The Post I Should've Written Months Ago.

I've been sitting on these plans for over a year now.  Got so comfortable with 'em under my bum that it feels weird to have 'em hatch and walk away chirping.  But here they are (peep! peep!):

I quit my job. I'm still working, but my contract's up the end of June, and I'm not renewing it, and my employer knows that.

End of July, I'm leaving town. Renting the house out.  Gonna travel the country by car and bus and train.  Gonna visit some intentional communities (housing co-ops, ecovillages, organic farms, monasteries, boats) and see how people live there.  Gonna have some adventures.  Gonna write about my adventures.

I'd like the adventure-writing to eventually take the form of a book-shaped manuscript, and with a view to promoting such a manuscript, I'll be starting a second, more professional-looking blog in which to record said adventures.*  I don't particularly want to conglomerate everything I've written here and the persona I'll be promoting there, so this one will remain distinct, scruffy and personal (and irregularly updated).  For friends and e-stalkers only.

I have the roughest of timelines in mind: wandering the West Coast for the first several months, then heading eastward; visiting some places briefly, staying in others for a month or so to get something of a feel for life there.  I envision the whole walkabout as lasting maybe two years.  But it's all very flexible.  I'm entirely willing to get sidetracked by interesting possibilities, and if I get sidetracked by less-interesting necessities, well, that is also an acceptable outcome.  And if the book part doesn't happen, that's okay too.  At least I'll have had some interesting adventures.  Which is really the point.  Or one of the points.

(peep!)

So I've been pretty busy lately, working out details of these plans, and also doing the apparently interminable work of downsizing, and also still working full-time and trying to take good care of myself and get in quality time with local friends while I still can.  It feels like I'm trying to live in the future and the past and the present all at the same time, and giving all of them short shrift.  That's what I've been up to, and it's also my excuse for not writing about this sooner, now that my employer knows and there's no reason to keep it under feathers anymore.

* I've been experiencing some inauspicious writer's block in coming up with a name for this travel blog, or even for the project as a whole. Your suggestions are welcomed.