It has been 1 Year of Miss B!

Today is my blogversary. That’s right people, its been one year of “The World According to Miss B”. I’m glad that I’ve been able to consistently make posts for an entire year. It makes me feel like I’m charting a path for my life.

Mentally, I’ve left Africa and am moving forward to China. Eric has been looking at apartments in Shen Zhen online and it is looking like we can get something really fabulous for $1,000 bucks a month. When I say fabulous, I’m not kidding. The best one he found yesterday was a penthouse apartment on the 25th floor, with six bedrooms, two bathrooms, ocean view and fully furnished. Yeah, I think I can handle all of that (though I’m not sure what we’d do with a six bedroom apartment…) He also found some kind of night club site with pictures of beautiful Asian girls in hip little outfits dancing themselves silly in Shen Zhen. I think I might have to deal with some insecurities, they are all so tiny! But I'll get to bring all my fun clothes. Jessica told me that when she traveled she didn’t miss any of the things she’d left in boxes at home. I really do. I miss my clothes, my baubles and my art. I’ve missed them madly, to the extent that I’ve dreamt of interacting with all my pretty things. I’m a materialist, but I suppose this is just something I have to accept about myself. If Africa didn’t change that then nothing will. Linda says I’m going to buy boatloads of things in China too. There will be a lot of luggage to get home from the airport.

So, we’re gearing up to leave. After we get some exporters on camera, I think all that remains are some E.U importers and environmental activists and then some activists, academics and scientists back in the U.S. I’m ready for a change of scene, but I’m realizing that even going back to the U.S won’t exactly be going home. I haven’t got a home in the U.S now, and won’t until E and I are ready to settle down for real.

I ’m having this fantasy lately of renting some gargantuan car when we get to D.C and putting in an air mattress and our lovely sheets and a big blanket and pillows and sleeping in parking lots and washing our hair in the sinks of gas stations and toting along a picnic basket of food and a little duffel bag of clothes. When I told Eric about it, he looked at me like I’d suddenly grown horns and said, “You know, you wouldn’t actually like that, right?” At least one of us knows that.