“The cure for anything is salt water — sweat, tears, or the sea.”  — Isak Dinesen

Today, it was a mix of all three.

*  *  *

Sweat

I’m still moving things around, trying to figure out how I’m going to ramp up for this whole Intention Yarns thing to explode.  (I’m thinking ahead for scalability, see.)  I’ve got more drying racks up, have contacted a few places about slave labor…er…interns, and have begun the process of making the website usable and the packaging consistent.  We’re aiming for a hundred retail stores by the end of the year (bricks & mortar — The Loopy Ewe and the L&V store are the only online-only stockists.), so scalability’s a factor.

Whether my head will actually, literally, blow up…?  Well, that remains to be seen.

The to-do list was full to capacity before I even slept in this morning.  I didn’t *mean* to, and I went to bed really early for me, but I turned off the alarm, apparently, and slept right through until eight.

The to-do list was fully *hosed* from there.

I managed to get quite a bit done, but missed on a few things with relatively stringent self-imposed deadlines that I’ve changed until Monday instead.  My email’s sitting there untouched.  Sorry if you’re waiting.  I’m a little behind.  Ahem.

Remember when I said that thing about 2009 being a workhorse year, following up on all the little seeds planted in 2008?

Yeah.  That.

Tomorrow’s a workhorse day.

*  *  *

Tears

I found out that one of the girls I knew peripherally in high school is in Charlotte, NC.

I didn’t know her all that well; she was gone from the school I graduated from by the time I got there, but I always kind of liked her.  You could just tell she was destined for something big, and you know that ambition gets my attention.

We’ve been talking back and forth on Facebook, and she’s lived this incredible, wild life that sort of makes mine look tame by comparison (which isn’t easy to do, really), and we’re planning a little get-together when I get out there next time.

Which, of course, led my brain down that one-way path to Must-Get-Out-Of-Iowaville.  I was driving to the Apple Store (helloooo, new MacBook…), and it was very, very tempting to just turn left.  One little exit missed, and I-80 would take me all the way to Indiana before I could veer south to I-40…..

I need to stop thinking like this.  Random Crazy isn’t good for my soul.  And I have too much work to be done, too much sweat equity to expend, before I can make that happen for good.

Just focus.  Focus, act, and know it’s coming.

It’s all I can do.

* * *

The Sea

My three-button wrap’s almost done.  I haven’t worked on it today (no time), but as of yesterday, I had less than a foot to go before it’s the length I want it (which is longer than the pattern calls for — I’m tall and broad-shouldered, which means shawls need to be wider or I look ridiculous.).

See, when I took my little ill-planned trip to the coast, I sat on that walkway for a few minutes, intending to knit a little.  (Figured that if the ocean noise can be calming, having my hands moving might make my brain shut off the MonkeyMind for a while, too.)  It was too cold, though, and my fingers didn’t want to work quite right.

I wadded it back up and shoved it in the plastic bag, and apparently, when I did so, I must have dragged the far end in the dunes a bit.  Or the wind blew sand into it while I was making the attempt.  One of the two.  Either way, little bits of the sea have been shaking out of the cast-on edge all day long, and I ended up leaving it here longer than I normally would.

It’s a reminder.  A connection.

A connective thread, so to speak.

*  *  *

A couple of random asides:

1.  My last BPAL order came in.  I thought about listing this under the Sea, because Water Phoenix is pretty watery and oceanic.  But not authentic enough to be the ocean, other than metaphorically.  I might be wearing it now.  Just sayin’.

2.  I named the MacBook “Fizzgig”, for those keeping track of such things.  (Its lid opens all the way up, and it’s cute.  I know, I’m a cheeseball.)

3.  In addition to all the other errands and such, I ended up spending an unholy amount of money on books about computer junk.  I figure if I’m going to play around in this world, I need to know the language.  (And an online video about Ruby on Rails almost made my eyes sprout blood.  I’m completely clueless, and I hate being completely clueless about anything.  It’s a personal Issue.)

4.  I’m in love with Merlin Mann’s “Most Days” vimeo ‘casts.  And possibly with Merlin himself.  I’d offer to have his little geeky lovechildren if he wasn’t already taken.   Same goes for just about any man who can use “taxonomy” in a sentence when it’s not pertaining to genus/species.  Mrrowr.

5.  I’ve been listening fairly obsessively to Crooked Still’s “Shaken by a Low Sound” album.  Ain’t No Grave gives me the shivers.  I think it’s her little-girl voice or something.  But it’s all kind of bluegrassy and folksy and perfect for those times when I’m lugging things around and making piles of like-purposed things to eventually put somewhere other than where they are.  (Which is, usually, in another pile altogether.  I’m becoming the Mistress Of Making Piles Of Things.)

6.  If you’re a part of the Intention Yarns SpiritStitching Circle, a membership packet will be on its way to you on Monday or so.  Stay tuned.

7.  Big Huge Unnamed Personal Project that I keep mentioning?  I’m drawing the map.  I’m not done with the map, like I wanted to be today, but I’m drawing it.

Proof.

