Dear cat bus,

One of my most recent bus drivers must be insane.  He guns the bus down the street the second you've stepped on and so you stumble down the aisle of the bus tumbling into a seat.  I stood up before he got to my stop the other day and I almost flew into the front window.  Dude is insane.  I was forcefully pushed into my seat today as he left the bus stop.  I think I was actually experiencing the cat bus from My Neighbor Totoro.  However, I think I might like my commute more if it looked like this:











Imagine this going across the Mississippi.


love,
hannah

Dear Hot.Cool.Yours.,

This is the slogan for the 2014 Olympic games in Sochi.  Seriously? Apparently Derek Zoolander is lighting the torch in Russia right now.  What is this slogan? Why must Olympic marketing be so weird!


love,
hannah

Dear good hair days,

Sometimes you are just blessed.  And that's lucky.  Sometimes those are also the days when you read over a hundred pages.  Sometimes you clean all the things you've been meaning to clean.  Sometimes you can give wise counsel to friends far and near.  Sometimes you can do all those things and still forget to make the chicken. 


love,
hannah

Dear Oswin,

You are awesome.  Excellent debut.  You might be my Halloween costume.  After one episode. 


love,
hannah

Dear bag pipes,

Though I moved earlier in the summer, I really only went three or four blocks from my old place; still well within the grip of my college.  All my friends were still connected to there and I was still familiar with my surroundings.  On Saturday, I will move again.  This time I know little about the neighborhood, the people I'm living with or what to expect when I get there.  In the last couple of weeks I've gone out of my way to walk through campus when I can.  (Sad for Minnesota, campus looks most beautiful just before the students return.)  There's been the compulsion to pass through while I still can and I think I've been looking for some sort of reaction in myself.  My college's Scottish heritage and my abundant tears surrounding graduation have been well documented here, and I think I was anticipating a similar reaction to this move.  Or, at least one slow beautiful tear. 

As I took what will probably be my last walk through campus, the bag pipers were practicing.  I thought, "this is it! This will bring on the tears!" But no, just as I came across the group they ceased their practice for the night (it was almost nine o'clock) and I passed them, more appreciative of the powerfully bright blue moon than the bag pipes. 

I thought, "maybe this is the day I outlined exactly four months ago today when I'm really lost and emotionally stable enough to listen to my recording of Loch Lommond!" So, I gave it a try.  Mostly I felt a little embarrassed at the poor quality of the recording and the moments when you can hear my friend drop her program as we clasp each others' hands.  I don't think you can hear me sniffling.  (I can't be totally sure, the quality is pretty bad.) 

What I'm left with, I'm not entirely sure.  I feel more emotionally stable than I did four months ago.  (It might be equally as hard to actually identify what I'm feeling, however.)  Unlike in that post four months ago, I have plans! I have big plans.  I'm moving.  I'm teaching.  I'm intentionally moving to somewhere I don't know.  I'm discovering what kinds of beer I like.  I'm keeping up with friends.  I'm not fully packed to move.  I'm frustrated that the sink in the place where I live for only three more days is causing so much trouble. 


love,
hannah

Dear living alone,

I'm so over you.  It was a little interesting at first, but now I'm just bored and lonely.  I think that if I wasn't house sitting for a cat I would have gone crazy with loneliness.  I can imagine that eventually people age out of living with room mates, but right now it just feels necessary.  I bang around the house doing nothing and it's horrible.  I'm not living alone again for a long time.


love,
hannah

Dear Don Pettit,

You are my favorite astronaut. 

Hands down.


love,
hannah