You know who I want to be when I grow up? I want to be Myrna Loy. Cool, poised, and witty – that woman could be faced with dire chaos and would simply pat her hair nonchalantly and fire off a quiet, deadpan quip. Dang, that woman was quippy. Also, if it is at all possible, I would like a dash of Margaret Thatcher thrown in if it’s not too much trouble.

Instead I am a crier. You know those pitiful people who have to carry kleenexes everywhere? That’s me.

Example: I wept the first three times I saw Home Alone. (That scene when the old man reunites with his estranged family? Three times.) I sob over fictional characters on television and in books. I feel a burning in my nose and a tug in my throat and it’s all over, mister.

And it’s not just when I’m sad. Every emotion comes spilling out of my eyes and nose. It’s messy. And it kind of makes me want to hunt down the Tin Man of Oz and whop him for being such an idiot. (But then I’d dent him. And then I’d feel really bad. And then I’d cry.) It doesn’t matter if I’m angry, happy, or any number of the seven dwarfs, the results are just awful. Mix all this up with the fact that I am a decidedly unpretty crier. Yikes. Maybe I should carry a paper bag to put over my head and stash it next to the kleenexes.

Not only do I cry at the slightest provocation, but I am mortified when it happens in public. I have a sneaking admiration for people who can own their puddly ways and work it.

My dad once told me that it must be genetic. He and his brothers used to tease my aunt to tears on purpose because she was such an easy target. I think I would like to trade in that particular familial trait and switch it for, say, the burning hatred of raisins that is common to my ancestors. You never make anyone uneasy when you are sitting in the park, loathing raisins like the dickens.

The happy medium for now? Settling in to watch The Best Years of Our Lives with a bowl of popcorn and some tissues. Lots and lots of tissues.

The entire journey from the beginning is here.

———————-

 I woke up to a sky just starting to lighten. Stiff from lying on the packed earth of a parking spot, I peeked out of my bag to see if anyone was awake in the campground. Only a couple of early birds with the lights of their trailers on. I quietly wriggled out of my bag, packed up, and tiptoed out unnoticed.

Back on the road and walking uphill to the highway, I exhaled - half a sigh of relief, half a gust of disappointment. The sun was coming over the edge of the cliffs but it wasn’t beautiful here anymore. I was exhausted. I was hungry. I had traveled across two states with only a skeleton of a plan and had found out that tourist towns are not receptive to penniless hippies. On top of it all, the last ride that had brought me here had shaken me up more that I had realized at the time. Now I shuddered to think about the long ride home and the many rides I’d have to negotiate to get there.

No time like the present to start. Sedona wasn’t going to get any friendlier.

Trudging along the side of the road, I had plenty of time to mull over my decision to leave so soon, since the least likely demographic to pick up a hitchhiker is that of the vacationing family. As car after car whizzed by, I took in the sight of the red rock canyon in the morning. What had I come here for? To be some sort of Edward Abbey-esque misanthrope, howling in the woods and climbing the hills? To soak up the sights without the distraction of companionship? Instead, I was too tired to care. After all the work to come this far, all I wanted was to be back where people loved me enough to worry about the stupid stunts I pulled.

Finally, an enormous two-door pulled over. It was the color of a not-quite-ripe banana, and was big enough to be a contender for parade float status. I looked in as the passenger window rolled down and saw a roly-poly man with Colonel Sanders facial hair and a pale straw hat at the wheel. “Little girl, you need a ride?”

“Yes,” I sighed, “Yes I do, sir.”

And that was that. My big trip to the red towers was dead and I was high-tailing it home. Now all I had to do was get there.

Halfway through the first month of the new year is a good time to return to blogging, right?

Now I have time! (If there is ever time to do anything that does not involve wiping behinds and folding laundry, grading papers and driving people all over creation.) I have time now because school! is! out! Mwa ha ha ha ha!

It is a good thing my distance learning program allows me a year to complete courses, because it took me all of that. It was foolish to jump into two radically different classes at once for my first semester back. I have not felt such brain-blistering tension since… Actually, I don’t know if ever. Last time I did this drill as a young person, I didn’t give a rip – there was life out there, waiting! Now when I take a class, I see the money floating away and bursting into flame midair if I fail.

I learned crazy things to do with numbers, how to dice them fine, toss them (carefully) into the air, perform a little breakdancing, and end up with a model for supply and demand, lightly toasted. I relearned how to research for a paper and focus like a laserbeam on a tiny facet of a subject and write about it (very unlike the rambling I do here). And by the end, I figured out that it is probably a lot less painful to work hard as soon as possible, instead of seeing the deadline coming like a bullet train and having actual nightmares about the assignments.

Now I am – briefly – without homework, without the constant feeling of  conquering the next thing. It is only a small respite before beginning the next task, an intensive study on Shakespeare. As soon as the syllabus and text get here, I am off to the races again. As much as I love the subject matter, it is still work and I would really rather sit on the couch with a pile of candy and watch Doctor Who reruns.