Journal

four days to full
july 31, 2001 ~ 5:43 p.m.

Fired.

Well, laid off, actually, because business has been so slow lately. And I have to admit that I'm partially relieved because I really hated that job, but of course I need the money. It doesn't really even matter much anyway, since I'm leaving for school in a few weeks, but it would have been nice to be able to work the rest of that time.

I went on another backpacking trip this past weekend, in preparation for the five day orientation I'm doing at school. It was fun while it wasn't raining, and I got to test my new boots (vegan ones I got at Pangea) and my new sleeping bag and raincoat. We got out of there just in time, too, because the second we arrived back at the car the sky really let loose, and then we heard on the radio that there were flood warnings all over West Virginia. The next day the lead story on the national news was the flooding. At least one person has died.

It was weird being there at Spruce Knob again because it was all exactly like I remember it from the time we went there when I was a kid, a trip where I got an ear infection and we left early to take me to the hospital. When we got back to the car we realized the battery had died because we'd left the lights on the whole weekend, so we had to wait for someone to stop and jump start the engine.

Today I went on a walk in Rock Creek Park with my camera in an attempt to finish the roll, and on my way back, I went around a curve and found myself face to face with a deer. I think I felt it before I saw it. I stopped and watched it for a moment as it continued grazing, then slowly unzipped my bag and pulled out my camera. Before I could get a good shot, it began moving back further into the forest. After following it a moment, watching it graze, I noticed some movement beyond and saw another deer, then realized that this one had antlers, which was really amazing because you hardly ever see bucks in Rock Creek Park, or really anywhere for that matter, it's almost always does. Then, two more deer appeared, and both of them were bucks, too. I was so enchanted that I watched the four of them grazing for at least a half hour, following them as they moved through the forest. I'm sure they knew I was there because every once in a while one of them would lift its elegant head to look at me with dark eyes as it chewed its food, but they didn't seem to mind my being there, even as my camera loudly snapped each picture and the flash went off. Eventually I ran out of pictures and they moved away, so I returned to the path I'd been following before.

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