In other news...

In other news, I've been using that phrase a lot. That happens to me all the time. I'm not trying to form a habit, and I'm not trying to be clever, and then before I know it I look up over a paragraph I've written and realize that I've used the exact same phrase five and a half times. Things just stick in my head. I fixate.

Victor in Smoke Signals wears red constantly until his turning point. One can spend hours and hours on the Internet looking up prices for hotels in Alexandria, Virginia. I always wish I was good at taking photographs of my life, but I consistently fail to have a camera at the perfect moment, and even if I have one, I forget to use it. So sometimes it seems like the only things I have are the things I fixate on. I'm not sure if that is comforting or terrifying. Maybe it's just me trying to focus on something in order not to be completely spacey.

In other news, I adore Shirley MacLaine.

a message from one of the newly crowned co-Queens of Nostalgia.

Co-Queens of Nostalgia.

C says it sounds like a good name for a band, and I agree. To add the prefix "co-", suggesting the shared or communal nature of the noun to follow, to the inherently individualistic and hierarchical title "Queen" seems to enhance a stark contrast in the juxtaposition of the blah-diddy-blah-dee-blah. Sounds cool. To cut to the chase, cut the mustard, cut the cheese.

The point is, moving forward is weird, and so is looking back. I recently deleted some year and a half old texts from my phone - messages from two of my friends sent in the hours after Obama's election. A year and a half ago.

Today I looked through a box full of photographs where my grandmother looks like my mother, and my mother looks like my little sister, and they're surrounded by people that I've never seen, many of whom are probably dead. I found a letter my mom wrote to her aunt and uncle from college, talking about her friends' plans to go rollerskating, and referring to her boyfriend at the time as a "fuddy-dud" for his apparent lack of interest. A few years later, she sent them a card from Houston, chatting about the very warm June weather and her subsequent adjustment to jogging in the early morning before work. A few years later, she scribbled a note on a small piece of yellow lined paper, discussing an upcoming camping trip and confirming plans to visit them soon and bring my future father with her to meet them for the first time.

And I'm thinking about the last two years and freaking out.

Talk about nostalgia.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.

So I'm not really a huge fan of that song. And the reference is hideously overused. But at the end of the day ("we're another day older") shit does change, everything references something, and I hate coming up with titles.

Anyway, what's got me thinking about change in the first place is this: I've been home for less than three whole days, and I'm leaving again. And I'm excited. I can't wait to leave, and get where I'm going, and al fin, yes, the road does lead back here, but again, not for long. And for some reason that feels wrong, and guilty, that's okay with me. Maybe I'm behind the bandwagon on this. I know people who've felt like this for years, but this is new for me.

I woke up this morning in a house empty except for the dog, and rattled around for hours, wondering how anyone spends day after day of their life like this. Getting out of the house to sit at Les Schwab for an hour brought with it the adrenaline rush of a much more interesting adventure. Which is not to say Les Schwab isn't a fascinating place. I learned that the guys who work there wear the blue jumpsuits over their white, short-sleeved collared t-shirts and nice pants, although both layers bear name patches; to never let anyone under the hood of one's car who could conceivably screw up enough to put transmission fluid in the brakes; that a pretty specific kind of customer generally sits around the waiting room beside the giant racks of new tires instead of leaving and coming back later; and that no matter how bored I am, those daytime TV Judge Fill-in-the-blank shows are never something that I will enjoy.

But I digress.

The point is, I'm headed in to the airport in less than 2 hours to pick up a friend, and then we're getting the hell out of Dodge, which both geographically and demographically speaking is really more like hauling ass back to Dodge, and which is also a strange phrase to use because she'll have been here less than an hour and I'll have been here less than a week.

So forget Dodge.

hey soul sister

I'm distracted. It's a partly cloudy Saturday afternoon, and there are live bands in the amphitheater, exhausted people doing improv comedy, and a side lawn gathering of artsy folks across the way. And I'm sitting here, bored to tears with my own confused ramblings, but determined to write something of consequence so I don't have to do it all tomorrow. But I desperately don't want to think about that, so I'm running through an irritatingly catchy song in my head over and over and over, finding obscure connections between people I know on Facebook, and thinking about what I wish I could be doing instead of this.

I do so truly wish I could be focusing, but that aside...

I wish that I could sleep and feel rested. I wish I didn't feel like I have to wait for the rest of my life to start. I wish that I could just sit back and relax and enjoy the time as it moves on. I wish I could relax the muscles in my shoulders. I wish that tomorrow, someone would be celebrating me. I wish that I could justify lying in bed and watching this week's episode of Bones. I wish that because I can't justify it, I wouldn't be doing it at some point this evening.

Estoy escribiendo un ensayo sobre una obra dentro de una obra dentro de una obra de teatro, y las complicaciones en mi mente son tan mezclada y blablablá... Gracias a Gabriel García Márquez para la última palabra.

black holes and revelations

I went to a birthday party tonight, for a friend who, to quote another friend, is far away across a "big little pond". He left us clues that led to fun and a good time was had by all, and I met a cool new person, and spent time in dialogue with older acquaintances.

Today has been a really beautiful mix of old and new, of feeling at home and adventurous, with some delicious preemptive Cinco de Mayo comida in the mix, and the added bonus of watching a friend step out into a new ring of comfort zone. Also, this week's Bones... wow. With so many levels of importance, my day, which at first recollection had a distinctly dull sheen, has become one of the solidly good things that will stay with me for years to come.

Tonight also reminded me of something that I already knew: it's all about the people. Everything is all about the people.