my sleep has been fitful the past few days. this morning i awoke from a really intense dream. i can't remember it, but i also can't shake the feeling of being in the middle of it.

i've been down here for a week now, i think, in miami. well, really in homestead. the redlands... i'm on this one acre tropical fruit tree forest, basically. right now there are avocados, bananas, and starfruit (carambolas) to eat off the tree. there were also tree strawberries, also called cotton candy berries, but they're gone because we trimmed the tree. they taste nutty and buttery and sweet at one time.

besides the fruit growing on the acre, there's plenty around this area. i have tried, and fallen in love with, so many fruits is didn't know existed before... mamey tastes like pumpkin pie, and cinnamon apples- well, taste like that... jackfruit is crazy looking and tastes buttery and fruity- i heard its the flavor they went for with juicy fruit gum. hog plums are amazing, like tangy custard. sapote, like marzipan. i want to build a glass house up north to grow these things in. but no papaya. i can't stand papaya.

last week i went to the beach in miami. i wanted to live an alternate ending, be a tall, tan, blonde bartender in a fancy little pastel building who goes jogging every morning and spends all day at the beach, or lounging poolside, reading gossip magazines. later, wearing perfume and serving european tourists fancy cocktails in this art deco paradise. this fantasy makes me feel like i have when i traveled in countries where i didn't speak the language. like an outsider who could write my way into a new story, perhaps.

today i cut banana leaves that were casting too much shade over other trees. i wasn't doing a great job of it. they're so huge and high up and i was feeling kind of dizzy all day today. i've been planting vegetable seeds. doing a lot of moving dirt and mulch around. so much weeding. philodendron grow all over the property. they get so huge- i didn't know philadendron leaves could get so big, like bigger than my head. maybe twice the size. they're such innocent looking house plants. what else? yesterday i helped take a diseased tree down with an electric chainsaw. and get the stump and roots out. i took some banana tree root stumps out, too. i got to work out my inner aggression on that. its fun to get angry during such tasks, heaving a huge pick in the air and slamming it down into the earth. it feels weird and awesome.

yesterday i learned about tree propagation. it was really interesting. i didn't really know what grafting meant, but its like magic. basically, exposing the flesh of one tree to another by attaching a branch to a sapling, and then it grows and fruits through the grafted branch so you get the right amount of delicious in the fruit... i didnt know that fruit trees don't necessarily grow true to their seed- like an orange tree planted from a seed of an orange will grow sour oranges.... so you have to graft good types to the sour tree seedling to get the good fruit. crazy. also it is possible to graft braches of more than one tree and have different types of oranges grow on the same tree... crazy. air layering is also a magical thing. but i'm too tired and unfocused to talk about it.

i'm so sleepy. i have a lot of sinus pressure.

most likely, i am going to stop traveling soon. i'm running out of money and i'm kind of bored of it in a way. bored of traveling alone and also of not really getting the learning experience i was imagining. i think after chicago (next week!!!) i'll stay with my folks and figure some things out, like what to do next. i definitely want to apply for internships at biodynamic farms and i've been thinking of looking for a job somewhere in the meantime (i guess in southern california or florida where winter is not dormant) on a farm that also produces packaged food, just to see how that goes, and to not hang out in the winter... but i don't know yet. i love the weather here.

anyway. that's whats up.