september 10, 2000. Lazy Sunday. Mmm. Even though it kind of sucks to have nothing to do on a Saturday night, it's still nice to wake up early on Sunday morning and not having to rush the morning. We went to the local United Church today. It's a gorgeous little space, full of old dark wood and stained glass. The minister did her undergrad at Acadia and she speaks in a quiet feminine murmur that belies her message of active social justice. As the Boy said on the way out, it was some good church. We spent the next two hours in the library, jacked into the electronic womb long past a sensible time to go home for lunch. I still haven't gotten my fill; I still don't feel caught up. Odd; when I had easy access, I was often bored with the whole thing. How perverse am I? How perverse do you want me to be? I've been thinking about pioneer journeys a lot lately. We've got it pretty easy these days. If we travel across the country, we can do it in big machines that cushion us from the physical stress of the road and the psychic stress of moving beyond our accustomed grazing grounds. When we get to our new place, there are lots of ways to touch the people we've left behind and most of them are instant. There are new people to meet, new stores to shop at, likely a home already built for us. Infastructure, you know. Someone else's groundwork. I think about the Ingallses crossing the states in a wooden wagon, knowing that they had to do it themselves or starve. I think of making a log cabin with your wife and what you'd do with just one able-bodied male friend. I think about posting a letter as soon as you arrived, knowing that it'll take 3 months to get there and another three months before you hear back. Half a year! Your parents might be dead and you'd never know. You might die if you ate the wrong plant and no one would properly mourn you for months. Imagine the kind of self-confidence it would take to push to the farthest edges of what you consider civilization, knowing that your wits & those of your partner are the only things standing between you and death. It's a very humbling thing. It makes me ashamed for missing nightclubs & greasy spoons, familiar faces & a reason to drink beer when I have a husband, a house, a grocery store and a long distance plan that allows unlimited evenings & weekends.