1. [Oh i re-read that last entry and I realized that it doesn't convey exactly how excited I am for BT to be here. I'm excited. I can't wait. This volcano is getting in the way of my love life... seriously, iceland? I know you're having a rough decade and all but come on... give a girl a break]

2. egh, weird stomach thing where i feel super sick every time I eat. I can't figure out when it started, but I am heading back out to the field on Tuesday and terrified at the prospect of hours on the road with my stomach feeling the way it does.

3. The sickness has led to a general ennui and all I want to do is stay home and read whatever I can get my hands on. This has been exacerbated by my roommate's departure for Japan. There is nothing i love quite as much having the house to myself. I don't want to live alone because I'd go crazy, but for short periods?!?! Heaven! Suddenly I can sit in the bath for an hour, eat odd meals at strange times, walk around naked, and generally leave a path of destruction behind me.... I can't do that outside, can I? Why should I leave?

4. But recently the stack of old coffee-table magazines started to make me crazy, so I went to the bookstore for the first time since last year. I'd forgotten how depressing it is. There is really only one English-language bookstore and it is owned by a relentless self-improvement type. As a result, most of the literature is of the "7 ways to make friends and influence people" and "how to manage people's emotional intelligence for success" type, all imported from America, presumably because this man feels that this is what Ethiopians need to read to lead their country to a glorious future. It's depressing.

There was also a weird section of books like "how move forward after the affair" and "your teenage child with Autism", which just does NOT make sense when you have a store with only about 100 titles.

I bought a terrible, strange, and sad children's book called "my father gave me away for adoption," which was a PICTURE BOOK about a boy whose family was starving so his father sold him to a man with 5 wives who could not have children. The boy eventually is happier with his new family, gets married at 13 to a girl of 6, missionaries come to their village and start a school, eventually the boy graduates, finds Christ, and lives happily ever after. (The author thanks World Vision for all the work they do in Ethiopia).

I will stick to my inherited copies of 2008-era Newsweek, thank you very much. There is a rumour of a treasure trove of old New Yorkers and I will not rest until I find it.

This is pretty much how I spend my time. As always, it's the little things, right? Right. [i'm happy.]

5:08 p.m. - 2010-04-18