In short,

I've been in California at my brother's graduation from Stanford, where I had lunch by the bay with phc and met the cute, sleepy, and extremely easy-to-get-along-with Olivia. Graduation events with my family - my brother graduated with a major in Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity, a thesis about labor history at Stanford, and a minor in Spanish and might be going into teaching - and a little nostalgia for my old campus. I still know when to jump when the LSJUMB plays "All Right Now"... Then a show at my friend's art space, CounterPulse, and a lovely breakfast with her. More graduation events and a little World Cup in the student union. My parents drove me to a friend's house party (it's been a long time since that happened!), where I unexpectedly knew almost everyone! So I got to catch up - however briefly - with people I haven't seen in years and others whom I see every year. My friends are union organizers, work with youth, sell t-shirts, work in the arts, teach... they are silly and smart and inspiring and good people, and I miss them. My brother gave a speech at graduation, we went out to dinner, I chatted with a friend of his who studied abroad in Turkey. It was a good weekend, and a whirlwind, and I am left a touch sunburned and asking myself the unsettling yet persistent question: Why don't I live in San Francisco?

Lots to say about a lot of things, no time - ever, any more - to say it. I spent most of today grading seventh grade final projects about climate change and sixth grade lab reports about solutions, so that I can enter all my grades tomorrow, prepare certificates for an awards ceremony, plan field day, and continue my search for an apartment. I'm nervous as hell about my work visa, but I don't yet have an address in Turkey and have been asking and asking... I'm supposed to be taking my typhoid vaccine to prepare for India but I had to order it from the stupid mail order pharmacy and it hasn't arrived and hasn't arrived. Neither have the malaria pills, though I don't take those for another week or so.

Things will ease up when school ends next Wednesday, but I have no interest in wishing away days. My head is in a thousand places, and sometimes leaves me feeling like the last person you'd want to know. Or maybe I just feel that way tonight.