update.

I miss writing.  I've hit one of those spells where my words sound hollow.  It's not so much as writer's block, because I hardly feel as though I ever suffer from that since I am forced to write daily for my job, but it's more of an emotion block.  My words feel empty.  They lack heart.  It's probably because I'm happy, and when I'm happy, I'm more likely to live and less likely to write about living.

Anyhow.  I have an obsessive personality.  I obsess over things for a small period of time, until I get what I want.  I'm fairly sure this trait of mine has enabled me to be "successful," because I can't stop thinking about things until I have them, until they're mine mine mine.  Right now, I'm obsessing over buying a house.  I was thinking about how much I like our one-bedroom apartment, especially since we spent the weekend cleaning and organizing it, but still, I want a large space that I can actually decorate without concern that I'll have to change everything back to white later on. 

Daniel says people have to save for yearssssss for a house and that I'm crazy for wanting one so soon.  He says I need to adjust my expectations and prepare for a lengthy wait.  I tell him he doesn't know me at all.

miso soup.

I love it when I come home from the gym, sweaty, and he hugs and kisses me and tells me I smell like miso soup.

sleep.

I rolled over to him and gently grabbed his shoulders, shaking them slightly.  "Wake up," I said, "please wake up."  Still very much asleep, he grumbled, "What's wrong?" "Nothing's wrong," I said, "but I just need you to hold me.  It's one of those nights.  Please hold me."  Slowly I saw my words register in his mind and he stretched out his arm, his opening move to begin his attempt to appease me.  But we didn't fit.  No matter how we tried, how we twisted and turned, what is normally easy and effortless and innate for us -- that night was impossible.  Each position was uncomfortable.  We both knew it.  Still, he kept trying.  I didn't want him to stop trying, but I knew that if either of us were to have any sleep that night, I would have to give up my request.  "It's not working," I said, "but thanks."  Then I rolled to my side of the bed.

But I didn't sleep.

More and more these days, a comfortable sleep is becoming difficult to obtain.  Some people may prefer to be apart when sleeping, but not me. I dislike it.  I hate feeling as though I am sleeping alone when I'm not.  If I wanted that, I would sleep alone.  What weighs on me more is the fact that we weren't always like this.

We used to sleep tangled in each other, a morass of twisted limbs.  I used to sleep however the hell I wanted, typically with half my legs on him, half on whatever else I wanted.  I would find myself not only breathing air, but his skin, with each inhale -- my face was so often closely pressed somewhere against his body.  It's hardly like that these days.  Our current ritual is to say good night then roll to our respective sides of the bed, backs to each other.  And when we are deep in our sleep, we start to become more like foes than friends.  The battle for the blanket ensues, my efforts to snuggle are rebuffed, and there are moments when I get so annoyed by how he sleeps that I have to elbow him (in the back, no less!) just to get his attention, to tell him to stop twitching, or to move back to his side of the bed, or to get off the blanket so that I can use it, too.  It drives me crazy.

Things have gotten worse.  Now he voluntarily sleeps on the couch some nights, and other nights, I do.  I don't even know why, not really, except sometimes it seems as though we simply can't stand to share the same air with one another.  It's uncomfortable.   Most days nowadays, the only nights that are really great are the ones where I forget that I used to prefer sleeping beside him.  

I miss him, immensely.  I miss us even more.   But I feel trapped in that terrible place where you realize that you can't turn back, but you don't know how to move forward, either.  A little bit stuck, hoping for strength, patience, and love to help you figure it out.   

Anyhow.  I'm tired.  I just want to sleep the way we used to.

Digital Perm - First Time

I thought I'd write about my experience getting a digital perm since my internet research thus far on this topic has brought up such scant results.  Actually, this is my very first perm - ever - so I don't even know what the difference is between a traditional perm and a digital perm.  My best guess is that a digital perm has the capability to heat up the rollers due to the metal rod that is in the middle of each roller.  But as for the actual chemicals used and yada yada yada - I have no idea. 

