michigan

i'm so tired of michigan! spent time with a friend who also lives on the west coast and happened to be visiting detroit, and she agrees with me. michigan (the midwest in general, i think) is a cultural wasteland. white bread. velveeta cheese. shrink-wrapped vegetables that you drown in cheese and fried onions after overcooking them. baaaaaaad beer. and, of course, meat. grilled meat, fried meat, smoked meat, sausage, once again drowned in the obligatory melted cheese. i bought a head of romaine lettuce...and both of my parents asked me what it was. one good thing: being here makes me *really* appreciate home.

i want to go home! i know here is technically home b/c i was raised here, but it doesn't feel like home. home is where i know the grocery clerks, where the same guy always waits on me at septieme, where my friends call me up to meet me for lunch half an hour later. home is where i like the music. home is where i like the food. home is where there isn't a church on every corner. home is where i have a boy to play with. home is where i get to do what i love to do...it's the place i have chosen to be.

here...here is where my family lives, thus where i have to go when i want to visit or when they need me to help take care of them.

speaking of which, send out + vibes to my mom. her back surgery was a success...if you can call 6 fused lumbar vertebrae a success. i saw the post-surgery x-rays. wow. it's better than it was before--no more pressure on her sciatic nerves, thus no more excruciating pain shooting down her legs. she's still recovering, but thus far her pain seems limited to the garden variety muscle aches and arthritis. happily her mind seems to be getting sharper too, now that the docs are treating her insomnia. (it amazes me how many things can go awry with the human body, all at once.)

happily, i have been running a lot since i've been here. i think it's habitual again. today i'm going 5. :-)