8.  I’m not sure what posessed me to get an antique black desk/furniture in here.  Dust *totally* shows.  And OMG, do I get dust.  Especially when it’s 60 degrees outside (in January), and all my windows are open.  Clearly, I need to get off the crack.

9.  I don’t have a nine.

10.  Or a ten, for that matter.  But ten’s such a nice, round number, isn’t it?

Remember all that work I was going to do while I was gone in North Carolina?  All the planning and the writing and the sitting down with pen and paper and laptop and letting my brain go hog-wild so I could get it all organized once and for all?  All that stuff I couldn’t do because of the sudden and inexplicable Big Ass Breakdown Of Monumental (Dis)Proportion?

Yeah.  It caught up with me this week.  Because, apparently, Work doesn’t get the memo that it should be gentle with slightly-hormonal freakwomen who randomly cry for three days while vacationing in another state.  Work is highly insensitive like that.

I bet Work doesn’t courtesy-wave when someone lets it cut in while in traffic, either.

But anyway…yeah.  Caught up with me bigtime this week.  And I stood there a few times, amid the maelstrom of Things That Should Be Much Easier, Had I Only Planned Them One Tiny Iota(tm), with bad hair and crazy eyes, thinking that my life would be eversomuch easier if I could just sit under the desk for a little while — the NEW desk, by the way…we’ll get to that — and whimper quietly for a few minutes.  Sadly, there was no time for random whimpering, leaving only the keep-moving-forward-or-drown option.  Which I took.  Gladly.

I’m happy to say that I’m mostly caught up, despite the fact that I still haven’t planned a blessed thing.  It’s on the agenda for this weekend, if I can just keep from equating Quiet Mind with WTF AM I IN IOWA Mind.   The two appear to live in the same house, and occasionally read each other’s mail.

I’ll make sure to hand-deliver the memo this time.

*  *  *

I’m going to show you something.  Laugh at will.

THIS little bit of archived awesomeness is my graduating class from 1989:

Sweet fancy helmet-haired jesus.

I’m not in this photo.  Not because I wasn’t into the people in my class, because, honestly, I really liked the school I graduated from.  And most of the people in my class, even.  Despite the fact that I was too busy with my long-haired sophomore boyfriend at the time to spend much time with most of ‘em.  (No, seriously.  Blonde, shaggy, musician-and-artist boyfriend.  It was like kryptonite to my tortured seventeen-year-old sooooul.  Shush.)

I wasn’t in this photo, ironically enough, because it was taken on Senior Skip Day, which is, apparently, a tradition at NCHS.  Being a transplant to said school, I wasn’t aware that such a thing existed.

And, ironically, my friend Dave and I skipped school that day.

*facepalm*

We called the front office for each other earlier in the day, and either the secretaries didn’t know it was us or knew about the Skip Day anyway, and let us get away with it.  And we piled into his little car  (“we” being Dave and I and the shaggy boyfriend, who also went to the same school, and who wasn’t quite yet my boyfriend at that point, incidentally…), and drove to Omaha for the day.  Hung out in the Old Market.  Ate spaghetti and wandered the streets like the urchins we were, and had a *blast*.  Came home to find ourselves in no real trouble other than having the distinction of being the two students from the class who were not pictured.

At least my own particular brand of Big Hair isn’t immortalized forever as a result.

(And it’s okay, because, apparently, I KEPT my big hair, and it comes out from time to time, obliterating the sun in several zip codes.  My hair thinks it’s still 1989 sometimes.  I’m okay with that.  I’ve made peace with my inner Taylor Dayne.)

Incidentally, my hooligan friend who skipped with me that day?  Totally a doctor now.  It’s good we didn’t have anything like truancy marring our Permanent Records.

*  *  *

I mention all this for a reason.  (Of course.  Random eighties trivia might be staple fare for my own brain, but I try not to share it with the world on most occasions.)

Yesterday, I got this notification that a friend of mine from the OTHER high school I went to was trying to add me as a friend on Facebook.  (And again, Facebook makes an appearance in my life this week.  Apparently, the kid with the face full of metal was foreshadowing.  Eeeenteresting.)  I wasn’t as fond of this Other High School, as the people generally annoyed the living crap out of me.  Like, judgemental and torturous, really.  Lots of tears and threats and I used to go away for weekends and “forget” to come home for weeks at a time in order to avoid it altogether.  (No, seriously.  My poor parents.  I really owe them more cookies than I could ever bake.)

Not being one to dwell all that much in all The Bitter Of Youth anymore  (because OMG I SO COULD, if I had more than three free seconds a day to think, and I wasn’t using that three seconds to think about how long it’s going to take me to develop a full-on drawl once I move, being the impressionable type and all…), I added him, and found that there were, like, SEVEN HUNDRED ZILLION people I knew from Those Days on his friends list, and those friends had more people, and three hours later, I was sitting here all nostalgic and excited, talking to the guy who’s probably my oldest friend on the planet on the phone from where he’s at in Costa Rica.  (Really.  I think I’ve known him since I was six.  Gave him his first hickie.  Don’t ask.)

