(no subject)

New Thing(s) I Learned:

A crater is deeper than it is wide, and a caldera is wider than it is deep. If you've got a pot to piss in, take it into the damn tent with you. I'm pregnant (Woo!)

I thought I was into camping and hiking. And I am, sort of. I kept wondering at the end of every summer why we had not gone. The answer is that I liked camping and hiking a great deal when I was 8, but something about me has apparently changed in the last 21 years. I probably wouldn't have gone camping at all if we weren't trying to save money. It's kind of like using my bike for trans instead of my car. I love the smell of the wild roses, and flower spunk (obviously I don't have allergies) and warm dirt. I love using my body. I try to appreciate the way it feels to be young and strong and free of pain, and yea, it doth feel good. But riding my bike for errands is less convenient, and I probably wouldn't get around to it if I weren't trying to save gas and reduce my ass. How weird, practicality isn't the sort of thing one expects to enrich one's life.

What a trip. Death, destruction (within the last few thousand years anyway), new life, dental realignment. Very cool geology/volcanology geeking. I walked the rim of a volcano for the first time. Yah! It wasn't a very large volcano (as volcanoes go). "Baby steps," Alan tells me. :) Camped in a caldera, climbed up on an obsidian flow 4 or 5 stories high. Had irrational fears of being attacked by black bears. The Pacific Northwest is just too cool. The Rockies make the Cascades look like the cute little zits that they are, but the Cascades are always spewing out molten rock and stuff, which makes them more interesting to my mind. On the first day of our trip, a huge otter ran out in front of me. I missed it, but it still had two lanes left to cross, and I saw it get struck. One minute it was perfectly whole, the next it was arching in agony in the middle of the road, and then it was gone from sight, but the image was fixed in our memories and haunted the rest of the trip. That's the thing I don't really get about hunting, particularly bird hunting. I would think that a distaste for turning a perfectly good, functioning critter into a bloody mess, would more than decompensate for the excitement of successfully striking it.

It's a little strange to be pregnant again. I mean, lightening can strike anyone once, and be miraculous enough, but to be struck twice! I realize reproduction is one of the most basic human activities, but it seems miraculous to me anyhow. I feel more lucky than I can say to have Alan to have babies with. Blessings, Blessings, Blessings. Welcome little proto-being, you are already loved.

(no subject)

Dear Miss. Manners,

I wanted to write and let you know how much I have enjoyed your books, and, of course, to ask your advice.

Recently I have been contacted by email by my biological father with whom I have not had any contact for 8 or more years. I have been polite, but I have to admit that I would rather things returned to their former state. He moved away when I was little, and I feel no fondness for him, only guilt and anger. I feel guilty because our lack of contact is partly my fault. I saw very little of him as I was growing up and as I entered my teens, our encounters became increasingly abrasive. Finally, in my late teens, and only partly through negligence, I didn't send him my forwarding particulars after a move. This was wrong of me, and I have been told regularly through these intervening years by my paternal grandmama that although he has badly wanted to contact me, he has felt so hurt and offended by my lapse that he could not.

I feel very upset whenever I see an email from him in my inbox. He has been pressing me for my physical address, but I have side-stepped his requests. If I have not been reared properly enough to feel genuine remorse, (indeed thwarting him in this way has turned out to be the most satisfaction I have gotten from our association) I do suffer from the guilt. Please tell me what my duty is in this matter, that I might either do it, or know the true extent of my transgressions.

Thank you.