For some reason, the realization that writing today won't flip my journal into a new month, while writing tomorrow would, has served as incentive for me to write now.

I'm tired.

Tired from moving heavy baskets and boxes of flowers; today, I weeded and filled a couple of dozen hanging baskets with geraniums and petunias. I taught myself to hang them up again before watering them in, for the benefit of both my back and my sleeves (the one getting tired, the other getting wet! from the dripping masses of earth).
Kathie said "I forget you're strong" when I moved a door/tabletop across the yard rather than leave it out-of-place; I think she's remembered again. I'm nominated for jobs involving moving heavy things quickly. I like being strong ... but the bits of me being strengthened sometimes resent the process.

Tired from being in an in-between social situation, where most of the people around me are of a different age and/or nationality, which makes it more challanging to gage reactions and act tactfully. Perspective: I'm getting some of the exposure I wanted, to people who think differently from me. I do tend to play devils-advocate in any case. It was more relaxing to be among like-minded people, though.

Tired from being in an in-between life/career situation, where the simplest of questions becomes complex:

"How long are you here?"
(Here in Winton? Until the flowers stop coming in, whenever that is ... next week? next month? it depends on the weather, and the Dutch owners, and the markets, and my fellow slackers I mean packers...
Here in Southland? As long as I'm gainfuly or purposefully employed; I've had offers of volunteer/homestay, but also need to replenish my bank account from my month of carefree tourism ...
in New Zealand? Well, I have a plane ticket in April, in time for a wedding that already happened last August; I have a work visa that is good through September '05; I have to find work, and staying longer means I can apply for more jobs but would go more broke in the dead of winter if I don't get them... The amount of money I need to earn, and thus how long I stay, also depends on where I go after New Zealand, which I really haven't decided yet ... but my dreams are exorbitant.)

"What do you do at home?"
(Well, there was the job I was working, which is less relevant now that I've quit; there is the family I've been visiting, in several towns; there is the ongoing struggle to decide what to do next...
I have no idea what I will do when I return home again, except that it will almost certainly involve work of some kind and relationships of other kinds.)

"You do think things through, don't you?"
Well, sometimes not all the way ...

;-)