And moreover, I had one of those Moments of Clarity when I logged back in and remembered, thanks to a group that they set up, that….*shudder*….it’s my FREAKIN’ TWENTY YEAR REUNION THIS YEAR.

My brain promptly melted.

Carin and Deawn were here (Thursdays are Stitch & Bitch nights at my place), and they can vouch that this is the god’s honest truth — I crawled under the desk. And whined.  Copiously, and literally.  Under the desk.

Twenty years have gone by.

It’s been TWENTY.  YEARS.

I still can’t wrap my mind around it.  Clearly, someone is playing some kind of sick joke with the calendar, because there’s no way it’s been twenty years since then.  Just no way.

(Welcome to Denial.  I’ll be your hostess this evening, Eliza.  Can I get you a beverage?)

*  *  *

Y’know…I was going to stop there with the story, since really, I get all navel-gazey about all this.  I just sat back down after wandering off to find some more vitamin water (to which I am apparently addicted), because just mentioning a beverage made me want one.  I’m surprised I didn’t grab the tequila while I was downstairs.  Twenty years.  *grumbleexplainsthewrinklesgrumble*.

ANYWAY…

I was up until four yesterday morning.  Which I probably shouldn’t admit, because it implies that I have the time to be all introspective this week, and I really don’t.  But I was, anyway, since I’m far too weak to tell the Squid Brain of mine to shut up and focus sometimes, especially when faced with a giant long list of people I knew two decades ago.

Lemme explain, so I stop sounding like a rambling crazyperson.  (Or less like one.  Or maybe more like one.  Something.  At any rate, it’s what’s in my head, so there ’tis.)

I know they say that high school is hell for everybody.  And maybe it is.  Maybe my experience isn’t unique.  Actually, I know it’s not unique.  Unusual, maybe, but not unique.  I had a good time, for the most part, primarily because I make no apologies for who I am.  And I never have, even when I was fifteen and that particular quality wasn’t overly prized.  I’ve always kind of lived my life right out there in the open, and did precisely whatever I wanted to do.

This, for other fifteen-year-olds, challenged the idea of being like everybody else, I think.  Or being an individual that fits in.  Something.

And I had a very big mouth.  Go figure.  Wouldn’t have guessed that about me, I’m sure.

Big mouth + very little life experience + an independent streak a mile wide + really, REALLY bad judgement sometimes + a boyfriend at the time who liked to tell people a few little stories that may or may not have been exactly truthful = a whole lot of grief.  That’s it in a nutshell.  I was accused of all kinds of things, from being a garden-variety slut (which, okay, fine, I probably *was*, but not with the people who were bragging about it, which I still find amusing in a black kind of way) to heading, I kid you not, some kind of satanic cult (OH BUT I AM SERIOUS, PEOPLE).

The people in my very small hometown needed hobbies.  Badly.  That’s all I’m sayin’.

In the absence of such, the group hobby turned into torturing the bad kid.  The rumors that flew, vis-a-vis me and my much-more-wild-than-even-*I*-knew-about life….crazy.  Just crazy.

Thing is, if any of this was being said about me now?  I’d totally claim it all.  I’d get I JOINED ELLIE’S SATANIC CULT AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY SHIRT t-shirts and make business cards with “Eliza Metz: Slut” on them.  I’d consider it all to be press — and you know how it goes….there is no bad press.  There’s only free PR.

Back then, though….I couldn’t deal.  Here I was, relatively bright, relatively attractive, definitely young…and I thought all of this would follow me to the END OF MY DAYS.  (And, to be fair to my delicate psyche, some of it has.  It wasn’t always just the name-calling and/or the rumour mill stuff.  There are redneck boys in my past who thought that my reputation was an invitation, and, to be completely honest here, there’s some stuff that I’m surprised I made it out of without a few more permanent scars of the physical variety.  It wasn’t pretty.)

At seventeen, when I finally graduated, I got the hell out of dodge so fast that I’m surprised my feet didn’t catch fire.  Changed my name.  Changed my face and my hair and everything else I could.  Went to Louisiana for my first year of college and stopped responding to my given first name.  (My mother will use it occasionally, but only when I’m in a whole heap of trouble for something.  And then she says every single syllable of my whole name in that Mom Staccato — you know the kind.  E. Liz. A. Beth. Ben. Ton.  Metz. You. Come. Here. Right. NOW.  The kind that strikes fear into even my adult heart.  Moms must be briefed on this technique somewhere, because I swear, it’s universal.  And everyone cringes at it.  Hooboy.)

For twenty years, then, I’ve really avoided a lot of these people that I found last night.  Not really consciously.  I’ve not really been back there, in that place, faced with any of them.  And it’s not like our social circles overlap all that much on the world’s stage.  So it’s not like it’s been an active avoidance, but it’s definitely been a case of not really wanting to deal with it all.

But twenty years changes a whole lot of things.  There were a lot of people I knew for a long, long time from back there.  People who, at the time, knew me for longer than anyone else on the planet, and, as a matter of mathematics, always will.