I went to a local Korean salon and my stylist - Vicky - spoke enough English to communicate with me, but not enough for us to talk about the particulars.  Since I have super-straight and fine hair that, traditionally, can't hold a curl for longer than an hour or so, I was skeptical about any perm having the capability to give me the wavy tresses I've long desired.  Rather than spending a lot of money at the more expensive salons, I opted to try Vicky out.  The digital perm was $120, plus she gave me a bottle of oil (a relaxer, perhaps?) at the end.

I brought some pictures in with me to show Vicky what I wanted, but something tells me that no matter what I showed her, she was going to give me the same old digital perm she gives everyone else.  I suppose that's the problem with going to a more mom and pop type salon -- they lack a degree of polish and customer attentiveness that I'm accustomed to.  But, I didn't really care too much.  I didn't really have high expectations; rather, I was just praying that I wouldn't leave with a frizzy, pubic-looking, mess on my head.  Wish granted.  :)

I don't really recall the exact steps Vicky took, but I do remember being shuffled back and forth between the chair and the room with glowing red lights. . . I presume that room contained heat that would activate the chemicals in my hair.  Vicky seemed to use the same sized rollers across my head, but perhaps that was because my hair is only one length with no layers.  After she was done putting my hair in rollers, she pulled this archaic and somewhat alienesque-looking machine with a bunch of cords attached to it - each cord, of course, attached to a roller on my head.  The next thing I knew, I looked like this, felt heat, and saw steam coming from my head.  Scary!

And then I just did a whole lot of sitting.  The whole process probably took between 2-3 hours, and I wasn't attached to the digital machine for very long at all.  After my hair was washed, the only thing Vicky did was show me how to blow-dry it: twist small strands in my hands as I blow dry and always scrunch the tips of my strands in a ball, pushing them upwards, to keep the curls bouncy.

You can compare the final result with my super-straight hair, shown here:

It has only been a few days, which means I don't know how this will look in a week or two.   But as of right now, I like it just fine.  I don't love it because it wasn't quite what I wanted, but I'm okay with the results.  My one piece of advice is that for anyone who has heavily color-treated hair, or bleached hair, to not bother with a digital perm.  I have three panels in my hair that were previously bleached and those turned out horribly!  They didn't curl, were tangled, brittle, and mostly resembled crumpled hay.  Vicky ended up thinning out those sections of my hair considerably because they looked so hideous.

As for upkeep - because I do my best to be low maintenance (aka I am super lazy) - all I've done thus far is purchase some shampoo and conditioner designed for curly and/or permed hair, and a mousse with leave-in conditioner.  I wash my hair, rub the oil Vicky gave me, blow dry in her recommended manner, and then run the mousse throughout my hair.  All of my products came from Target and I bought the cheapest products I could find because most fancy beauty products I've purchased in the past have all sucked.   Now my hair always looks slightly messy,  but hopefully not unruly, and even though there's product in my hair - it is still soft, bouncy, and never crispy looking, feeling, or sounding.  Amen to that.

Here's to having curly hair!  At least for a month or two.  :)

P.S.  Photos taken with the iPad 2, which has a crappy camera.  Apple could've done better, I know it, but they probably intentionally made it crappy.  Grr.

The meeting.

We made plans to meet later on in the day.  He had plans he needed to attend to and I wasn't in the mood to accompany him.  The day was pretty and there was a park nearby full of trees offering shade to protect me against the sun.  I went to the park with the intention of sitting underneath the cool of a tree to read my book, and yet, I opted to sit next to a large iron gate instead, thereby exposing myself fully to the sun.  I didn't mind though; sometimes I like the heat.

I noticed him a little bit later, searching for me amongst the trees.  He didn't see me, of course, never anticipating that I would select my station near the gate with my seat the hot concrete instead of the cool grass.  And then I noticed my sudden sense of immobility.  There was no desire to meet him, no desire to get up and greet him.  "I'm supposed to want to, aren't I?," I thought.  "We barely even see each other," I thought.  But I recognized that feeling - that sense of deadness.  I've felt it before.  The onset of my paralysis occurred because, at that exact moment, my mind finally acknowledged what my heart had already known: the feelings I once felt for him no longer existed.

