Who knew the cure to dystopian apathy was to be semi-unemployed? Yesterday I ran a few errands, and wound up striking up mirrored smiles and semi-literate babbling with strangers. A lady who really wanted a lunch break thanked me for not bringing over a chicken (I don't know why.) At home I have been waking up at a decent hour (the goal is to work it back to six), engaging in some form of exercise (a friend showed me some yoga videos you can do online. Today I felt ambitious enough to go for a run in the rain -- don't feel jealous about it, it was a lot more unattractive than whatever you're envisioning), doing whatever cleaning needs to be done, and then setting to work: reading, researching, taking breaks to run errands or make raspberry tarts (delicious -- and easy!).

I went camping this past weekend. Camping used to be something that happened automatically. My family went at least once a year, and if we only went once, we were usually there for two weeks. Walking, biking, eating, boating, swimming, burning, making eyes with whatever cute boys were around. Now, camping is that thing I crave and have to chisel at to make happen. Just for now. Now, in this silly rut of the twenties where you're young enough and good looking enough to do whatever you want, but stuck, like the ant I watched tugging away at a dead dragonfly's head to carry it on its back to the anthole, which, to an ant, was probably over ten kilometers away.

I can't help but dream of the day when Daniel and I will own a house that he built with his own hands, possibly on land homesteaded by his ancestors a hundred years ago, with a firepit in the back yard, listening to a horse grind grass with large jaws in a field nearby.

My mom told me I have to stop thinking about the future and enjoying right now. You have to make your apartment your home, she said. You have to finish that painting you started.