It was just a bizarre, sudden feeling of letting all that go, like the stupid thing it really is.  (And a fair bit of embarassment that somewhere, this was using up a few bytes of the mental RAM, really.  I mean, really….was there a point to holding onto all the bad stuff and forgetting that there were things I really liked about some of these people?  Was The Big Bitter so much better for me than just letting it all go and connecting with the people who know what I looked like with gawky arms and braces and really big hair?  I really don’t get my brain sometimes.  All the little dark and twistybits that I don’t even know are there…it’s so weird.)

Since last night, I’ve been talking to a handful of people that I went to school with.  In some cases, people that I went to freakin’ preschool with.  Catching up on twenty-plus years of life and living, and slowly exhaling all the darkness from that particular twisty mindpassage.

It’s been like Spring Cleaning, but in my head.

I like that.

*  *  *

Speaking of Spring Cleaning — I broke down and bought a grown-up desk.  Finally.

Forgive teh blurriez.  iPhone, low lighting.

I was also smack in the middle of some work here, which is why there’s crap all over it.  I get a little anal about having *nothing* on it when I’m not sitting at it, because clearly, I need professional help.

(That carpet’s next to go, if I stay.  It was here when I moved in.  And granny smith apple green is just *so* not quite the look I’m going for.  Ever.)

Up above the iMac, in an antique-black frame…a map of Greensboro and the Triad.

One must have a map to know where one is going.

(Well, that and it was cheap wall art.  Just sayin’.)

Next up, hide all the cords, probably just in time to move.  I don’t even have a few of those things plugged in yet, actually — the printer and the (TB!  Seriously huge.) back-up drive are just sitting there like decorations at the moment.  I’ve been a little busy.

There’s a matching three-shelf thingie just to the left of all this, under the window in here, and I’m still planning on picking up the matching bookshelves one of these days.  (I couldn’t fit anything else in the truck the other day, or they’d have been here now.)

I have a grown-up office now.  It’s still really weird.

Now all I need’s a good couch and the perseverance to train the dogs to stay off it, and I’ll consider the house as done as it’s gonna get.  (One thing about having a five thousand square foot house — people think you need to fill it up.  So they give you all kinds of things.  Which, while nice and all, is largely prompted by the fact that these are things that they didn’t want, meaning that the ginormous space is generally filled up with a patchwork of things that you’d have NEVER picked out for yourself, which all work together about as well as oil and water.  There are now large empty spaces in here, but the things are all *mine*, and will scale down nicely when I finally get out of the metal box and back to something less boxlike.  Whew.)

The ubiquitous They say that if you’re feeling all mind-cluttered, getting rid of any physical junk around you and leaving lots of open surfaces will somehow mystically help you gain clarity.

I’m not sure I buy into the whole feng shui-style placement pseudo-science, but I’ll say this:  I’ve been much more willing to work in here since I have enough room to spread everything out.  And more stuff’s gotten done this week than for the past three.  So the Making Of The Room thing…well, it’s not mystical, per se.  But it’s pretty darn cool.

There’s just been all kinds of spaces being cleared here this week.  Outside and inside.

I’m glad I’ve made room.

I’m back in the metal box.

There hasn’t been a recurrence of the Bigass Whining Drama/Post-Returning Breakdown Phase, which I’m glad about.  In fact, I’ve been about seven shades of numb instead.  Even after a couple of macchiatos, I was feeling like none of all this could reach me today — I’ve been completely productive all day as a result.  We’ll get to that.  But it’s been weird…like I never went away.  Like all of last week just didn’t exist in the regular timeline of reality.  Maybe I’m just not acknowledging it all yet.

But I promised stories, and yesterday’s day of returning was chock full of ‘em, so I figured I’d take a second or two to share them before they get too old.   Let’s start with yesterday, in chronological order, shall we?

*  *  *

Against my better judgement, after leaving Starbucks in High Point and making the quickest run-through at Common Threads of all time, since I’m kind of convinced that time runs differently when a knitter enters a yarn shop (no, seriously — I can swear I’ve only been there for ten minutes and the clock will say it’s been two hours.  We have words, me and the clock.  Usually over some Noro.), and found I had a bit of free time left before I had to go return the rental car.

And I had no idea what to do.

So on a whim, really, I pulled out the piece of paper that the lady at Starbucks had given me with the address of her (3 br!) house she wanted to let me rent, and her phone number.  I GPS’ed the address, and, amazingly…it’s, like, six minutes from the yarn shop.  With traffic.  Seriously.

I didn’t want to like it.  I kinda thought that if it was really bad, it’d make leaving a little easier.  Like maybe I shouldn’t be so all-fired in-a-hurry to think something’s all divinely inspired/synchronicitous (made that word up, I think.  Mine now.), and just have a nice cup of coffee and fly back to cow country glad that I’ve got a home at all, blah blah blah.

Remember that entry a few weeks back where I was talking about the little cottage thing?  The one with the red front door and the shutters and the forest out back and the garden and all?

Oops.

(Yes, the front door is white.  It’s paintable.)

