update from the (beach)front

a resurrection it was not, my friends. but this certainly qualifies as one, no?

i admit it. i've been a hermit. living in a small town. slinging drinks to waspy drunks. cavorting with reference librarians. totaling my car (yes, the soccer mom mobile - recently listed as the least likely vehicle to ever be stolen, but apparently they didn't access the value of ford taurus wagon tires). hustling buck dice at the local dive (i usually come home with about a hundred in winnings each time this delightful game unfolds in my local, but what can i say? i'm just really good at bar yahtzee). spending afternoons swinging in my hammock reading inter-library loan books. listening to a lot of NPR (god help me, did i get suckered by their fundraising drive). gardening (i'm not really good at the weeding part). jogging (this is a painful topic to broach and my hamstrings are reminding me of it currently). yoga-ing (not so painful but much more fruity and certainly unlike me). swimming in the bay (with gaggles of annoying neighbor children who seem to already be on summer vacation). and yeah, avoiding phone calls. going on email strike. you know, like erecting a massive communication barrier with everyone i know.

but it hasn't all been a lost cause. and i did answer a phone call every now and then. but life as a reclusive technology phone (sometimes i even turn off my electricity and plumbing, just for shits and giggles) has been a personal enlightenment - a needed hiatus from reality. it's almost as if it's been a small social experiment of sorts - communing with nature and shutting my brain off for a while and figuring out life.

nairobi still beckons and there are a couple of good job leads there. so i'm gearing up for an august return. andrew's cousin, gerry, will be globaling at afp in the fall and that should be an interesting change of pace. nothing solid's yet about full-time employment or where i'll touch down in east africa but my intentions are still on course for expat living...

that's the news. which isn't really breaking or investigative or anything. but if i've learned anything from this brush with domesticity and seclusion, it doesn't have to be.

love and pebbles. xo, k.