Home, Maine.

Returning home from school this summer I was instantly greeted by the familiar broken landscape of Maine. I had just managed to figure out my first summer job (later I picked up another,) and had a few weeks to rest after a somewhat stressful spring semester.

One of the things I have been dealing with the most recently, and will have to continue to deal with, is my stomach. It's been somewhat of an obsession, but constant mild pain in my stomach is really hard to divert my attention from. After trying out a series of different drugs for my stomach I have settled on one, but I also have to manage my stress to feel relatively normal. It has been a big part of my life for the last 8 months or so, and it finally seems to be getting out of the way of daily function --kind of. Without talking about it too much, my stomach is definitely bad partially to blame from being sick in Asia so much, and partially it's where my body decides to direct stress, it has been an interesting way of getting in touch with myself.

But back to summer, I unpacked:

It's good to be back.

I think I'm recovering.

Seeing, pace of life. 

5 days with Zoë

Day 0.5: Thursday

At 10:30pm I picked Zoë up at bus station in Oneonta. I also finished my first reasonable teapot in the studio.

Day 1: Friday


In the morning we woke up late, I managed to get into school just in time for a round table. We discussed whether the future of technology and the environment. I advised against putting any hope into developing technology that will "save us" from the current energy and environmental issues.


I gifted Zoë this mug as an early birthday present.




We left school and stopped by the grocery store to grab a few things, we had dinner with Erin, Monica, Barely, and Emily. Barely (below) was adorable as usual.

Day 2: Saturday

Drank abnormal amounts of coffee. Shannon, Zoë, and I left at 8am drove two hours to Corning Glass Museum. We watched several live glass blowing demonstrations and observed both the history and art of glass.

From there, I went to wood-fired kiln at the community college and Zoë and Shannon split off to check out what was in town. At the community college we fired the smaller of the two kilns. Below is a view into a porthole on one side of the kiln.

There was also cracks between many of the bricks that allowed us to peek into the kiln to see what was happening. I am particularly excited because I had pieces all over the kiln, meaning I will have a huge variety of results.

Later when I met up with Zoë and Shannon again I found out they went to historic downtown and the airport to check out gliders (Shannon's obsession.) At the airport it had seemed the military had taken over the museum and gliders, Shannon said the hangers were full of military helicopters. Eventually, we went out to dinner with the ceramics crowd, then took the long drive home. 

Once home Zoë and I watched a chinese film called "King of Beggars" which offered a fantastic perception of Chinese humor, exhausted we fell asleep before it ended.

Day 3: Sunday

We woke up and headed to campus...

I unloaded the kiln and Zoë threw her first bowl!

We went back, did work, made indian food, and enjoyed the sauna.

Day 4: Monday

Early in the morning (10:45am) we headed out to class at school. Zoë joined my Buddhism class, which turned out Sandy was teaching the basics of meditation, a nice refresher for all of us. We went into town and got some questionable pizza for lunch then I had to go to my raw materials course and learning about the interaction of water and clay particles.

That night Alyssa and Elliot came over. We made/ate an absurd amount of Indian food and drank wine out of some funky cups I made.









Day 5: Tuesday

Tuesday had a gloom. Zoë managed to pack up and we headed to South Asian studies where my professer revealed thirty years of his work in Sri Lanka in a handfull of photos, it was really amazing. I think Zoë enjoyed it too. After I we had lunch and I put Zoë on the bus, it was an extra sad goodbye this time for some reason...

She is off to India...

Zoë visited me for a bit before she left for India today. During her stay we did the usual: cook awesome food, drink a lot of coffee, sauna, wander, and she even painted on some of my ceramics (coming soon.) Below is the night we made Japanese food, it was amazing, and the third setting was for our friend Anthony. 

 

We had to go to a few favorite places, including the Yellow Deli. You should see their awesome bus and ship!

 

And the Autumn Cafe...

Jenna dyed Zoë's hair, and a pakistani girl at school thought she was indian when she wore her salwar kameez.

We drank tea by the lake while we waited for the sauna to get hot.

 

And now she is off to India...

You can follow Zoë's adventures on her blog.

terrible coffee

we had some spare time at the farm to give you an important message: