Hitchhikers Guide to a Happy Life

I don't really have any answers about happiness or life. I have decided though that we are going to hitchhike to Alaska. Or as close to Alaska as we can get. We haven't got passports, so I know we have to fly up to Anchorage from Seattle.
I'm posting it here so I have to hold myself to it. Or at least attempt to. I haven't made any solid plans as of yet what route we are going to attempt to take. If we leave in the Summer we will probably take a Northern route and if we leave in the fall a Southern route. It all depends on how much money I can put together and how fast.
I really want to see if we can make any stretch of the way without using any money.

All The Words Are Wonderful

I taught myself how to read when I was very young. Before I even started school. My favorite thing to read was the thesaurus because I liked to just see words. I also regularly read the dictionary, every volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica 1984 Edition, and every issue of National Geographic in our house. I started walking all the way across town by myself when I was 9 to read National Geographic when I found out they got new issues there every month at the library.
Even though I could read I was held back in Kindergarten because they said I didn't know my alphabet and that I didn't get along with other children. I didn't bother mentioning that I knew all of my alphabet and knew how to read. I just didn't like being asked questions because no one ever listened to me anyways. When I was 4 1/2 my father told me I talked to much when I was trying to tell him about the tribes in Brazil. I know I should not be so sensitive, but since then I still do not share things that I know with people unless they ask very specifically.
The school didn't realize that I knew more than they thought I did until we started taking written tests. At which point I was put into advanced classes. I didn't like them, because children at school called me a nerd and beat me up, also my best friend Kendra was not in those classes. So I found out what level average children were at and made sure I got enough answers wrong to be put back into only regular classes.
This only worked until junior high. In 7th grade a teacher figured out my system and asked me to take a test which showed that my reading level was 13+ and my I.Q. was higher then average, but I prefer not to discuss. She agreed not to tell anyone and allow me to stay in core classes with my best friend if I agreed to start taking AP science classes and privately take college level classes. I like school very much, I just don't like having to work with people.

The Layers

Sometimes I look back at who I was, maybe more resolutely, the people I use to be and I wonder who I will be tomorrow.

Once upon a time I use to be a girl who stood a-top large buildings launching paper planes. I was a girl who went to tremendous lengths to travel to places like the ocean, the redwoods or mountain tops to be totally engrossed by the idea of how small I actually am. 

Who am I right now? I don't know. To define myself would seem to put flight restrictions on the everything and nothing I yearn for. Today I am an androgynous being. That is very plainly content with simply existing, no matter the format. 

The only thing I will allow to be a definitive description of all of my selfs is the wanderer.

The Emptiness

He stood there, sun beating down on him, thinking about what he would have for dinner. Still not sure why he had ever wanted this job in the first place. The money was nice, the vacation time wonderful, great retirement benefits. There was just something very demeaning about being a president. Especially President of the United States. 

He stood in the pathway of what he had personally come to refer to as Valhalla Boulevard because he knew where these boys were going and that most of them wouldn't be coming back. His secretary handed him the speech cards as someone else straightened his tie before he went on stage. 

"Smile at camera one, then two, wave at the crowd, smile to my wife, begin speech. Smile, wave, shake one hand from stage facing camera one."

He muttered it a few times under his breath, then practiced his stage smile a few times before being summoned to the podium. This is it, he thought, I've spent my life being preened and primped to be a stage puppet for people to make jabs at. 

There was really nothing more to the job then to look pretty for cameras, reading speeches and signing bills written by God knows who. Everyone bustling about, taking commands, yet no one really knowing who is in charge. The ambiguous "they" that is everyone and no one all at once. Pointing fingers at this one man, the potential cause for the entire universe of human suffering. A mere jester, smiling for a camera as the emptiness swells up to consume him. 

His final thought before ascending to the spotlight, if they want change why isn't anyone taking action? 

Marbles In the Hall

I am a very visual thinker. 

I often times over think. 

When I need a break from my own thoughts I collect them and put them in jars. Every jar is different, every jar contains a memory or an idea. I put the jars in the halls and stair cases of this house I built in my mind just for things to think about later.
Randomly and out of my control marbles get spilled out in my mind. They roll through this house of jars and knock some over. Then I am somehow stuck swimming through a massive storm cloud of ideas. When that happens I can't concentrate on anything else except those things that got spilled out.
I have to swim into them, whirl around with this special bug net and catch them one by one. Then as gentle as possible coax them back into their jars. Then I go through the house and I pick up all the marbles and dump them into the sea. Where I imagine they roll around disturbing fish and mythical creatures with intimidating glowing eyes.
I'm still not sure where those marbles come from. I don't think I ever imagined them into my world of ideas. They just showed up one day.

Argus

With nowhere else to start, I guess I will begin with this.

I have a strange unexplainable obsession with the word Argus. As in Argus Panoptes, the mythical creature with 100 eyes. Occasionally I catch myself saying it over and over in my head for no reason other then to mentally hear it.

Other than saying it in my mind I don't like to hear it. That isn't something I really have to worry about though since people don't just go around using the word Argus.