As of late

Woke up at 7, thinking it was 4 am because it was overcast, realized quickly I needed to get to work.  Had been having a dream where I was in a job interview that my mom had applied me for that I didn't know about, wasn't prepared for, wasn't dressed for, and a job a definitely didn't think I was qualified for (it was either a principal of a school, or a journalist...I could probably have pulled off the journalist thing).  I tried to come up with an answer to why they should hire me as a principal, and came up with some answer about being an outsider and shaking things up.  The interview was in a community center, all the chairs were set up in a circle, there were maybe 30-50 people there to ask me questions.  Right before I woke up, I leaned over to my mother and asked her if there was anything I should know about the job, and she said, "I told them you were 24."  (Wouldn't they figure it out that I wasn't?) I woke up before I got to answer any questions.  Curious as to what my dream me would've come up with.

Other recent things.  Saw an owl sitting on the ground while I was walking around at lunch yesterday, looking for a place to sit and read.  I was actually looking for rabbits.  Eventually, it raised itself up and flew into a nearby tree.  Seeing it during the middle of the day, and on the ground, was odd.  But it didn't seem in distress or injured, at any rate.  That was unexpected.  Saw a river otter surface and munch on a fish a couple weeks ago when I was walking near Lake Washington.  And then a short distance further, a bull frog.

Went to the beach on Saturday to muck around in the low tide.  The eel grass is way more extensive than it was last time I was there, hard to avoid, very little open sand.  I saw sea cucumbers (which I somehow originally missed, and then noticed through my camera lens while taking a picture of a worm), and then I found them everywhere; ochre starfish, sea anemones, barnacles, a live moon snail, wooly chitons, limpets, and lots of different seaweeds.  Got sunburned, too.  And probably food poisoning somewhere down there, was sick all the next day.

Low Tide, Golden Gardens, July 8/L Herlevi 2018

Sea Cucumber, July 8/L Herlevi 2018

Golden Gardens, July 8/L Herlevi 2018

Saw a friend I last saw four years ago, and probably not for 15 years before that.  Another friend invited me along to see him and his wife who are in town briefly for a visit.  I had some anxiety about it, kinda' dumb, he'd been one of my best friends in college, but we'd fallen out of touch.  It was good.  Eye-opening: reminded me of how it is when someone loves you openly, doesn't withhold, isn't punishing...when someone makes the choice to love you.  Attraction might not always be a choice, but love is.  I made a choice at 21, and I would probably make the same one again, but damn, it's nice to know someone loves you.  (It was always mutual, if not romantic.  It's the value, the worthiness recognized in the other.  He always treated me as if I was an equal, that I mattered.)  Meantime, "too busy" feels like "not choosing you."  Everyone is busy.  Everyone makes choices.

Cheers.