Editing the last pages of part one...

It's a TWENTY-FUCKING-SEVEN A4 page dialogue between Kay and Murphy I've been wrangling for these past few days now, throwing out MOST of witty banter and inserting some Thomas Aquinas level philosophy shit on responsibility and allowing yourself to joy and grief in equal balance. The purpose of their conversation is to strip him of his madness and make him want to survive and to solidify Kay’s talents into something that won’t drive the reader crazy, as she seems to slide in an out of realms and wakefulness like a crazy person. He points this out, praising she exists in three parallel storylines and refuses to get her feet dirty in a single one. The next phase of the editing is adding her diminishing stutter and coining his wording as if he was from Macbeth.  He talks like this, namely:

Instead of: “Don’t argue, I’m trying to help.”

He’ll say: “Bout none defensive, I offer art!”

Yeah. Fun times.

:D I would never!!

You know you’ve hit high marks sanity standards when you forget to erase your browser history and your husband finds all kinds of “forbidden” shit you are not supposed to be using the internet for:

-          DIY raincoat for you and your backpack duct tape rims

-          hiking the appalachian trail – is it better northbound or southbound

-          which tent 1 person ultralight

-          dachshund

-          miniature dachshund

-          miniature dachshund smooth

-          miniature dachshund smooth puppy free no papers

-          hiking shoes – are good sandals better than bad ankle boots?

-          making fire in wilderness

-          miniature dachshund smooth puppy eBay

-          water filters thru hikers

-          fishing with dental floss

-          birds of north america

-          bear pepper spray

You are so beautiful, (like) tall grasses, plum trees.

Speak in my voice hereon

And no-one will ever question ye.

Mophei tries to cure Kay's stutter, which she developed through emotional trauma. But Kay likes herself flawed and prefers herself - by now - dragging many crosses. Later he inadvertently fixes her eye and by the last chapter, Kay loses the stutter almost entirely. You can just tell, by her dialogue with Snufkin in the last page, that she's going to get herself in trouble in no time, as soon as you close the book.

Beneath the courage, beneath the act, beneath the dispersed sense of timelessness and weightlessness, beneath the yearning for the roads and stories not yet harvested, beneath the need to move, there is comfort and warmth with the density of a dying star. If I do not escape its gravity now, time will run out and I will don a settler's base.

Been a weird few days in my town. This is not a place where you’re supposed to worry about being out at night. There didn’t used to be random crime just happening. The General gets nervous if I wander after nightfall and prohibits me at all to come all the way to his workplace unless it’s early. There are a lot of clocked doors in my life ATM. It’s just the mood the world’s in. A woman went off her rails and slashed tires on something like 130 cars right here, right where I live. A guy tried to rob a train station teller and robbed a hotel clerk for pocket change at gunpoint. Whether or not it was a real gun I don’t know, but this sort of shit didn’t used to happen. You could go into the park, into the woods, walk to the movie theatre outside the town at any hour …

I was watching videos about a girl who hiked the Appalachian Trail and she answered questions people asked her about it… One of those was a question ‘do I need a gun on the trail?…’ Not a rifle, as if against wolves and bears, but a handgun, for protection. It would not occur to anyone around here to ever carry a gun for protection – protection from what? There didn’t used to be situations in which a normal person would require to carry a weapon. The knife I wear is usually for cleaning mushroom or cutting apples in half and opening cans of dog food..

Whether the world has changed or whether I have changed, I didn’t used to be the person to worry about bad stuff happening – staying inside, enjoying indoors, putting a stopper on plans of the wild adventure.

Odd feeling. I don’t like it.