It's absolutely gorgeous in Portland in the spring, and the blue sky and flowers everywhere make the world seem limitless. I want to work in a nursery again--it's impossible to be sad. It can be boring, but it's impossible to be sad.

Erin and I had some excellent break days--bus hopping, clothes shopping (!), and yarn-groping across northeast, and going to our usual haunts in southwest. Like everyone else, we want a little house on the east side with a garden and clever kitchen implements and hippie neighbors. The general consensus is that no one will hire anyone else right now.

I don't think I want to leave. I want to immerse myself in the green and the sunshine and never be cold in decreasing daylight again. Maybe three autumns in a row was a bad plan. If I could just run a small house and garden with an unlimited budget, that would be my heaven right now.

So nervous about JET. I know my app made it to Tokyo, but things could still go wrong. (Please don't). What if I'm an alternate, or rejected? There's nothing in Portland but other people who really, really want to be here. I think I might want to become a social studies teacher after JET. Teach world history, civics, maybe other social sciences if I'm lucky.

I want a prolonged sunbreak in the weather of my life, just because the clouds have sucked so much.