Lost in:

I’m still in NZ, it seems to rain a lot here.

Today, I guess, more than usual. It’s been raining all day long, off and on. It would probably suck if I were trying to hike, or wandering some mysterious new place, but I’m not, I’m warm, and mostly dry, and safe in my little room, listening to the rain, and watching it.

I just wandered back from the common room, actually. With just a t-shirt, no sweater, or jacket, or umbrella. The rain is cold, and it’s probably only about 60 out, but… For a minute or two, standing there, in the middle of the courtyard, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to come in. Sometimes, when it rains like this, the steady, all day long rain, I just want to curl up somewhere warm and dry, and think warm thoughts, and cuddle.

Most of the time, though, like tonight, I want to tear my shirt off and spin, arms outspread, in the rain, head tilted back, just enjoying it. I want to run, bare assed nekkid, crazy, through it, feeling the cold, and the patterns, and the wet. I want to lay out on a table, or a wall, or a walkway, or a grassy field, and just watch it fall on me, the spattering sounds all around, the weight of the water as it lands. Just sink into the rainy night, no thinking, just being.

I’m sure there’s something wrong with people like me, people who love the rain, and long drizzley days that drag on forever in a gray foggy cloud, who can sit and watch it snow for hours without getting bored. Or maybe it’s that there’s something wrong with everyone else. They just see the gray day, not how it makes the greens brighter, or how it makes things look softer, easier. They see the rain-slick streets, not the neat puddles to jump in, the worms crawling across the sidewalk, the way the moss between the paving stones gets so green it hurts my eyes.

They want to hurry through, not get wet, not ruin their hair, or makeup, or suit. I want to stand in it and spin, and spin, and spin. Then again, I can spend an entire day just looking at one item in a museum. Obviously I’m not right in the head.

But yeah. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort for me to drag myself in from the rain. I think maybe rain is like fog. While it’s there, the world is more magical, things look different, and you don’t know what could show up.

I wandered A’dam in the rain, actually. I didn’t have much choice. I wasn’t spending the day in the airport, and it was raining. With in a few minutes of it really starting, the streets were mostly clear, even the winter carnival thing down by the museum. A little rain and I had the place almost totally to myself. I’m sure people thought I was crazy, wandering in the rain, no umbrella or raincoat.
I want to go back out now, lay in the rain, listen to it, get soaked, and cold, enjoy the quiet of it, the way voices echo funny, and the distance it seems to put between things. But I’m sick, and I can’t afford to get worse, so I’m staying inside. If I had a bathtub to warm up in after, and maybe a boy, I’d be out there now, laughing, and spinning, getting soaked, hair swirling around me in a tangled mess.

I love the rain.

j.

Ack! This should so not be happening! I do not get homesick. I mean, where would I be sick for? California? New York? South Carolina? Arizona? Wyoming (ew, ick, wrong)?

So Why am I suddenly all home-sicky?

I hope, really really hope, that it’s because for the first time, it’s sinking in that if I don’t fuck up here, I get to stay for, get this, 5 years. And that if I do that, I’ll probably be here for most of the 5 years. Maybe run away to the states for one or two of the summers, and I hear it’s allowed now to spend part of the 5th year overseas, but… wow, that’s a long ass time.

Maybe it’s just because I really don’t know that many people here (still, I know, I are lame). Or maybe it’s because it’s a $2000, 17-30 hour flight home. Or maybe it’s because riding into town this morning, to pick up stuff I don’t need, so I can study, I realised that I’m going to be in this dinky ass town for the next 5 years. More if I screw up this semester- so porbably more. I’m in this dinky ass, tiny, nothing really to do town for 5 years. And after this year, I’m going to have even less time to hang out, and travel, and do fun stuff. I kinda wish I could skip this lecture, memorise, boring part of the degree, and jump straight into the “fun” part, where you spend at least *some* of your time interacting with other people/ animals, rather than boring ass textbooks about, oh, chemistry, and angles, and all that stuff I hate.

I don’t know. Maybe I need a mantra. Or two. Or maybe just a list of good things I can have if I just get over it all ready, and work my ass off here- like a job as a vet, and…. I can live in NY, or SF, or… I don’t know, someplace big and fun, with neat museums, and good shoping. Like Paris, France. (not paris, texas, please, dear bob, no!). Ugh. I guess so long as it’s *only* (snort) a 14 or 20 or 28 hour flight to go bug my family, I can deal with it. Sure I can.

So yeah, Miss home, even though I’m not quite sure what home is. Probably pizza, and bartenders I know, and tipping, and doritos. And salsa I can actually buy, and canned black beans. Hmmm… home looks like food to me…

Heck, it could just be that I’m afraid of staying in one place this long- 5 years in the same town has got to be some sort of record for me.

homesickness= bad. Make it go away. Please?

j.

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