I never quite know when I have crossed that imaginary line between caring and not caring.  It happens so silently, stealthily, completely undetectable.  I can't even be sure if there is ever a cause - a catalyst - or if occurs because I am fickle and cold.  I don't even know how to determine the point of origin or when it happened or why it happened because by the time the realization that I've moved on becomes imperceptibly clear to me, I also lose the desire to fumble through the fogginess of my mind to help piece the puzzle together.  What's the point?  If it didn't make a fuss to begin with, I shouldn't make a fuss now.

He saw me then, at that exact moment.  I slapped on a fake smile.  I had no choice.  The only half-way decent thing to do was to allow this feeling of emptiness the chance to persist, to grow, in order to test it a bit.  If it stayed, then it must be real.  If it suddenly disappeared, then, well, perhaps it was the hours of sitting under the sun that caused it.  Either way,  I had to put on a show, pretend that I was just as happy to see him as he was to see me.  He deserved at least that; he deserved at least confirmation of my distance. 

But when I saw his face, I could also feel my resolve to conceal my true feelings falter.  Falter because I am a terrible liar and falter because the weight of knowing that I was here yet again, at this place where I have been with other men, is more disheartening than I would ever allow myself to accept.  I didn't want to look at him further.  And then, thankfully, I woke up.

Dreams - they can be so real at times, can't they?  Perhaps not in scenery and sight, but at times, certainly in sensation and feeling.  The doom from that dream transferred from my dream state and stayed with me to my waking state.  I felt the sadness of it all over again. This time, this time though, it was real.  Noticeable.  But when I looked to my left, I was so pleased to see Daniel's face.  Grateful, truthfully, because he was not the man in the dream.

On a train from Milan to Verona, Italy.

I brought with me my stack of unread W magazines to keep me company on the many train rides we planned on taking throughout Europe.  Sadly, the magazines are from 2009.  Yes, they're about two years old because I've never truly had the opportunity to read them until now.  

Although a bit outdated, the magazines are still great.  I love W.  It's one of my favorite publications because while it is always fresh and forward-thinking, it's also classic, somehow.  The photos are consistently gorgeous and the stories, where most other magazines tend to fall short, are also typically well-written and worth the read.  Almost every issue has an article featuring some unknown yet amazing individual - a person who has lived a life most mere mortals can only dream of.  I always read those articles even though I have never heard of the individual before because their lives are always beyond fascinating.  W features articles about models, muses, playboys, royalty, artists, criminals, crazies, and beyond -- an entire gamut of personalities.

As a result, after reading each issue, I find myself coveting a life of glitz and glam (but not necessarily fame) that is depicted in the stories I read.  Each person is too magnificent and I want to be magnificent, too.  And this is why, I suspect, no matter how happy I am or how pleased I am with the current state of my life, there is always a part of me that is perpetually dissatisfied because I am forced to acknowledge that destiny does not have in store for me an existence other than that of the ordinary.  I am ordinary.  This saddens me.  And it's no surprise to me that the stories that resonate the most are the ones of the women who have shunned obtaining what I consider today's measure of success:  a good career, a loving husband, adorable children.  These are all items I covet, but as I read stories about women who have found and defined  their passion for love in an atypical manner, with different, ever-changing, beds and fleeting, powerful, relationships -- I wonder why it is I am so common and have only sought such common goals.

And then I look to my left and see an old Italian couple getting ready to depart the train.  I wonder how many years they have been married as they stand up and the wife helps her husband with his coat, pulling his shirt down neatly around his pants because it rose as he tried to put on his coat.  Next, she assists him with sliding on his small red backpack, gingerly guiding his arms through the loops.  There is a sincerity and commitment in their interaction that is silent, but profound, and I couldn't help but notice it, couldn't help but adore them.  With this simple image, I am reminded of why it is that most days I am common and only during fleeting moments do I have the desire to be magnificent.   Because common people are smart:  having a love like that must be good for the soul and everyone wants it 'cause it's bloody hard to achieve. 

Life.

Trying to write this on an iPhone.  Not sure how it looks but oh well.  It has been hard keeping up with the news while on the road.  Everything is in a foreign language.  But Daniel and I were talking about those who survived the tsunami and how they must have a newfound lust for life.   I wonder what that must feel like, to survive a tragedy, how that might affect my perspective on life.  He said he almost died at gunpoint due to an attempted car robbery.  


