observations of the past few days

• Human communication is stunningly confusing sometimes. My belief is ever reaffirmed that a) it's healthy to maintain a certain skepticism about the idea that you understand a person or a situation, and b) it's really a marvel that human beings communicate successfully at all. And c) if you forget to second-guess yourself now and then, the universe will find ways to remind you.

• Global capitalist systems have us so twisted that I wonder if we really have to have a total meltdown to wake ourselves up (except I'm not optimistic about even that working, and of course it's easy for me to sit in my cozy apartment and suggest such things as if they're permissible). The Market rules us as if The Market is not made up of PEOPLE, damn it. People. You. Me. Millions of our friends. Does this disconnect not bother anyone else?

• My cousin and her partner, who have one adopted and three foster kids, one old arthritic and one young crazy yappy dog, 120 chickens and 18 goats on their farm that will soon house a commercial goat dairy, a full time synagogue rabbinical position, and a long list of community commitments and causes, are my total heroes. My life is so flippin' easy.

• Graduate school applications involve many, many steps and pieces and dominoes falling in the right order. My brain feels a little scrambled, and I've barely begun.

• We've had enough random tragedies here now. Basta.

• Vermont in autumn is actually better, somehow, than it appears in photographs.
  

• Corollary to that: few things are too stressful when you happen upon stunning beauty on a regular basis. Chalk it up to my ADD, maybe, but no matter the rut my brain is stuck in, "ohmygod look at that incredible tree/mountain/sunset" snaps me right out of it.

• Flying trapeze is somehow harder and easier the second time. I can't wait to see how it is the third time.
  

• I need more than five or six hours of sleep a night.

• My community is full of the most absurdly wonderful people imaginable. I know I've said this before; I just want to make sure the universe knows that I'm still grateful.