Perfect strangers really are perfect.

One of the greatest things that I have learned while traveling this beautiful world is that you have to trust people.  I have trusted complete strangers with my life in many strange situations; I've never been let down.  I've found that people are inherently good.  

I let a man lead me into a sandcastle oasis in the middle of the Sahara desert with no grasp of the French language for survival.  We had the best dinner and accommodations that night at a fair price.  

I let a nice Dutch woman drive me into the middle-of-nowhere Burgundy, only to be dropped off at a goat cheese farm. The following day was the best day of my life.

People are good.  But why is it that perfect strangers can be so helpful, caring ,and respectful, but people you care about disappoint.  Trust means enabling other people to take advantage of your vulnerabilities- but expecting that they will not do this.  And the only people to have crossed this line have been two people that I've really cared about.

It's a disappointment.

It hurts me to think that I can trust complete strangers more than people I know.  

Birds of a feather

El gato tiene una risa muy contagiosa

My friend dropped his newly-purchased eggs as he walked into his apartment only to find that his new quart of milk had gone bad because his electricity had been turned off.  The money he'd been saving up to finally pay off his credit cards is now going to turn his lights back on.  His car broke down last week.  His friends all turned him down when he needed to borrow a car today to drive to a gig.

He called me and we had a good laugh.

Sometimes, times are rough.

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I've found though that as one door closes another opens.  All those open doors aren't meant to be walked through, but it provides a possibility to reassess if you're at the right house, so to speak.  So, even if you don't walk over that threshold, there's still much to be gained.

Puppy love

I've never been one to relate to animals.  I don't particularly love them.  Don't get me wrong, baby anythings are adorable.  Only a despicable person wouldn't find a baby bunny or puppy cute.  However, today Stan (my sister's dog) and I had a moment where we found ourselves on the same page.  I glanced over at him while exiting my room to run upstairs to grab some polish remover.  He had his jaws clenched on his "stress-relieving" stuffed beagle who laid lifeless between his teeth.  Stan looked unfulfilled and underwhelmed at best.  I just said to him, "Stan, I know how you feel."

On second thought, maybe I should have said, "little stuffed beagle, I know how you feel".

The plunge.

Sometimes I wish answers were as easy as shaking a magic eight ball.  Is flipping a coin putting too much stock in fate?  People keep telling me to go with my gut, but my gut feels like a sandstorm.  What the fuck does that mean?

Ultimately, it's not that big of a deal.  It's ten months away from my family (not friends, since I haven't been around them much anyway) again.  Ten months living in a shitty apartment with no friends.  Ten more months of not being in a romantic relationship.  Ten more months of being poor.  Ten months with bugs, scarce water, and the same raggedy clothes.  Ten more months before "settling down" in America. Ten months of dust or mud.

But ten months of learning a new culture.  Ten months of great job training.  Ten months of sun.  Ten months to test myself again.  Ten months of meeting new people.  Ten months not being in Detroit.

Ughhh.  Who knows how to read tea leaves?