"Do you have a lust for life then?" I asked. 
"Yes," he replied. 
I scoffed. "How come I haven't seen it?" 
"Because you are it."

Smooth talkers sometime win, I'll admit to that.

Often.

Often I find myself looking at Mr. "Quest for Vagina" and I wonder how it is that I’ve ended up with him.  Admittedly, he is an atypical representation of the men I have dated in the past.  He was only supposed to be a friend.  Definitely a fun.  Maybe a fling.  But that should have been the extent of his impact on my life.  Clearly, the best of intentions can easily crumble in the face of fate.  Somewhere in my willingness to be more carefree and tolerant, he was able to capture that fleeting window of opportunity and transform it into something meaningful, lasting. 

Often I find myself remarking on the asymmetry in our relationship.  By now I’ve secured probably more info than I need to know, but not nearly as much as I want to know, about his life and past.  This is in part due to my naturally probative nature and his natural desire to share; yet, he knows little regarding my past.  He has never bothered to ask, and I’ve never felt compelled to voluntarily divulge.  While I can recall names, facts, and figures about his life, and while I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve raised my eyebrows, shaken my head, looked utterly aghast at the ridiculousness of his tales or the outrageousness of his antics - he only has a high-level understanding of where I’ve been.  Regardless, he still knows me better than I’d like to admit.

Often I find myself marveling on his observant nature.  There have been times where the pat of my hand or the stroke of my fingers have been slightly different, contrary to what he is normally accustomed to, and he will hone in on those slight differences until I confess to the causes.  He knows my scent, when I’m moody, when I’m amused, and he is smart enough to know when to nurture my crazy tendencies, my romantic tendencies, and everything in between.  I know that by being with him, I am committing myself to a lifetime of never being able to get away with anything – and I mean nothing – because I'm too awful of a liar and he’s too acutely aware of even the slightest deflection in my tone.  It’s peculiar to know that there’s another human being in this world who truly sees me and can see through me.  Maybe this is a blessing, maybe it’s a curse, I’m not sure, but I’m positive it’s a reality. 

Today is March 1.  This month marks a major change in my life, one that will bring about … who knows?  That’s the beauty in it, I think.  As excited as I am for what is to come, the conservative part of me is grateful that I have him to rely on during this time.  He is my security.  Life has, magically, worked out better than I could have ever planned.  I’ll bet that doesn’t happen too often, and I’m even more grateful that not only do I have the good fortune to experience it, but also the sound sense to appreciate it.  As volatile as the future may be, every day he is becoming more of a constant - my needed balance. 

a change.

I quit my job.  Whoa.  :)

So I think I'm gonna go travel for a bit and y'know, blow dry my hair in the middle of the  night in a hostel's kitchen again.  'Cause I'm not really sure how often I'll have the privilege to live like that.  Let's see where the future takes me.

p.s. I'm not really THAT yellow.  Bad lighting from a phone camera.

be a girl who reads.

While it's not perfect, I like this piece.  Thanks, Kim, for the initial recommendation and you can find it posted here, as well.

* * *

YOU SHOULD DATE AN ILLITERATE GIRL

By Charles Warnke
January 19, 2011

——————————-

Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.

Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.

Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.

Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.

Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.

Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.

Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.

Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.

caelan's snow day.

Ugh, she is growing up way too fast.  Now she's walking and running and playing in snow!  I can't believe it.  I miss her much, with her uber-cool neon Nike kicks.  :(

lightweight luggage.

Anyone have suggestions for lightweight carry-on luggage (approximately 20") that is 7 lbs or under?  The only one I've found thus far that I actually like is Tumi's Voyageur, which costs $495.  Pretty sure I don't want to spend that much. 

This Orla Kiely one is also adorable and slightly less exorbitant at $315, but it's not really classic enough for my taste.  Help!

perfect.