It’s been standing vacant for almost two years, because of the owners’ reluctance to rent to anyone they don’t like.  I get that.  And they’re old, so maintenance just simply hasn’t been done on it.  So there are things that need fixing, and the lawn/landscaping needs some serious attention.  So does the carport.  And the back deck needs some help.  But it’s mostly cosmetic, and wouldn’t be all that hard for me to do on my own.

The bedrooms are kinda small from what I could see through the window.  And there aren’t wood floors — it’s a weird berber carpet stuff.  I’m okay with all that, too.  I can get other rugs.  I can paint.  I can get smaller furniture.  (Or any furniture, for that matter.  I need some anyway.)

But shutters, people.  SHUTTERS.

And better?  This is the back yard:

Not all that much grass, but a fence (for the dogs!), and SEVEN ACRES of woodland.  It’s not their property, that I know of, but OMG.  SEVEN ACRES OF WOODLAND.  I would LIVE in a FOREST.  A forest, mind you, that’s six minutes from one of my favorite yarn shops in the area (Gate City and Knit Picky being the other two, and neither of those are far away, either.), several blocks from a Barnes & Noble, a few more blocks from a mall (in case of holiday emergency), and less than a mile from Starbucks, which is almost like having your own personal drive-through, really.

Should I even mention that she wants to charge me $400 a month for it, or would that make you all rise up with pitchforks and light me on fire for even flying back to Iowa at all?

Thought so.  Forget you heard that.  The gel in my hair would go up like tinder, and I wouldn’t look good bald.

Just sayin’.

(And yes, I’m calling her on Monday.  Just to see how long she can hold it.)

*   *  *    *

Somehow, miraculously, having this option made me both less and more reluctant to leave yesterday.  Part of me wanted to stay, like always, but part of me felt…I dunno…comforted, maybe, because this?  Totally doable.  I spend more than that on coffee every month.  And if it’s as easy as just putting it all out there, saying I wanna move and the cottage appears?  Well…leaving didn’t seem quite as permanent.

So I wasn’t sad, really.  My brain still toyed with the idea of cancelling my return flight and calling her right away, but I really do have things I need to get done here.  Things I’d very much like to have with me if I move (and there’s the dogs to contend with, too).  And I kinda need to figure out the situation here before I go signing a year’s lease eighteen-hundred-miles-away.

I’m trying to be all grown-up about it, y’know.

I suppose all the squealing and such kinda kills that maturity thing, but really, I’m trying.

Anyway…

I had two flights to contend with.  I figured the first would be the hardest, taking me into Detroit on some dinky little plane.  I was in the back row against the window, and had wedged myself in with my knitting, when the guy sitting next to me growled something under his breath when he sat down.

Apparently, my laptop bag was over some imaginary line between my side and his, and he angrily shoved his camera bag into the overhead, muttering just soft enough to be indistinct over the engine checks.  I wrote it off, put down my knitting for a second, and looked out the window at the treeline before flipping open my phone to leave a last-minute message for a friend.

The seatmate snarled.

No, seriously.  He snarled.

I looked up.  He snapped something about the stewardess saying to turn off the damned cell phones (a direct quote).  I finished my message.  Sent it.  Flipped the cover shut and put it away.  I figured that I’d be really, really quiet for the rest of the flight, and inched just slightly more toward the window.  Wouldn’t want my aura to be over the imaginary line.  I wondered what I did to this guy, briefly.  Maybe I kicked his dog in a previous life.  I inched just a little further toward the window.

His rage seemed to be unfocused, however.  And it grew through the two-hour flight.  He snapped at the people in front of us, raised his voice at the flight attendant twice, and I really thought he was going to have a meltdown when they were out of tonic water during the whole passing-out-beverages thing.  I was kinda glad I was armed with pointy sticks.

Because of the curving of my body away from him, my back started hurting half-way to Detroit.  I took a tylenol and stayed quiet.  No sense in poking the badger with a stick, really.  But eeegh.

The plus side to this is that a) I got a metric ton of knitting done.  Like, almost a foot on the three-button wrap on the flight itself, a metric ton.  And b) I was too distracted to let the feeling of OMGLEAVING get too strong.  I watched the airport get smaller and smaller while we banked left, and might have teared up a little when the Triad got too far away to see, but I blame that on back pain from the S-curve my spine was in.

When we finally reached Detroit (after a NAIL BITER of a landing, lemmetellya — there was ice, and gusting winds that had us on one wheel, then the other, then back to the first.  We were all like ragdolls inside the plane.), he stood up angrily and pushed someone out of the way to get out.  That’s a man who seriously needs to take up yoga.  Or valium.  One of the two.  Jeez.

* * *

I had two hours til the next flight.  Which was good, since there was roughly EIGHT ZILLION MILES between my arrival gate and the departure gate.   (Furthest gate on Concourse C to furthest gate on Concourse B, for those who know the Detroit airport at all.  I’ve taken shorter hikes to get up the sides of mountains, and during those hikes, I wasn’t carrying five tons of laptop, knitting, and books.)

