Well, here I am one day before departure sitting in my empty house, as I have already moved everything out, save for the bare essentials (blankets and pillows, a few tea bags, pb&j, a few slices of bread, oh, and a plethora of beer and cider, of course!).  So I sit down to write my very first blog post, which is something I never saw coming. Not in a million years. I promise to do my best to keep whoever reads this at the very least, entertained enough to continue on to each line. Thanks for reading.
  
  So, today should be a day full of nerves, and mindless wanderings toward all the possibilities this trip has in store for me, but it's not! Not at all. Today is a joke. I often refer to myself as life's jester, or walking Murphy's Law. If someone is going to fall through societal cracks and further on down the rabbit hole of impossibilities, it will most certainly be me. I am thankful that at least to this point, I have come out of most situations relatively unscathed, and once given the time to process what has happened, I add the strange happenings to my list of improbable stories. Seriously, someone should consider doing a statistical analysis of my life.

  For example, did you know that I have fallen out of 2 roller coaster rides? I have also been so stuck in a roller coaster ride that the compartment I was in had to be disassembled to free me from its nasty clutches. One time my house burnt down. I have been in numerous car accidents (never my fault, for the record I am a very safe driver), the most exciting of which was when we hit a patch of black ice and rolled down a cliff, to then hitch hike a ride from the high mountains of Idaho, mid-winter. Have you ever known someone to get locked inside of a public restroom and have to have the cops get them out? You have, if you have ever met me! But these are all stories for another time. Let's focus!

  So, here's what's happening today.

  While ramping up for this crazy trip to New Zealand, which I have been waiting half of my life for (pre-Lord of the Rings, for the record. I cannot emphasize that enough), my passport and visa have been lost in the mail. I'm sorry, did i say "lost in the mail?" Yes, yes i did. What!!!? What year is this? Can that actually happen? Yes, apparently it can, and of course it happened to me.
  
  The gentleman who processed my visa is named Jose. We are on a first name basis now and he seems like the nicest man, and I am grateful for it. Well, we had a few snags in my visa for a second, concerning minor details that were quickly sorted out and I received confirmation that it had successfully processed last Monday (the 14th), and we had sent a FedEx envelope for the return mail set as next day shipping. So you can imagine my concern when it hadn't arrived one week later.

  Details of what actually happened are still under investigation, and detective Mom is on the case. My mother is amazing, you will hear me say this often. She has been steadily on the phone the last 24 hours with both Jose and Fedex. My visa has quite literally disappeared. Fedex has no record of ever picking it up, and Jose has a solid memory of taking it down to its drop point. PS Jose's memory is phenomenal, when I told him my name and issues over the phone he remembered who I was and that he had personally processed it, and said that he was excited for my art project. Rad! Thanks Jose!
  
  So, there you have it. Falling through the cracks again. Let me be quite clear about one thing, while this blog post is both calm, and gathered, know that I did have quite the freak out yesterday morning. Tears abound. I threw myself a pity party, and boy I had quite the time! Thanks to my sister for the massage to calm the headache that I had already woken up with that had increased drastically, and for my mother, the super glue to my life.
   
  Last December I had written something I hold to be very true:

I have accepted that I am fallable, I am breakable, and there is a tiny hairline fracture that, some days, runs the course of my entire being. Today, my friends and family were all the kings horses and all the kings men, who through their thoughtfulness and presence brought me out of a dark place I fell into, and put me back together again. On the days it feels like part of your heart is missing, if you're lucky enough, someone will show up with a flashlight to at least help you find what it is you have lost. To all the steady beams of light in my life, thank you.

Soon!