• clean
• work on my edible plants journal
• second foraging excursion of the season
• if I find enough violets, start a batch of violet wine. otherwise, mead. possibly both.
• finish making an awesome thing to go with the super-splurge that I just blew all of my etsy money on. will post details/pics once it arrives in the mail.
• have internal argument about whether I should work on a job application or go see the hunger games again
• probably go to the movies
• possibly do the responsible thing afterward

In my dream last night, I had a girlfriend. She was not someone I know in waking life, but she was incredibly real on that side of consciousness. Our relationship lasted five, ten, twenty minutes? Time is not the same in dreams, so I can’t say with any degree of certainty. But those five, ten, twenty minutes were more than I have ever gotten in “real” life. And they were realer than anything I did today. They have stuck with me, and I miss her. I miss the way she let me care for her, and I miss the way I let her genuinely see me. I miss resting my hand in the small of her back, and I miss her resting her playful gaze on my face.

Most days I am unable to believe that this life has anything so real in store for me. But for today, it is enough to have experienced this kind of relationship while asleep. I only have a dream like this once every few years, but I keep them with me and take refuge in them, when it’s easier than daring to hope for something real.

The woods seem like a completely different place now that I have The Hunger Games so incorrigibly on the brain. I still feel more at home there than anywhere else in the world, but now instead of noticing things because I appreciate them, I am noticing things in terms of how they could be used for survival. While I have spent many shelterless nights in all sorts of weather, and slept in trees out of necessity, I have never had to find my own sustenance.

Last summer when I started gardening, I got really interested in foraging as well. That interest has only grown since then. I plan to go morel hunting this spring, though my grandparents are convinced that they aren’t to be found in our woods anymore. I’m going to make salads of dandelion, clover, and watercress as often as I can find plants that haven’t been sprayed with weed-killer. I know where to find raspberries and blackberries and ground cherries, and today I learned to identify gooseberry bushes. My grandma also introduced me to wild onions today (OMG just like Peeta picks for Katniss because he thinks they’re flowers *fangirling*). I also plan to fish and possibly even take up bow fishing, as soon as I can afford a decent bow (or my awesome uncle has time to make me one). In the fall there are always acorns, hickory nuts, and walnuts. Spring tips of conifers make a delicious tea. Red sumac tastes like lemon candy. Cattail roots and pollen are wonderfully nutty.

Anybody have any foraging experience they’re willing to teach me? Or resources you could point me at? I can take you camping or make you some chain mail or something in exchange :)

Just finished rereading The Hunger Games and am about to go see the movie again, this time with my dad. Cannot get enough.

Oh Julie, you just keep on singing until I can sing with you and mean it.

I am tired of this week. I am tired of my mind. I am tired of my brand-new injury, acquired by being slammed into a gate by a stampeding pack of dogs while freezing my appendages off in a 34° thunderstorm this morning, after a fitful night of successive dreams about being fired. I am tired of being a grownup in a non-student capacity. I am tired of toiling instead of teaching, creating, learning, or revolutionizing.

But do you know what? It is FRIDAY, bitches! I’m about to open a bottle of wine, put on some good music, and climb into the tub with a pile of books about vikings. I will go to bed as early or late as I want. Tomorrow I will go see the Hunger Games (Anybody want to join me? As far as I know, none of my local buddies are into it. If I am wrong, you should totally come! If I am right, may I force upon you recommend the books?). On Sunday, The three founding members of the Bitches, Bikes, and Brunch club will take our inaugural ride.

Weekend, I love you. Let’s be friends forever.

We had a work meeting tonight, and I am now so creeped out that I can’t sleep, and I’m not sure how I can make myself go to work again tomorrow.

One of the owners, who is SUPER hands-off and, when he does show his face, won’t talk to anyone even if you try really hard to be polite and engaging, just informed us that he spent a whole week hiding in the woods behind the yards, watching us and keeping a list of every single time we didn’t notice something that needed taking care of, also noting exactly how long said things went unnoticed.

Let me lay this out here for you. Sometimes one of us will be out in a very large yard, unassisted, with up to 35 dogs. When there is more than one person out there, we have up to 80 dogs. This is not our fault, and there is nothing we can do except try to keep anyone from killing each other. So if somebody barks at the strange noise in the woods while I am saving a dog who got his jaw caught in someone else’s collar and is now simultaneously strangling and being bitten by that someone, well, I do not apologize.

I could go on and on about precisely how messed up this whole thing is, but I think you get the idea, and I will just upset myself more. I want out. I want fucking out of this and into something that requires me to use my brain. I want to do something that isn’t simultaneously pretty dangerous and immensely boring.

I have so many skills, and so much experience, and I am a fucking excellent employee. Scads of people even more skilled and experienced are willing to attest to these facts. Almost-opportunities keep popping up, giving me little glimmers of hope, only to disappear as soon as I try to follow through. If I could figure out any more ways to try and make my own luck, I would be churning that shit out. But I am seriously STUCK.

Hello friends! And more specifically, Madison-area friends.

As you may know, I am going to be teaching this summer at the workshops for the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America. One of my fellow organizers just informed me that they need a bio and a photo by early next week, and I have no current photos of me fiddling. 

Is there a photographer in the house? Could somebody shoot at me while I run through some tunes, sometime this weekend? I am very likely to reimburse you with something edible…

Even though I’m far from where I want to be career-wise, I am really glad I work at a place where pulling my time card to find a post-it with “WHORE!!” written on it is a sign that my coworkers think I’m great :)