I stopped about half-way there, at the one smoking restaurant in the place.  It was packed, like always, and I picked up a pretzel and a coke, figuring that I’d be less nauseous if there was something in my stomach besides coffee for the day.  I perched myself at one of the counters, yapping away on the phone to a friend, and happily isolated myeslf a little to recover from the CrazyGuyAnger of the flight.

Half-way through my pretzel-of-doom, a kid flopped down beside me.  I was off the phone by then, and tried to busy myself with voicemail or something to look occupied.  Not that I didn’t want to talk to anybody, but…well…okay, I didn’t want to talk to anybody.  That feeling of dread was starting to build somewhere behind my sternum, and the thought of being back in the midwest was starting to choke my heart a little.  I really didn’t feel like sharing any quality time with complete strangers just on the shared connection of being a person with a nasty black-lung-ed habit.

The kid looked interesting, though.  Messy blonde hair with way too much gel.  Gauged out ears with yin-yang spacers.  All kinds of metal in his face — eyebrows, ears, septum, lips.  And he was tattooed from neck on down, judging from what was visible under his work shirt.  Bright blue eyes with remnants of some kind of eyeliner still in the lashes.

Sure enough, it took him about two minutes to speak up.  He was completely excited to talk to someone, I think, too, because my smile-nod-act-polite routine left an opening a mile wide.

He talked about his job (fixing scientific instruments), and about being on-call all the time.  About being in airports for long stretches of time.  (Apparently, he gets sent all over the place for his job, usually on a moment’s notice.)  About living in the Poconos, and his new tattoo.

He was just hiking up his pants to show me the new one he just got on his leg (a skull thing, just over his right knee, probably 8″ long…ow.  OW OW OW.), when he stopped short, pantleg still in hand, and said (I kid you not), “You’re pretty.  Can I add you to my Facebook?”

*facepalm*

Is this like the modern equivelent of asking for your number?  I’m SO FREAKIN’ OLD.

I just blinked a little and asked him what was this “Facebook” of which he spoke.  Figured a little feigned innocence wouldn’t hurt, despite the fact that I had to bite my own tongue nearly in half to keep a straight face.  He then explained Facebook to me and gave me a card with his email address on the back, as I made some excuse about needing to get to my gate.

Apparently, I’m hot to the tattooed crowd of youngsters.  (He was 23, by the way.  Twenty. Freakin’. Three.  I don’t even remember being twenty-three.  Welcome to Geezers-R-Us.  And no, I won’t link his Facebook.  And yes, I looked it up.  I’m old, not dead.)

*  *  *

Like I said, today’s been all about The Numb.  It’s kind of like a weird, focused Numb, though.  As long as I don’t think about North Carolina or its inhabitants, I’m fine.  I just do what I need to do.

Around noon, though, I had that feeling like I needed to get out.  Like the walls were closing in and the Big Sad was looming, and omg-get-out-right-now was strong.  Not being one to get out much, but also not being one to deny that feeling when it’s not-so-subtly beating you over the head with a wiffle-bat and threatening much heavier objects if not obeyed…I made a list, and got the hell out of Dodge.

And I ignored my list.  Just drove, mostly.  Ended up at….(cue angelic chorus)…the Apple Store.  Mecca for All Things Mac-Geeky(tm).

I went for two reasons:  First, because one of the dogs decided that my bluetooth was a light snack before dinner while I was gone (the Jawbone, no less, not the cheap one.  I take the cheapie with me when I go, because I’m desperately afraid of losing the good one.  They’re expensive.  Much more expensive, I might add, than the dog that chewed it up.  I’d take it out of her hide, but her hide isn’t worth that much. Grr.), so I needed another one.  And secondly, because I needed a new dock for the iPhone so this whole Forgetting It At Home thing wouldn’t happen again.

But as usually happens when faced with Mecca, the Apple Fumes got to me, and I might have started looking at MacBooks.

And as usually happens when I’m petting a nice little laptop, my credit card started subtly reminding me that I’ve been doing an awful lot of leaning on it lately, and if I was even so much as thinking about picking up a new laptop, I might want to take a look at that pile of fiber I just bought in NC.  Or the packages of sniffies that are slated to arrive any day now that I picked up just before I left.  Or the fact that I need to eat something other than Ramen for the rest of my life.

Stupid practicality.

So I might have leaned over and licked it.  The laptop, not the credit card.

Just a little bit.  I didn’t, like, drool on it much or anything.

That one, though?  Mine.  Mineminemine.  I claimed it.

* * *

After the Claiming, I felt a little better.  (It’s the taste of a Mac.  WHAT?!  Quit looking at me like I’m nuts.  Other Mac-freaks’ll get it.)  I dug into the list and ended up shopping at about a zillion different places for a new desk (I need a grown-up desk, not made of particle-board and chewing gum.), and settled on a darkwood, very simple desk, matching chair, three-shelf unit thingee, and rolling filing cabinet that nestles underneath one side of the (freakin’ huge) desktop.

I pick it up tomorrow, if it ever stops snowing here.  There will be pictures when it’s here and placed.  Before-and-afters if I can screw up enough courage to show y’all the full depth of my disorganization.

