From My journal

From my journal:

11/7?/09

I’m currently traveling though space time, not exactly sure what time or what day it is, but it is 10:40 stateside I can’t decide when I will adjust my watch, but I assure you, unlike my girlfriend, I will not keep my watch on West-Coast time and simply do the math in my head when someone asks what time it is (the reason of course not being that I am any less sentimental, but that level of mental math at that speed is simply dangerous for my brain). We’ve been flying [on our flight to New Zealand] for almost 4 hours now. 1/3 of the way done! I took a Dramamine and watched Rugby [they have cool little TV’s on the seats] while drifting in and out of consciousness for the past couple of hours. They served us a nice pasta dish and I consumed all of it. Even the fruit. For those of you who don’t know my eating habits that well, this is a telling sign of the level of hunger I had on the flight.

I flew out of Portland w/ a good number of kids from the trip and we met up with everyone else in LA. We had a 7-hour layover but it seemed almost non-existent as we are all so excited to get to Sydney. On the flight from Portland I took 2 Dramamine because I was feeling sick, but I forgot that they were the drowsy kind. I kept wondering why my ipod kept turning off until I realized that I had been falling asleep and waking up in fits and spurts for almost two hours. That made the flight real quick.

The take off out of LAX to NZ was funny because the captain kept saying things like “Now I know you can all probably figure this out by now but please do listen to the safety instructions” and “I am required to read this so please bear with me.” After he finished his required speeches (apologizing for their dull and repetitive nature) he gave a shout-out to a group of rotary exchange students on board who were coming back after a year abroad somewhere in Sweden or Denmark, or other countries in that area.

Work in progress—dedicated to Rachel Rogers:

Thirteen thousand feet in the air

I soared above the circulating expanse of blue

And in this dream-like state I saw you

Lying there with your softly curling hair, falling

Like the branches of a weeping willow down your shoulders.

I longed for the embrace of your body trickling over me

When I with glee awoke to Winter sunlight.

It felt so right at the end of every night to wake up to your smile

And carry it with me over the miles that separated us.

It warmed my heart like the splintering parts of

The fire I made when you stayed the night

In my home, and I groaned

Throwing that hulking log over the decomposing remnants

Of its predecessor, which, with a glowing, growing heat

Welled up with Ecstasy and sent a million

Twinkling particles up the old

Brick chute high in the twilit sky of

Maroons and blues and that dead, dying red glow

That our fire showed me

When I saw it reflect in the glass of your eyes

Which passed over my body

With a knowledge and understanding

Far beyond your twenty-one years of age.