(Written late Tuesday night, sent now because I have a connection)

I am on the train again.

I have had a nice little vacation. Since work wasn’t coming in through the temp agencies and my dad was getting married on the 8th, I decided to make a trip of it.

I flew into Portland Oregon and met up with my cousin, his wife and kids and my other cousin. We drove out to Depot Bay where my dad has a condo. He rented condos for everyone coming out. I had a nice little studio one all to myself. I ended up going out there a day early and I had such a nice time, I stayed a day late. It was really nice to be able to get to know my brother, sister-in-law, my niece and nephew better. It was the first time I had met my nephew and he just turned 2 years old. This is the first time my brother and I have gotten along for an extended period of time without needing to put time limits on our interactions. I am really astounded that we have managed to not set each other off. We have really grown. I also saw my uncle and aunt. There was one cousin and his family missing from the gathering of this side of the family. It has been something like 17 years since we have all been together. Normally I hate these type of gatherings so I was really pleased that this went well.

The wedding and reception was beautiful. It was rather laid back and sort of grew out of the people that were there and involved.

Most everyone left by Monday and that afternoon, my dad and his wife gave me a ride to Salem where I met up with corva and she took me home with her. I got to spend the evening and night with her and her hubby, telling stories about what is up with common friends. It was good to see and spend time with them. Early Tuesday morning, I was dropped off in Portland. I checked my bag at the train station and spent a few hours wandering around downtown Portland ending up in Powells where I bought about 4 lbs of books. I had run out of books two days prior and I think this was a spree to overcompensate for the prior lack.

Now I am on the train heading to Redding to visit my friends there, again. Someday, they might get tired of me showing up.

On friday, I get back to the bay area. There is an enneagram workshop all next week in Eslan near Big Sur. I am debating going to that. I still don’t know what I am up to. I am waiting to see if they have any work for me. If they don’t find work for me, I tend to take off it seems.

I have handled this entire trip as a play it by ear thing. Doing most everything at the last minute, not working out options and plans ahead of time. I don’t know what I am up to until about a day or two ahead of schedule and that is just because I need to inform others that are involved. I don’t really feel depressed but a lot of my actions and responses seem to be very similar to being depressed. I pull back from people and the more I follow what I think I am feeling, the worse I get. This lack of planning is new for me and I am rather surprised it isn’t driving me nuts. Just more experiments to observe and see where it goes.

Gotta love growth. [/sarcasm]