Appalachia Year

I am still sort of dumbfounded that my friends trek across southeastern Ohio - caulking the wagon and floating it, fording the stream, what have you - to get drunk on my porch and sleep in my bed. Not once, but many many times over the last six months have I been so delighted and relieved to have visitors that it was all I could do to not curl up in their lap and smell their neck.

I've realized that there have been several occasions during my Athens tenure, and they are often weekends, where I go an entire day without uttering a word. I wake up and study and run and make dinner and do laundry and watch TV and go to bed. Maybe Nick is sleeping later and going to work early and our relationship maintenance is relegated to monosyllabic inside joke text messages. Maybe my roommate is spending the day at a friend's. And a full 24 hours passes without me uttering a peep, which for someone chronically afflicted with what my 5th grade teacher called "diarrhea of the mouth", is a very troubling thing indeed. So you can understand why when Lauren drove to visit me today my left arm went numb and I was pretty sure "the big one" was sure to strike. You hear that, Elizabeth? I'm comin' to join you.