Hair Faded, Summer Focused, House Arrangements in Process and Eyes Swollen Shut From Pollen

Hello, June 1. This was taken in the morning, before I was consumed by allergies as the Cottonwoods began to bloom at campus and I-95 was loaded with floating fuzz balls (aka Cottonwood sperm). It is my number one tree allergy and I have been fighting so hard against the snot and coughing.

Towel is thrown in.

Actually, I accomplished a lot, even through I was a dripping mess. I proceeded to move guest bed #1 out of Chitunga's room, so he can have full space this summer for settling into his routine and work. That bed is now in the dining room, which is for guest #1 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (a fellow from Kentucky moving to UMass for his doctorate, but wishing to do attend CWP before he starts (his interest is with relocated refugee literacy processes).

I then proceeded to tackle book cases because I had to move my office home and there are boxes of books everywhere. In my head I was thinking Pequot Library Book Sale and a massive donation of unwanted books. It's just hard, because I want to keep all my books; they're my friends and I like them. I did manage to put one box together (cough cough...that was allergies).

I also did a massive dump of shit I know longer need: boxes, cards, paraphernalia, and junk. This made room, you see, to store more books.

The office has also been moved to the dining room, make-shift office, which will become Abu's space for the last two weeks of summer programming, while he gives up his room to a woman from Zimbabwe, Africa who is coming for Hoops4Hope, but interning with CWP. My Kentucky guest, I'm hoping, will find additional housing while this happens (although Pam said Abu can stay with her on Tuesdays and Wednesdays).

I told my friend, Beth, that I try to get my life lived in June and July so the rest of the year I can be selfish and read. The summer months are totally social and Mt. Pleasant is a B&B and playhouse. I love every second of it, but enjoy the calm when it ends, too. Glamis? She's hard to read. I think she loves all the attention, but when everyone is gone, the entire place can be her bedroom. The hair I swept last night was evidence of that.

Today, I'm waking up hoping to get to the dump and to tackle the upstairs. I also want to hit the garage which has been a Chitunga sanctuary of his middle, high school, and post-high school life. Everything is stored out there and I don't know what he wants to keep. I do know, however, that a goal I have this summer is to set him up for his return after graduate school. I know he won't last long in Stratford, but we can redo his room as if he's returning as an adult. Economically, I hope he will stay home after graduate school, but logically, the commute will eventually kill him (a life on the Metro is too much).

Back to my head. Okay, Jerry Simeon is a god-send barber. I go in and he makes me look younger, crisper and more alive. I appreciate that. I walked around everywhere on Friday feeling somewhat cocky and confident, all because the hairs on my head allowed me to be.

It will all be different today when I run, shower, and do my doo myself (read fail). Happy Saturday and June 1. I will leave with a special shout out to my nephew and Godson,  Jacob Charles. It's his birthday and I'm hoping he has the best time ever in CNY.

If only I could get him to invent a real time machine and take me back to 1990, where I graduate and proceed to move on to the best four years of my life - college. I don't necessarily want to go back to those times, but I'd love to be in that skin again where everything was so new, fresh, exciting and promising.

Happy Birthday, Jake. Keep that spunk and funk alive!!!!

And may Sherburne have a successful pageant of bands.