Bois Blanc Island, UP of Michigan.
I’m finally “home”, I don’t know what to call home anymore. Anyways, I expect this to be a very long entry because what a splendid crazy last roughly two weeks I’ve spent. I needed desperately to get away but who knows what I want because two days ago I was desperate to return. Needless to say, I got incredibly sick of my immediate family and some of my extended as well but the pros greatly overshadow the cons of this trip and I wouldn’t deserve a nicer time. I wrote mostly about my Ann Arbor/ North Lake adventures and that was pretty much the sum of things there. Then Bois Blanc was a little cloud of time that I expected to use partially to sort things out but it didn’t work that way as much as it just served to be a distraction from events. Texas boys are their own blend. I love my two cousins they made this trip for me. Gabe (19) has always popped into my life every few years and is the only guy I’ve known for so long that I still see who is about my age, we have a really sweet fascination with eachother because of that. His life right now is just envious, living with 4 friends in a huge 5 bedroom house in Austin at 50 dollars a month, playing in his band and wandering the US, visiting his georgeous girlfriend in Quebec city and playing folk festivals or punk festivals across the west. No demands for his life really but this electricity that makes people just flock to him, I’m so excited for him and how great his life is going to be. Then Joe (23) who changed from 6 years ago the khaki wearing snobbish golf player to this hipee also wandering the country and spreading magic. Spending years in New Zealand and Australia with his exgf Beck and ideas of living in Costa Rica (my favorite country) and interviewing for A and E in New York as we speak. Staying up late sharing conversations with this texas lisp blended in made me happy. Swimming around and reading journals and sharing stories and secrets with them was what I needed exactly, I needed to feel loved and just in the best place in the entire world.
Anyways, I’m still not done. Umm. I don’t know how to go about keeping track of everything I did and not writing a literal novel. I know I could and I just might after I put this up (write in much much more detail) but I’ll spare you.
· riding around in junky tan cars listening to radiohead and eating baked soybeans
· looking for hours in the woods for shantrel (chantrel?) mushrooms (the novelty is cool because they are supposedly seventy dollars a pound)
· EVERYDAY 12 mile bike rides “to the airport and back” and getting really muddy after rain storms (my mom deleted those pictures -frown-)
· Birthdays for brian and mom so cakes and parties on “the west end”
· Boatrides to Mackinac and St Ignace Islands trying to calm down a humongous golden retriever who was being flung around
· Staying up late late late playing my grandpa’s old banjo and harmonica
· SAUNAS!!! Everynight (which aren’t fun to set up.) OH yeah and the time I thought it was okay to take one in 160 degrees and had to be saved by Joe like… 15 or 20 minutes later- that was NOT fun
· Farts on fire!! Hahahha
· Spending the day on Mackinac Island
· Waterskiing (danny is so dumb driving over his own wake)
· Swimming swimming and more swimming in freezing water full of rocks that hurt my feet
· Seeing Boo!! (who I’ve known from camp t-bird for four years and lives in Athens and we have crazy weird stories and I just adore that girl)
· Seeing Drew which was very neutral cause I don’t care about him and he’s an ass
· Day trips to Hell Michigan and dinner at The Damn Site Inn
· West End Party with 126 people (huge age gaps) with kayaking, food, Frisbee, watching deer swim (I didn’t know they did that), etc etc
· Reading of Mice and Men and Murder on the Orient Express and tons of magazines
· Long LONG car rides (like 13 hours today… 5 the day before)
· Balderdash and hare-lipped widows hahaha
· Chocolate PB smoothies
· Garage sales all over the island
That is mainly it I think. I of course have pictures and there will be very many of them. I listened to a TON of music and laughed out loud and cried but tried to hide it.
Ohhhh I read the most amazing short story last night that I don’t know what to do with. Actually I do know what I’m doing with it but it’s a secret. If anyone gets INDEX then in the June/July 2003 you are required to read “MIRROR BALL” by Mary Gaitskill. The one copy I have I’m sending to the person I think might enjoy it the most. Or the person it reminded me of… nevermind.
”what you want of a dead mouse anyways?”
“I could pet it with my thumb while we walked along,” said Lennie.
And I got a simile in my head while I was trying very hard to fall asleep in still air on hard pillows and creamy light seeping through my eyelids.
I love you like the sun loves her moon, she chases him round and round only in mourning that morning doesn’t find the two together. But woe she can’t turn around to go the other direction, can’t turn back time to hit a head on- heart on collision.
Oh sorry last thing I rememberd. I decided what an ass my uncle danny is. He’s a hardcore republican with his autographed picture of George Douba-ya on the fridge “thank you for the donation.” and he rides his boston whaler like Dr. Strangelove on his diving bullet, his motor was the hell up in the air killing his passengers and his 11 year old golden retriever. Then he falls asleep during conversations, and in St Ignace when we were getting gas for the monster he spills it all over the harbor and doesn’t care… and I quote “give a hoot, pollute.” Then destroying chantrels by pulling them out by the root rather than breaking them off. And he hasn’t changed much, as a teenager killing rattle snakes and placing them in direct line of his sister while the nerves of the snake kept the rattle charming…
but do you care?
PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!!! (although only temporarily hosted here they are)
Gabe watching the sunset (these are out of order)
"Jow" on geetar
Me on the ferry lookin at DUCKS!!!!!!! (which i might get for my birthday if i'm really lucky.)
the gates open and the ferry is OFF!!
the cabin my family built in... the sixties?
totem pole my grandpa made
gabe dancing his way down to the beach
Mackinac Island across the water (taken way down the island at the busseys)
the rusty tractor at the saw mill
finding old random cars in the middle of the woods is neat
Gabe on the deflating raft
SKIIII i told my mom not to take this
fumbling
Mackinac island bridge (the people who are scared to drive over it are called "timmies" hahahahah)
a hilarious picture of me being a six year old indian princess slut :)
"the point" which we are about ready to sell
badminton
eagle
the water level is dropping SOO horribly much :( :(
woods at the sawmill
i will own a bed and breakfast in my old age just like these. just wait. a long time.
splinters in rodolpho's feet!!
the post office and our town hall....
thank you :)
*and believe me this is only a very small portion although still way too many pictures posted :/ sorry.