Today's Useless Verbal Diarrhea Disguised as Wisdom

First things first. I looked up "diarrhea" in the online dictionary to make sure I know how to spell and found this:

di·ar·rhe·a also di·ar·rhoe·a n.
Excessive and frequent evacuation of watery feces, usually indicating gastrointestinal distress or disorder.


Evacuation? What is this, a mass refugee escape? Very amusing choice of words.

Anywho.

My real point of writing today is that, once again, I've been reading Heather A. Armstrong's weblog and found myself feverishly hoping to find myself in middle America, just like her. And by that I mean that I want to relocate to some remote place, where the sea and sky and trees and mountains abound. Really, anywhere that's not suburbia would be nice. Preferably some place where my nearest neighbor is at least ten acres away.

Seriously. Look at her pictures from today. I can't stop thinking about how lovely it would be to live simply, walk the dog in the local field, ride a bicycle without fearing for my life (damn cars!), go running in the woods...

Anthony keeps talking about his pipe dream to live in Montana like Teddy Roosevelt did, and frankly, it sounds pretty good to me. Except for that whole lack of jobs in the area thing. Other than that, I'm perfectly reconciled to live in the midwest.

I guess I'm just tired of the sirens, the buses, the exhaust, the pedestrians, the Metro, the landscape... I grew up in a fairly small factory town, where the houses all have yards and the busiest highway probably saw a hundred cars a day. And for the past 8 years I've lived in cities. Big ones. Philadelphia, New York, D.C.

I just can't seem to reconciile my career choices and my lifestyle choice. The former requires me to work in a metropolitan area, and the latter allows me the fresh air and mountainous views. It sounds like a very simple problem, but when I see pictures of other people enjoying the outdoors I get obscene cravings for trees. And no, I don't want to eat them! The cement blocks of the city are just no balm for my tree envy.

In happier news, I've decided to start running again. Since moving to DC, Anthony and I haven't been able to afford the gym so I've mapped out a route in Rock Creek Park. I'm going to try to give it a go in the mornings before work. This may do wonders for my need to see nature in all its glory. I'm hoping that 5-5:30AM is early enough that I see nothing but squirrels. As much as I love humans, and I honestly do, I'm tired of all their noise.

This running fad coincides nicely with the New Year so it is almost like a New Year's resolution, except that I don't believe in them. It is simply a coincidence.

Anthony and I are also visiting the baby panda this Saturday. Did I mention that I love going to the zoo??? There are also baby cheetahs, baby tigers, and baby elephants to visit. I'm hoping the New Year holiday and the rain will keep everyone else at bay, but even more so I'm hoping Tai Shan will come out and play during my scheduled 10-minute visitation with the Giant Panda Habitat. Very exciting stuff.

If I get any pictures of the adorable one, I'll be sure to post them here (if ever oh ever my Comcast internet works again).