A while back, I wrote this:

he tells me i need to enjoy life more and in the small increments of time we get to share, it often feels as though he is silently hoping a little bit of his inner peace could bleed into me.  he wonders how we'd be in the daytime, when the opportunity to sleep and rest aren't paramount priorities, and when the cries of all the obligations and duties i take on tug and pull at me in all sorts of directions.  i laugh, and remind him to show, not tell, for telling me to be a certain way and encouraging me to change are two surefire methods to keep me completely stagnant. 

it's a good thing he knows how to listen.

going with the flow is a difficult task for me because i am a person who likes to control the flow.  but he asked, and complying was the least i could do given all of his efforts.  and, now, i can't even really begin to describe how grateful i am that he pushed, and that i dropped my defenses for a brief moment.  because had i not, i wouldn't have enjoyed such a perfect evening.

perfect.  perfect's not a word that gets tossed around easily.  but, perfect is the only word that even comes close to describing the perfect weather, with the perfect sounds of the booming ocean waves, the perfect little palm trees in the distance that resembled oversized mushrooms planted in the the perfect sand, and the perfect night sky decorated with undulating streaks of perfect pale pink.  and, when Mandalay came on the stereo, i knew that he had also planned the perfect playlist.  we took perfect bundled-up mini cat naps, and, it was even more perfect that we finished the night with his less-than-perfect response to being flashed in the face by an officer's bright flash light.  :) 

oh, the memories.  oh, this memory.  i love knowing that perfection is perfectly possible.

Today, I was restless and read through some old emails of ours and stumbled across this line from the mister:  "i just recalled, you did snore on perfect night. how imperfectly inappropriate for such a perfect night with perfect palm trees planted in the perfect sand... okay i'll stop."

He makes me laugh.  He still takes me to beach late at night and together we marvel at the booming sound of the waves and talk about all of the intangible, befuddling, aspects of this existence.  Every day he teaches me how to be a better person, one who loves life a little bit more, one who becomes increasingly grateful for everything she has, and one who is not saddened by everything she has not yet experienced.  And during the moments where I notice our imperfections, I remind myself that imperfections are the norm, but achieving perfection -- now that's something that's rare and precious.  Just like us.

the beast at night.

He's violent in bed.  No, I don't mean sexually -- I mean that at night, while he sleeps, he transforms into a different man, one who is self-serving, demanding, unintentionally violent in a way.  It's hard for me to describe.  But I dislike it very much.

Lately I have been haranguing him about the way he sleeps.  I come home exhausted, wanting to crawl into his arms, but he constantly rebuffs me -- turning his back, moving to the other side of the bed, all of which frustrates me to no end.  My expectations for nighttime sleeping are high; I suppose that this is an after-effect of a marvelous vacation, one where every night for over two weeks we slept inches apart.  I have grown accustomed to falling asleep safely cocooned in his arms.  Perhaps when he was away from home, he needed a piece of home (me) to help ease him into slumber, but now that we are back in the comforts of our own bed, I'm no longer needed.  :(

Whomp, whomp, whomp.

I'm not so much insulted as I am confused.  During the daytime, he is exceptionally loving, exceedingly affectionate, and there is no doubt in my mind that I am wanted, cared for, loved.  But as he sleeps, the beast in him awakens, and I am met with rough shoves, rude protestations, and an unrecognizable coldness.  I wonder how these disparate beings could be one person, but mostly, I wonder how am I to adore this side of him, as well?  And the only plausible solution I have conjured is that I will simply have to try, and he will also try to be who I need, and somewhere down the line, at some point, our mutual efforts will intersect at a harmonious compromise.  

Healthy, happy, functional relationship.  I think I'm still dumbfounded that I'm in one. 

the top.

My phone rings and I see his number.  I answer only to hear his groggy voice on the line.  He called to ask if he could bring me anything, coffee, sugar, anything, because it's almost 2 am and I am still at work.  "Just go to bed," I say, "I don't need anything."  He hesitates.  "But I feel guilty sleeping while you're still working."  "You shouldn't," I reply before adding "and you should start getting used to this - this is my life."

I will admit that sometimes I indulge in the maxim of "misery loves company".   It's comforting at times to know that I am not alone in being miserable, that there's another being who might be able to commiserate with my solemn mood.  Yet, somehow, when it comes to late nights at the office, I never wish this on anyone.  I never find any solace in knowing that there are others like me, all of us sitting in our uncomfortable chairs, staring at our bright monitors.  In truth, I feel terribly sad for us all.  I wish I were the only one subject to this life. 

