every day something changes.

It took me a little longer than I expected, but I instated my new blog today. It's about time. I switched to WordPress because there is more freedom and because the music blog I worked for before I left for New Zealand taught me how to use it. It's just prettier in general, I think.

So here's the new location: http://carriemelissa.wordpress.com/.

See you there, I hope.

changing every day.

It has been a long time, and I need to wipe myself clean of this. This blog has held a lot of secrets of mine. They are disorganized, jumbled, idealized, and also very real to me. Reading them makes my heart twist. I feel I can wring it out and let it dry.

I am home again, one year after my first homecoming. It feels the same, but much more open. I feel I have the courage and confidence to find a job this time around, now that I've given it some time.

Tomorrow begins my quest, and so tomorrow begins the beginning of a new way of chronicling the new journey. It will be a bit more cheeky, probably less personal (sometimes my heart aches at how personal I've been here, and I know all of this is deeply true and deeply open, and that is what hurts), and more helpful to the random reader. I will post the web address here tomorrow for anyone who may actually still read this dusty chronicle of my post-adolescence.

a short summation of close to half a year.

Somehow five months have passed. I've traveled and I've swum in the ocean on Christmas. I've eaten beans on toast and been to crazy parties. I've laid on the pebbles at the beach until 6 am (later, I found the pebbles down my pants). I've watched the sun rise from Mt. Doom and cried myself to sleep. I've read and I've pulled weeds and sat in the burning sunlight all afternoon. I've gotten numerous sunburns and some have even turned into suntans.

For the moment, I am settled. I spend my days with people from all over the world and fall asleep with the television on. Then I wake up at 5 in the morning and do it all again.

I have no home, but each day I make it work. I define home in new ways, through new people. And last night, I fell asleep in someone else's bed.

I am sorry I can't write more, but life moves too quickly. But my tattoo is constantly reminding me that I need to get myself together and keep writing. When I get home again, I will write every day. Or something.

as the kiwis do.

Time has slipped away from me. I am in Blenheim and it's hard to distinguish between Monday, Tuesday, and all those other days of the week.

In Auckland, Marie and I would go out until 4 am. We had BBQs with Kiwis, ate hokey pokey by the beach, played mini golf with two Kiwis and a German, and I personally spent a lot of time hungover. To be constructive, we also hiked a volcano and went to some beautiful North Island beaches. We slept in an attic one night and I felt homesick sometimes, but it was all right.

In Christchurch, we walked around and shopped at handmade craft stores. We went out for Halloween with a Swedish guy and an Australian. We took tequila shots and sang karaoke at an underground bar filled with New Zealand-transplanted Asians. We danced on stage at a nightclub and laughed before taking jager bombs. We walked home in the chilled air and we ate KFC at 3 am. We made the best and smelled flowers and all that shit.

The train to Picton was breathtaking. The morning clouds cleared away, revealing groups of sheep and cows huddling and grazing together. The ocean came out of nowhere.

We hitch hiked to a small home in Rai Valley, where we spent 2 days walking country roads, talking all night over tea, eating homecooked meatballs and potatoes and eggs and ham, and playing badminton with a bunch of locals.

Now we are working on vineyards in Blenheim. The fog clears in the morning across endless rows of grapes. We live in a hostel with a bunch of Germans and a few other Europeans. I do not judge the passing of time. I think about love and how blurry its definition can become and how clear it can seem at times. I think of a dark bedroom in Culver City that feels like it never existed. I smile when I think of breakfast burritos and the beach and falling asleep in Agoura Hills. I usually imagine this as I fall asleep at night and I wake up feeling strangely at home, but strangely dislocated. I feel excited for the past and for the future, but I live in the present. This is because I have a hard time connecting my past to my days here and I have a hard time envisioning where the future will take me.

As the days fall away, I realize I am happiest with a cup of tea and a piece of toast, swapping stories and slang from countries far away.

uhhh...

Leaving for New Zealand in, oh, two and a half hours. How the hell did this happen? Not that I'm complaining.

the sun rising.

Busy old fool, unruly sun,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?

Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late school boys and sour prenticesprentices apprentices,

Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,the king will ride James I, the king of England at the time of Donne’s writing, had a known passion for riding horses and hunting.

Call country ants to harvest offices,

Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

- John Donne

in my ears and in my eyes.

I knew it was going to be hard to say goodbye to him, but how was I to know that finding out exactly how hard it would be would be harder than the impending doom brought on by imagining it?

In the park, I said I would miss him. It was perfect clarity bursting forth into the foggy afternoon.

cheezy blasters.

30 Rock completes my life. So what will I do when I get to New Zealand when I have no Liz Lemon to relate to?

seeing the waves.

If I could stop being sad for a while, well maybe then I'd be happy.

And if I were happy, maybe I'd walk out of your life with a swift goodbye, never to return again.

a color of the sky.

...Last night I dreamed of X again.
She's like a stain on my subconscious sheets.
Years ago she penetrated me
but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,
I never got her out,
but now I'm glad.

What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel.
What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky...

so Nature's wastefulness seems quietly obscene.
It's been doing that all week:
making beauty,
and throwing it away,
and making more.

by Tony Hoagland