting a few blueberry rakers and they finally got paid so we finally got paid.  Huzzah! 

It’s been wonderful having guests, but also incredibly challenging.  All of my seclusionary spaces are filled with bodies, which means I have no place to run to anymore for rest or solitude.  But, it’s a good feeling having our property burst and bustle with new cooking smells and unfamiliar sounds and voices. 

Hosting so many people can be quite stressful.  I worry about bed bugs, because my mom tells me to.  I worry about the stack of garbage bags outside the garage, because the presence of a rat in the basement tells me to.  I worry about my lack of personal space, because my insides tell me to.

Beyond the harbored concerns, though, there’s the pleasure of meeting new people and sharing food and our home with them. 

And even more than that, there’s the good old-fashioned pleasure of putting my hand on that pile of bills while my boyfriend nails me.  Ah, yes.

Something’s made a home out of my sweatshirt.

I thought it was a fluffy patch of white mold.  But when I squished it and it turned limey liquid green I realized some sort of caterpillary substance had woven itself into my hood. 

So long green buddy.

I spent some time walking along the treeline of our property yesterday.  Out toward the water.  Hand-picking tiny blueberries, the only ones left by the skunk and birds.  I found a butterfly.  Black and orange, I don’t know if it was a Monarch or a Viceroy. 

I laid down in the tall grass and watched it perched on dried blades.  Eventually it was the bugs that drove me up to my feet and on my way down to the water.

3 white dots on those wings, plink plink plunk dropped in a row at the wing tips.  Reminded me of  my walk on the Dodge Road the day before.  Blackberry hunt. 

On the Dodge, I walked back along the dirt road, back towards my car and was surprisingly overtaken by a family out for a woodland drive. 

A black pickup passed me, a friendly big man-hand emerged from the driver’s side window.  He passed me and started down a stretch of hill and then I noticed the 3 dots of white peaking up from the bed of the truck.  Plink plink plunk, three white-blond heads on three small bodies.  Eight eyes blinked and I waved away the dust wake.

Dude… my crotch is on fire. And not in a sexy way.

And that’s because I went on a KILLER bike ride!  Holy crap.  Wait till you hear this.  From Dennysville to Race Point, 20 miles each way.  BLAMMO! 

It was the Collector’s idea.  And it was a dang good one.

Before we left we packed our bodies with garden salad veggies and I made a special bike-ride-blueberry-coffee-cake.  Shoved that in our guts, slapped on a thick layer of sunscreen, and we were putting rubber to the road.

What a great day!  Taking turns drafting off of each other, handing off the water bottle like a relay baton.  We stopped at the Whiting store to fill up on snacks and fried mushrooms.  Spooked a falcon out of the pines along the Crow’s Neck road.

And Race Point, what a destination.  By the time we arrived I was already stoned to bliss with endorphins, but we went a bajillion steps further on the road to relaxation.  A blood pumping nudey-dip in the ocean followed by a muscle softening sauna.  I tell you, what could be better than being naked with good friends in the sunshine of a summer day in Maine.

On our ride back, the Collector’s bike failed.  He caught a ride home with our friends and I rode the rest of the way alone.  It was a different ride without him, and I was so happy to see his tiny red Civic pull over up ahead of me when he drove back to check on my progress.  “ALLEZ!  ALLEZ, ALLEZ!” he hollered, running behind me and slapping my saddle sore butt with Tour de France encouragement.  What a crazy man I thought while laughing out loud and pushing my soles against the pedals.