Well, I'm going, everyone. I got the job offer for Isle Royale in the mail last week. The mere thought of cleaning out my belongings and sifting them down to the bare minimum is refreshing, if a bit daunting. I don't feel so vitally attached to everything anymore. I'm coming to admire the minimalist lifestyle. Of course, minimalist as far as everything but books...I'm not going to need much in the way of clothing up there. They're providing uniform shirts, and I just have to bring black and/or khaki pants and shorts. Luckily, that thing online about having to cut my hair for the job was nonsense. So I'm going to grow that out over the summer, and hopefully by then it will be long enough that when I sell it, I can get a couple grand, which means a few months of rent, among other things. When combined with my earnings (as long as I don't spend them – and I don't see any way I could burn through them during the Summer. I mean, I can have crap mailed to me from Amazon and stuff, but I have to remember I'm dragging it back on the ferry or else paying a pretty penny to have it mailed), I should be in decent shape for a few months, anyway. I don't know that I can actually survive through the winter on those savings and take a summer job when the tourists are here, but that's why I'm knocking on doors later today.

I think I need to take all the things of one kind and sort through them. Clothing, of course, is a big one, then books. In fact, there's not much else I have in such volume. Er, except papers, of course...heh. I have to start going through two boxes a day if I'm going to get through it all before it's time to leave. Then I've got a 100 pound luggage weight limit on the ferry, so I'm planning on putting the rest of my stuff in storage or something until I get back in September.

After I take a nap (I hate getting up at 4:30 AM and not being able to get back to sleep), I'm going to go collect about 40 applications, come home, fill them out, stick them with my cover letters, resumes, and recommendation letters, and bring them back. I'm hoping my ability to market myself (aka BS creatively) will pay off. I mean, I want to live here in Charlevoix pretty badly, and I'm going to run out of time after Fall fairly quickly. Nowell's planning to move down to Florida around this time next year. Then I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing. Life is like that sometimes, you know? I've been likening it to crossing a wide river on stepping stones in a fog. You don't really know how far away the other side is, and you can only see a few steps ahead, but you can get across the river that way. See, I can sit and say this kind of clever Zen-sounding crap and people will be impressed instead of standing back and shaking their heads at my pathetic lack of planning.

It's going to be so great to get out of the city. I hope the next two months fly by. Time's been dragging enough lately. I've had my fill of concrete and exhaust fumes and miserableness everywhere I turn. I think it's enough for life. Yeah, I'm pretty good at getting around Grand Rapids, and my street smarts have sharpened up somewhat, but it's not really worth the trade-off. Knowing how to get around GR is not a piece of knowledge that does more than one thing for me. And, sure, I'll miss Vertigo and Argo's and whatnot, but the nice thing about them is I know exactly where they are and I can always come back for a shopping trip without committing at all to the city.

People don't get it when I say I hate GR, and most of the natives I say it to look offended (or, at least, they pretend to be offended). So I always clarify that I hate cities in general, and it's nothing particular about GR. Well, okay, but I still hate at least 1/3rd of the architecture and about 900 other things about it. I'm an equal opportunity city-hater. I'm sure I could despise Lansing just as much if I happened to live there, or pretty much any city of analogous size or larger in any country anywhere. I could find total loathing for, say, New York City. I don't even want to see it. It's enough to know it exists without having to gawk.

So what do I want? Trees. Wilderness. Silence. And that's what I'm getting in May. Well, on my days off, anyway. Expect lots of pictures.