So I wonder why I do it.  What drives me.  What motivates me.  It's not the money -- that just provides stability, not the motivation to remain perpetually sleep-deprived.  As I ponder, I draw a blank.  And as I continue to draw a blank, I notice that with every passing second, my being unable to answer this seemingly basic question infuriates and incenses me.  This isn't a difficult question.  If I can't answer it, then why do I do it?  And then it dawns on me that I am bitter because I believe that the practice of law can be better, that I can do better, make it better.  I suppose that I am simply fighting for the chance to prove this to myself.

Since there's only one way to go from here - up - I'll see y'all at the top.  I'm not sure what I'll find when I get there, or what I might be sitting atop once I'm actually there, but I'll be damned if I don't at least get the opportunity to say that I've been there, done that.

there i am.

Something warm.  I remember something warm grazing my face, my cheek, I'm not sure where exactly because I was only coherent enough to notice the warmth pulsating from that general vicinity.  I also wasn't sure where I was physically at.  I hadn't been sure for a while because I had been on the move, seemingly jumping about from one city, state, or country to the next every day or so.  There was so much traveling involved that I gave up on trying to keep track of it all, preferring to let my mind orient itself based on what I saw, smelled, tasted, not based on what a geography book might tell me about my whereabouts.  I told myself that knowing didn't matter -- if the details were important, once back at home, I could always align the pins across a map after the fact to retrace the steps I took.  So I started to forget the typical indicators - roads and signs and guidelines - because hell, they were all written in a foreign language I didn't understand, which made them all the easier to ignore.  The typically structured and orderly me finally gave up the good fight and succumbed to just rolling with things. 

Seconds before I was in a heavy sleep.  That warm sensation startled me and started to wake me up, if one could describe a weak blink from only one eye lasting half a second a valid attempt at awaking.  But the feeling was jarring, very noticeable, because I was cold and everything around me felt cold.  It had been raining where where I was at and subconsciously, I'm sure I knew that I was still in the tropics, moving about underneath a grey sky laden with heavy, plump, water-filled clouds.  I knew there shouldn't have been anything warm near me.  Yet there it was, but I was too tired to figure it out.  I went back to sleep.  But I felt it again.  It felt very nice against my cold face.  Soft.  Warm.  Warm, soft, soft, warm, there was a hint of a breath on my skin . . . and then I knew exactly where I was at:  I was next to him.

We had spent the past few weeks together virtually day and night, spending our waking and sleeping hours in tight, compact spaces.  Automobiles and buses and airplanes and cheap motels and hotels.   And while the world around us changed, varying from extremely different scenery of flat plains to red rocks to green forests to beige deserts to sandy beaches to volcanic mountains, we stayed grounded by hanging onto each other.  I chuckled a silent chuckle, unpatting that silent pat on the back I had given myself.  Because I hadn't traveled as much as I thought I traveled; I was always carrying a piece of home with me - him.  And in that moment, without having to open my eyes to confirm the accuracy of my guess, I knew he was kissing my cheek, like he has done countless times in the past, like I have grown accustomed to receiving, wanting, needing. 

While losing myself for temporary moments of time feels lovely, weightless, I like even better knowing that there is someone in this world who can bring me back to where I am always aching to be:  right next to him.

too many thoughts.

It used to be that I could only write whenever I was sad or emotional.  When my feelings were heightened, my creativity would be, too.  But over the past few weeks -- I've written too many entries.  Way too many to even sort through.  This time though, it's because I've been much too happy, excited, grateful for every bad and good thing that has happened recently. 

I don't know what to do with all of these thoughts.  This is new to me.  At times it feels as though I am on the cusp of becoming a different type of writer.  It's riveting, yet unfamiliar.  Either way, I am incredibly excited for 2011.  A little birdie tells me it's going to be a life-changing year.  I hope I will be able to find the time and strength to document it all, but perhaps the memories I anticipate making will be the type that will not need the protection of words in order to become memorialized.  Perhaps they will be the type that will become naturally ingrained within me, that I will carry around with me daily without even realizing it.  Perhaps. 

The possibilities are endless.