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In my long absence much has been happening. Where to begin? A recent revelation of mine is that I'm Alice, and I've stepped into the rabbit hole. Since moving to LA, I had been using the analogy of falling off a cliff and much to my surprise I was still falling months later (and could argue I still am.) But recently I discovered that my picture of falling off of the cliff was landing on ground much the same as that which I earlier left. Not the case with this life (or any, really!?) Yes...a better analogy is that I stepped into a rabbit hole. I knew I was doing it. But perhaps I didn't know to the extent how my world would change. I'm beginning to feel like maybe I'm not falling any longer. But now there's the whole of Wonderland to discover...whatever will await!?! Whatever this adventure I'm in...it is good...strange, surprising, complex, trying, and stretching...but good.

Last week at my clinic job, I got a surprise. Not so much a surprise. I knew I was opening up a can of worms, and indeed I did. But it was a can that needed to be opened...it just wouldn't do to keep it sitting on the pantry shelf any longer. I'd always wondered what formal agreement we had with the school board - but surprisingly there seemed to be none. And any work myself or others before me did, they mostly just got ran around. Well...I finally found the right agency (they've only been in place for 2 years and evidently it takes about 5 years to institute anything across the entire large district!) So until they review ALL of the material I use in my education classes...ALL meaning slides, brochures, websites, activities, powerpoints - anything...until they review it all I'm not really supposed to be teaching within any schools. This turns out to be *kind of* okay, since I had just finished my large highschool class. But it will put me down for the quarter - which means there's going to be 4-5 junior high classes wanting to crowd into the last quarter of the school year.

Part of me is excited for a change of pace - the other part both dreads the enormous amount of work to round up all my material and make it absolutely *presentable* to a school board (I often make things somewhat on the fly and fail to include proper references and what not.) And I also recognize that because of this some things may change at work. Maybe not, but maybe so. I'm also partly excited for the challenge and the chance to kind of "prove" myself so-to-say and all the extra effort I put into my job. Last week I was completely on board. This week I kind of went into system shut-down.

What else? My car is nearing completion...I'm not sure if that means 1 week, 2 weeks, or a month!? I did get the seats finished and in (well...not completely IN, but done). Looks pretty sweet! She gets lots of comments at the shop! I had lots of fun last Saturday - talking to a few guys who were in for various reasons. One was a rockabilly guy - who told me about this rockabilly church they have...kinda weird, but strangely appealing to find my own *kind* (hotrodchurch.com) Another actually graduated the same year/same program from my Dad's college. Fun times working on and talking about cars. I like this little world of mine!

Other things that I've been up to.

• I should always have my camera with me...because on a regular basis, I see some fairly amazing sites. Like last Sunday there was both a stilted-tree man at the Hollywood Farmers Market and then before I got on the 101 there was a guy in a pinstripe suit with a hanging pocket chain and a fedora, riding a bicycle...maybe he had a Bible in hand too...but he definitely wasn't your run-of-the-mill looking church goer. Joys.
• A friend and I undertook a not-so-secret-anymore wheat-pasting experiment of sharing some love with the city. See example ----->
• My anti-trafficking group has finally arrived in my OWN neighborhood! I'm so excited and empassioned about this! I've been brewing about it all week. I got some materials translated into Spanish and am working on an educational "campaign" to reach this very vulnerable segment of people. We went out tonight and it was really good.
• AND...I did get to go to Vegas a few weekends back. It was the first ever Mission Year Team Reunion in Vegas! My old roomate Shannon happened to be in a horse-betting competition (that's right...there's such a thing...and it's a really big deal! the winner won $500,000!) that was in Vegas...and one by one 5 of the 7 roomies decided to show up there. We hadn't all been together since 2002...they're practically like family though. We had many good times...all 5 of us shared a swanky hotel room, sat around at the sports book, hiked at red rock canyon...kind of like my first ever vegas weekend!