Mavis will save us

came back after the staff meeting today to take a nap and immediately remembered why i never take morning naps here: they're widening a roadway right outside my window. from here i watched a steam shovel work ever so delicately on a beech at the edge of the deepening ditch: the shovel nuzzling the tree's neck, peeling away strips of grey bark, bending (the tree seemed caught unawares) the hard resistant body toward the ground, coaxing, pushing, until the the roots gave out and the tree tumbled onto the ground.

i jumped out of a plane last saturday. i'm going to crib a description from an email to cx: "skydiving was beautiful and not even that scary - just supremely disorienting. i gasped like a fish, because you feel like you shouldn't be able to breathe, even though you can. by the time i learned to inhale again he had opened the parachute and we were gliding. definitely a weird experience, but no where near as intense as i imagined."

also they gave me a free tee shirt (a steal at $189!)