i have commitment issues. which is why i'm going back to tumblr. for the second time. check it: www.longtobealive.tumblr.com

holla!

tomorrowwwww....

....is gonna be the best adventure ever.

church in the morning on daufuskie at the first union african baptist church.

then fishing with steve ranney (who is a captain for ohh) on his boat!

all with bianca wilderness!

and thennnn cookout (maybe) at bianca's and then girlie sleepover/movie time. bah. love life. (even though i'm currently in a funk because one of our coworkers told me i was unfashionable and that i did an okay job of booking reservations even though it's what i do twenty-four/seven. bahhhh.)

150

all my friends are telling me to be careful. be careful with your heart, jordan. but here's the thing...how can i share my heart if i'm so busy guarding it? so i stopped guarding for a little while and started letting others share with me. and by opening up my heart so that someone else could show me who they really were, somehow i got hurt. but isn't that the point? why is getting hurt such a bad thing? it means you actually still care and aren't a robot like everyone else. since when is not getting hurt the goal in life?

but somehow along the way i've ended up with a jack shephard complex. like it's my responsibility to fix everyone and everything. so, naturally, i'd gravitate toward the people who need fixing. but if i'm not focused on fixing someone else, then my whole life revolves around me. and what kind of life is that? bah. it's all so confusing.

also, it's my 150th post. happy milestone to me.

bah! love them!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0BPaY6_9hs&feature=player_embedded#!

A LA DERECHA, A LA DERECHA!!!!

so this tuesday i had my first ever fireworks kayak tour. (shelter cove has harborfest every tuesday and shoots off fireworks after dark from the harbor and we take trips out to do the 2-hour nature tour, then we stay out for the show.) first off, i had 21 people in my group. the usual maximum is 16. i figured that at least they'd all go in doubles, so it wasn't a big deal. they all wanted to pay separately, so it took 15 minutes to check them all in. i walked by the kiosk as my colleagues took their payment and paperwork, and realized that they were speaking a different language. thank GOD it was spanish, and i'm half-fluent in spanish. so 21 non-english-speaking people. but hey, they'll be in doubles. 11 boats isn't so bad. so i introduce myself and head down to the dock to load them and chris was helping get trips out. we do the paddle clinic and get pfds on everyone and they start getting in boats. apparently christopher was charmed by the cute spanish girls, so he put almost all of them in singles. so at this point, i have 21 people who can't understand me out in 18 boats. i had already given up on the nature part of the tour, so i was just focused on keeping them all together and safe. but here's the kicker. not only could i not give them instructions in english, but they wouldn't listen to me as i called instructions in spanish. so here are these little spanish teenagers paddling straight up through the middle of the boat channel at the harbor with 100-foot head boats coming right at them. "A LA DERECHA, A LA DERECHA," i yelled to no avail. needless to say, it was an interesting hour and a half.

i haven't forgotten...

i promise. i haven't forgotten about you. just wanted to let you know. it's just that i'm working so much and loving it and it's just time for me to shed this cocoon that i've built for myself. no, not shed. that's not what i mean to say. it's just that i created a mold around my life and didn't let anything that didn't fit in the mold in or out. and life was not meant to be lived that way.

i'm experiencing true freedom for the first time in my life. no school, no leases, no commitments. it feels so good. i could drop everything tomorrow and go to nepal for a month and there would be no repercussion other than missing a month of pay.

and with this freedom comes freedom in my actions. it's a beautiful thing.

to use a knapp-ism (courtesy of laura knapp) "flex that freedom!"

i haven't picked up a book in over a month. not even madeleine. as i type this i'm glancing to the bookshelf on my left, looking at all the unread books on it and feeling guilty.

nor have i picked up a paintbrush...in approximately six months. and i haven't touched my real camera in a month either. gulp. i'm feeling pretty unproductive and talentless. i can't wait to dive back in.

on a different note, i've made some decisions about my life/future. they are as follows:

1. i am going to try to get a job at a ski resort out west for the winter. bianca wilderness and i have vowed to make the trek out together. guess that means i gotta dust off the old ski gear.

2. i really, really, really want to go to new york for like a week in the fall. hopefully ohh will want me until at least labor day, and after that, i'll have about a month to travel and just chill until i go out to (hopefully) colorado or utah. i'd love to rent a loft from vrbo.com for a week and live the bohemian life. ahhhh.

3. i have an extreme dislike for commitment. i've known this for a while, but now that i'm out in the world and have no real commitments, i'm re-discovering my love of freedom. which means that i have no real interest in getting married in the next ten or fifteen years, or ever having kids.

4. i talk like a sailor. this isn't really a decision so much as it is a realization.