I’m back.

After a four month hiatus I was considering abandoning my tumblr but then I looked at it again and realized that it’s not even that difficult to keep up so I might as well do it. Especially now that I have absolutely nothing to do, ever.

Dakar was great, I wished I could have stayed there longer and done more travelling on my own but at the same time I was really looking forward to coming back to America, mostly because it’s just what I’m comfortable with, what I’ve grown up with. Not the material things so much as just the “ambiance”. I guess in Dakar, the person that I am was just totally out of context and disconnected. Which is weird, it made me realize that there are things about me that I’m unwilling to give up; I had always imagined myself to be completely adaptable. And I guess I was pretty adaptable, since I did live there and enjoy myself for ten weeks, but I definitely could not live there, or rather, would not choose to live there.

That said, coming back to the States was kind of…weird. I was really excited to be with my friends at Lawrence but it was a little anti-climactic getting back on campus. Mostly because I was so tired, I think, but also because everyone changed at least just a bit while I was gone. Now that I think about it, I guess I was also expecting that just in the same way I REALLY missed them they would REALLY have missed me. But they all had each other while I was gone whereas I had none of them. Plus I had the extra stress of being in another culture without any close friends. All in all, it was just a weird two days back on campus, that came to an abrupt end when I had to unexpectedly take a bus last minute to Chicago. 

Then I took the train back home which was fun for the trip but I think now that I’ve done it once I won’t do it again. Right when I got back we started moving into the new house, which is awesome! It feels so good to be back in a house after a year in an apartment. Plus, the location is great, I feel like I’m truly a resident of Lompoc now. And we got the most comfortable couches in the world which I have been spending the past three days on (and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it). This is what I missed in Dakar; sitting around doing nothing. 

I also visited family in Michigan with my dad and while it was a kind of hectic, stressful trip I think I also learned a lot and somehow became closer to a lot of my relatives. I realized that when I visit them I try to fill all these roles (grandson, cousin, nephew) as best I can, and since I’m only there for two weeks at most I put my own feelings/needs/whatever on the back burner. As a result my grandparents know me as a polite grandson and my little cousin knows me as someone who will play army men at any minute and my aunt knows me as a nephew who will always listen, even though I’m not always polite and playing army men gets really boring by the second day and I get tired of listening to someone talk about nothing. So this trip I decided to maybe assert myself ever so slightly just to see if it would work, and it did. I said no sometimes, which felt like I was being incredibly disrespectful but really wasn’t. I realized that because we’re all family it’s okay to say no when you really don’t want to do whatever, we’re still family and we’re still “together”. It was all very cliché and I’ll probably read this in a month and feel sick but I guess it’s the truth. 

So those are the things that have been on my mind lately. I’m also basically sure that I will be WWOOFing for the month of August, hopefully somewhere up near Cambria or something. After Dakar and Michigan, I really wanted to get a job but so far I’m just being really lazy. I feel really bad because I’ve recently begun to realize just how much I rely on my parents for money and that I’m like the only person in my family that’s my age that doesn’t have a job (or TWO JOBS!). So I’m pretty ashamed, but maybe not enough to get out and look for a job. Typical me I guess. Nothing holding me back but me. 

On a lighter note, I have found a lot of good music to be excited for this summer! I discovered that I really like The Dodos. And that The Dream has a new album out. And that Fol Chen has or will have a new album out. And that once we get better Internet I really want to download the new Radio Dept. album, some albums of Matheiu Boogaerts’, the new Benjamin Biolay album, and a bunch of songs by Arnaud Fleurent-Didier. Oh and Toro Y Moi’s new album. AND, I am really really hoping that I can convince my dad to let me drive the car out to Lawrence and keep it there, even though I myself am not yet convinced that it’s a good idea. It’s pretty old, I don’t know if it could even survive the drive out to Wisconsin, plus I don’t even know if it would survive the winter. But my friends and I are tired of always being limited to Appleton or having to plan stuff around when someone else will let us borrow their car. There are so many great state parks and state beaches and cool small towns to visit and so little time. How much fun would it be to drive around Wisconsin in an old Saab with four of your close friends? I think it’d be awesome. 

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