In a way, I’m looking at it as part of getting out.  Grown-up furniture.  Something not as temporary as what I’ve got now.

Something mine.

Just like my life.

* * *

There’s more, both from yesterday and today, but this is freakin’ long, and I’m getting tired.

Suffice it to say that it’s been a day — a week, really — full of stories.  Some short and isolated, some still being written.

Building blocks of a life in progress.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m on the phone, so excuse brevity.

I’m looking out of the airport windows, breathing the stale airport air, and every cell of my brain is screaming not to go.

There are lots of reasons for that screaming. I’ll tell the biggest of the stories later tonight when I’m back in hell, but suffice it to say that if I stay in Iowa for the next three months, I’ll be amazed. I’ll be surprised if I last three weeks.

There are things I need in this life. Practical concerns. I’m not entirely flighty. But, honestly, those needs are minimal. And Iowa isn’t meeting them.

It’s time to board.

Why does it feel like a deathmarch?

(ooh, melodrama. I know. Hush.)

Tonight’s my last night.

I intended to get so much more done than I did.  That whole crying-until-your-eyes-bleed thing sapped a whole lot of productive time.

(Okay, okay, yes.  In a way, it was also productive time, just in a way that wasn’t intended or scheduled for, but probably pretty necessary.  Not the point.  “Have Giant Pansy-Ass Breakdown” was not on the to-do list.  “Write IYC Copy and Mail To Chelsea”  WAS, however, and the latter didn’t get done as a result of the former.  We are not amused.)

So this morning, i hauled my pasty tail out of the bed at four a.m., ran a brush through my hair and aover my teeth (different brushes), and stuck myself at a perch on the floor and didn’t let myself move until I had a whole lot of planning done.  Like, a *whole lot* of planning.  Pages and pages of it, which was then edited and given priority and scheduled in pencil to see how it works when I get home.

It still might not be the IYC copy (which, incidentally, is due to mail out on the first of February OMG OMG OMG…), but it’s a cohesive plan to GET things out to people on the first of February (OMG OMG OMG PLEASE NO MORE BREAKDOWNS OR THE SCHEDULE WILL BE HOSED.).

I will say, though, that once I get home and the Brand New Breakdown is over (because there’ll be one.  There always is, when I go home from here.), I’m going to be busier than all get-out.  And boring.  People will stop asking what I’ve been up to, because the answer, most likely, will be an exasperated sigh and a holding up of dye-stained, perfume-stinkin’ hands, and possibly a pointing at the tiny wisps of smoke dribbling out of my ears, indicating a small brushfire where my brain used to be.

(Not that I’m complaining.  Deadlines make me more happy than I like to admit.  I just like to complain for comedic value.  My amusement comes first.)

ANYWAY…

I had plans to hop down here to Charlotte tonight, and to come a little early, since I finished the bulk of the work early in the day, and had a meeting or two to contend with.  I brought my laptop and my notes and all the other stuff, and dutifully laid them all out in front of me here so I could work.

And the sun.  The sun is evil.  It’s so warm out that I can’t concentrate on jack, and all I really want to do is go run off and frolic, and I know that when I get done here and get home, I’m going to remember this particular moment in time and ….

Oh, who am I kidding?  I’m going to regret not going outside in this.  Not sitting in the sun and watching the clouds float by and listening to the traffic for an hour before my meeting starts.

Screw all this work stuff.  I’m gonna go bask for a while.

(There really was a point to all this when I sat down here to write, but in the last five minutes, I’ve changed my mind.  I’ll be all weepy and profound and miss-y tomorrow before i get on the plane.  For now, that sun’s being all irresistable and warm and THESE are the memories I want.

Later, y’all.)

I’m not sure what it was about Monday.

I’m not a believer in the concept that a day is just inherently bad by virtue of being where it is in the week – Mondays are usually every bit as awesome as Fridays, for instance, or Wednesday is the same is Saturday is the same as Tuesday. It’s just not something that bothers me on a regular basis. (I do not, in other words, ever get A Case of the Mondays, which is one of those Thank God kinds of traits in myself. Droopy people generally low-level annoy me, and I’m forever screaming BUCK UP LITTLE COWPOKE in my head, which is counter-productive for the workday, trust me.)

Anyway.

Monday rolled around and I woke up in the crisp Greensboro air. The sun was shining and the skies were mostly blue, despite warnings of snow later on in the day. Everything was shiny.

Except me. I was in severe need of some Little Cowpoke Bucking Up. Like, the kind with a two-by-four straight to the noggin.

I’d been crying since Sunday. It started around 10 a.m., when the enormity of everything going on in my life hit me with said Two By Four, and kept pounding, over and over again, until I kinda felt a little like mush. All the comfort, all the *chocolate*, in the world wasn’t going to help. And I didn’t get it.

Things are good, see. Things are really good. Things are so good that people turn green and hate me a little bit when they (regretfully, later) ask me how things are. I’ve been expecting a nice little bus to hit me, really. Things are that good.

