4:30 am. the secret code.

Everyone sleeps between 4 and 430 am: the birds, the bugs and salamanders, the raccoons, the skunks and cats. Most people are at home asleep, which means the homeless finally find peace in an entryway or on a park bench. This is the sliver of time during which I wander to work. The streets are asleep. The moon and stars settle into their dawn alignments, the air is crisp and quiet. You remember to breath, and marvel at the fact that you can see your breath.

Somehow every being knows that this is a time for sleep. Somehow every being knows this is a special time if you are awake to experience it. I wander through the streets with a calm disregard for sidewalks, signs, turn lanes, and crosswalks. I pay attention to the sounds you miss when they are obscured by the bustle of awakening.

If you do happen to encounter another person at this time there is an unspoken code: a smile and nod, gestures to the sky, a shared sense of wonder about the world, and a curiosity about the others' reason for being awake at this sleeping hour.

Suburbia of fork land

I browsed isle after isle, store after store in search of the perfect pack of forks. I found sets of fancy dinnerware. I found super-package mania boasting brand names and designers and designs for all times of the year, for all occasions. All the forks and knives and spoons and serving spoons and giant forks and dinner forks and dessert spoons one could ever want, and they all matched. It was so boring I wondered why anyone would buy them. What I didn't find was the everyday set with a little bit of character; the kind that wouldn't mind if they were used for a mud pie or two, the kind that would be appreciated by the type of people I appreciate. Then I realized they don't sell those. So I gave up my search for forks.

That same day I was wandering the town looking for a recycled building materials place for scrap wood to build a new bed frame. They were closed, but right next door was the best second hand store I've seen in a while. It was packed quite literally to the brim. Chairs and tables and lamps and Christmas decorations and old stoves were spilling out the entrance onto the astroturf lawn. It was every child's dream. It was one giant fort! There were pathways eighteen inches wide that meandered their way through the desks and shelves and armoires stacked ceiling high. I imagined that if you wanted to even look at something towards the walls, you would have to ask them to unbury it and wait a few weeks. I looked for furniture or doors with wood pieces big enough to carve a platform bed out of, but mostly admired the collection that would surely never be sold in its entirety. Then it hit me. FORKS!

It took me a good 20 minutes to find the correct path that lead me to the silverware section. I then began my search for forks worthy of a fork collection. I chose forks with character, forks with weight, silver forks, funky forks, crab forks, a set of fancy 1970's sporks, a fork with a wooden handle, ones with daisies and ones with roses. I chose small forks and big forks and heavy forks and light forks, simple forks and ornate ones too. I began to think of all the forks in all the thrift stores around the world. All the metal, all the basic mechanical tools just waiting in boxes or silverware trays, waiting for us to run out of new metal. Waiting for us to figure out that they are so much more interesting than the forks in the fancy stores. I wonder what they do at night, I wonder what they think about?

I wonder why I think about what forks in thrift stores do at night? Maybe I should find a job soon.

for the sake of sanity

I'm not proud of what I just turned in, but I'm proud of myself for letting go. I've always been a chronic worrier; someone who would not stop working until it was perfect. I would make myself sick over school, work, life, if I did not do something to my standards. One of my goals for graduate school was to be there for the right reasons, to recognize when I was learning something and when I was jumping through hoops. I didn't expect my lower standards to be applied to my master's project, but alas, it had to be done. And I was feeling it in my body. So, for the sake of sanity, I printed my final draft of my project and sent it to the department this morning. I am officially done.