I Can Explain.

In the face of another stretch of funemployment I did what any 23-year-old who fancies herself slightly artistic and sentimental would feel absolutely compelled to: hopped on a flight to Marseille. I learned this technique after nearly eight years of education from prep school and Georgetown, where classmates took similar measures and assured me that “traveling” was a legitimate occupation. They referenced Hemmingway and Fitzgerald, so after using frequent flyer miles to purchase my flight I called MHK to let him know I planned to sleep at his flat, s'il vous plait, and would be spending my days between the coast and cafes. Unruffled, he responded that I should pack my own swimsuit because the ones for sale in Marseille did not include tops.

In a frenzy I spent two days scheduling the rest of my summer, which consists of a graduation, a camping trip, a reunion, the GRE, a week in a cabin in Montana with my sister and mother, a 5K race, a road trip through DC to Vermont, and – the point at which I may have to end this blog as we currently think of it – seven weeks speaking only Portuguese at Middlebury. When friends ask me what I’m doing now that I’m no longer working I try to laugh in a tinkling chime and throw out, “Traveling,” lightly, as if that involved no more preparation than peddling off on my magical flying bicycle on a whim. Usually they look at me with crossed eyes as if I sound like a rhinoceros trapped in a small area, probably because of the attempt at a tinkling chime laugh, during which I sometimes accidentally snort.

So here we are, because I hate long emails that make me feel as if I should respond but paralyze me with their depth and end up preventing me from even reading them: another blog.