01 August 2002 - 16:50

The internship is over. We cleaned the boat fast and actually finished a day early, so I had yesterday free. Today is free, tomorrow is free, and the early part of Saturday is free, but then Wheel and I drive and wait and fly and drive to my home in Missouri.

And I have a confession to make, one that everyone already knows about me. I like to think I'm adventurous. I like fantasy tales and epic quests. I like being active and competant and doing things the hard way and making discoveries. Wandering and traveling and overcoming. Action and excitement.

Except I don't, really. I like to think I like those things. What I really like is staying at home and being left alone.

I like cleaning. Mending (I've been patching up a bunch of old skirts full of holes lately. I wish I had a teeny little sewing machine). Cooking, baking. A slew of textile arts and other arts and crafts. Fixing things. Grocery shopping. Working on my bike.

I like double-entry book keeping.

Basically, I like sitting around with Wheel and making things just so.

Because I have a strong desire to feel in control.

I like having a routine. I like waking up early, and at roughly the same time every day, and doing all the things one ought to do in the mornings. Similarly in the evening before bed, which ought to be at a reasonably early hour.

I hate oversleeping, especially if it's because I went to bed late.

I don't like parties. I don't like groups. I don't introduce myself to people on the bus, although I think that I probably should. I like to think that I enjoyed our trip to San Francisco (this past January), where through a hilarious (not really) series of events, we ended up with no place to stay. I liked to think that we would have figured out some clever solution, relying on our wits, our people skills, our actually very widespread networks of friends and family members. Not so. We didn't figure anything out. I hated the uncertainty. Even if we had had the nerve to follow a street guy's directions to "the church where all the homeless people and gutterpunks sleep," we'll never know... I took my laptop with me to San Fran so Platypus, Chaz and I could mess around on it together. I'm glad I did, but it really precluded sleeping with "gutterpunks." With our middle class accoutremonts, our final solution was equally middle class. We whipped out the credit cards, and remain in debt (=lack of control) to this day.

In all other respects, the trip was pretty good through absolutely fantastic. It included one of the best birthdays I ever had.

I'm still ashamed of our inability to arrange the lodgings situation.

Although I'm proud that we mastered the public transportation system immediately, making it easily from the airport in San Francisco to our first-night's motel in Berekeley based only on the information at the airport, and fairly late at night (we got in as the motel check-in desk was closing). Saving some $70ish over the SF/Berkeley airport shuttle, and countless over a taxi.

But I digress.

I'm... boring. I'm quiet and introverted. There's a theory with some supporting evidence that introverted people are more sensitive to stimulation than others, and this matches my experience. I think I hear noises as being louder than other people hear them and that sort of thing, so my need for stimulation is satisfied by quiet sounds, dim lighting, moderate activity and so on, and anything more is too much.

I wonder if there really is any sort of work that I would enjoy quite so much as just staying at home.

Computer lab is closing. Must sign off....