Today was a good day

1. Jason is coming home from Seattle.
2. My mom took the day off, and is writing occasional emails to me from home.
3. I had orange pop for breakfast because I woke up craving it, and it tasted as good as I needed it to.
4. Kat’s dad, well, he’s really really neat. He wins the Dad/Karma award.
5. My dad is substitute teaching calculus today, which will be a challenge he’ll actually enjoy.
6. There was International Creamer for my coffee today.
7. It’s pizza day.
8. Yesterday was Kate B’s birthday, and I plan on buying her at least one beer this weekend.
9. I got a really good long email from Lia.
10. Hey-hey-I don’t have to take the GRE.

Yesterday was good too –
Last night as I walked downstairs to the childrens department at the Waukegan public library, I saw what looked like two security guards. In my head, I just thought black coats with patches over the left breast, familiar, must be security. As I got closer, I realized that the coats looked familiar because they said AmeriCorps NCCC on them. I introduced myself as an alum, and asked which campus they were from. The Denver campus covers Illinois, but you never know. As it turns out, they were from the Capitol Region – D.C. – where I had been. We talked for about a half hour about what changes had been made to the program, what it was like on their team, whether or not they had found anything cool in the ceiling tiles above their rooms, whether or not they had snuck into the infirmary yet … it was so cool talking to them. Some of the staff had changed, but the two main people were still there. They asked me what year I was from, and I said Class 8. They are in Class 11. I haven’t thought about it for a while, but it’s been a long time since AmeriCorps. I’ve forgotten the names of the dorm wings. As we were talking, I felt really old and like I was trying to gain some of the excitement back that I felt from AmeriCorps.

I’m OK with having a grownup’s life, because along with the excitement of AmeriCorps was a lot of angst and general bullshit. I think if I want that again, I’ll choose a new adventure.