But there are Issues. There always are. Life isn’t ever perfect, despite the pervasive and insistant desire I have for peace and perfection and wonderfully even knit stitches. It just doesn’t work that way.

I tried to do the self-comfort thing. I told myself all the right things. I distracted myself with work. I tried to think about Big As Yet Unnamed In Most Places Public Project, so that it would mitigate this growing sense of OMG THIS TOTALLY SUCKS that was going on in my chest.

And it wasn’t working. The hole in my chest started growing and the cracks in my heart got wider and wider. For *no* apparent reason.

It went away for a bit on Sunday Night (probably because i was sleeping, and heart-holes aren’t as noticeable when one is unconscious), but on Monday Morning, after waking up from a dream of warm arms and warmer sun, my brain cracked open and my face broke and an hour of sobbing in the shower just wasn’t cutting it.

And worse, I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.

Truth be told, I still can’t, three days later.

Knowing that it wasn’t going to get any better sitting around in a hotel suite by myself, where the brain was pretty much unchecked by anything other than a hefty dose of HGTV (which was also not helping..all those happy people worrying about painting their walls a particular shade of *blue* made me both kinda intrigued and kinda nauseated. Don’t you know about world hunger, fertheloveofpete? Whothefuckcareswhatcoloryourwallsare? Just sayin’. I was a little testy.), I put on the big girl panties, made the choice to be happy, and decided to go to Chapel Hill.

I wasn’t overly enthused about going. To be honest, i felt like I was in a bit of a brain-fog. Just moving around on autopilot, zombified. But i needed to pick up a few more bottles of BPAL for people who wanted them, and the Raleigh store hadn’t had them, so a trip to CH was on the docket anyway. Might as well go there, where I knew where I was going. And my brother had informed me he’s a huge UNC fan, and had asked for a sweatshirt for Christmas, so it seemed like it’d at least be productive.

The BPAL trip was uneventful. I zombied my way through Whole Foods, knocked over a fair number of foodstuffs, and still didn’t get all the bottles I needed. But from there, I went down to this little shop on Franklin Street that sold all kinds of Carolina blue merchandise.

A little old man greeted me when I came in the door. Holding my elbow, he guided me toward the sweatshirts and pulled out a few for my approval, and I called my brother with the “theoretical” question. (No, seriously. The whole conversation sounded like, “Hey, kiddo. Theoretically, if one was standing in a little shop right actoss the street from UNC, and was looking at three hoodies, one white, one Carolina blue, and one navy blue, which do you think you’d be most happy to find under the very late Christmas tree? THEORETICALLY SPEAKING, I mean.)

He picked the Navy. The old man walked me to the counter, talking to me about the games and how long he’d been in business and introduced me to his daughter, Theresa, who was doing all the ordering for the shop now since his eyes were so bad. Theresa started ringing up the hoodie, and the man stopped, petted the back of my hair, and told me it was a beautiful color.

(I didn’t have the heart to tell him that nature hadn’t quite intended it. Ahem.)

I puffed up a bit, more from the contact than the compliment. It’s amazing how isolated we are from each other — simple touches are so rare and so connective.

(I also got totally hit on by some hotshot little college student who asked me to coffee on Friday. Sadly a) I’m gone on Friday, and b) I was old enough to have given birth to the child, so I declined. But it was awesome for my ego. Just sayin’.)

While driving out of town, I had the choice of I-40 West, back to Greensboro, or I-40 East to parts unknown.

I couldn’t face the empty walls. I turned East.

Three hours later, I was crunching down sand dunes, listening to sea grass and wind.

I’m still not sure *why* I went. There was a winter storm warning (rare in the Carolinas). I didn’t know the area, or, really, where I was going. I just knew if I went East, I’d eventually hit water.

And I knew that if there’s one thing that will serve as a reminder that all of this MESS going on in my head is just temporary, so small in the grand scheme of things, one little blip on the celestial radar — it’s touching the face of something larger than I can imagine. Mountains will do it. The ocean’ll do it. Open skies will even do it sometimes. Prairies won’t, cornfields won’t, and empty hotel rooms *definitely* won’t.

I lost the sun twenty minutes before I arrived in Topsail Island, but the view wsn’t as important as the connection, the sound. I found the public access points, and walked out onto the boardway (in heels, mind you — this was relatively ill-planned) and stood, completely alone, in front of a rising tide.

Waves rolled in, one after another, whispering so loud that my ears rang. Sea grasses blew across my legs. There was no light — not even out on the actual ocean — no boats, no lights other than the one I was under, nothing.

My eyes adjusted and my brain unwound, and when I licked my lips, I could taste the salt in my hiar and on my skin.

I’m still not sure if it was from the Atlantic, or my eyes.

A half-hour later, I stood up, dusted off my pants and walked back toward the car. Not really *lighter*, since I wasn’t, but more grounded. Heavier. Like I had gravity again.

Like I existed as part of it all.

I took a handful of sand from the ground, and drove back to the world. A reminder when I feel cut adrift that there’s an anchor, a base, a voice.

And I beat the snow back home.

I’m still using the phone to update — forgive any weird predictive text errors.

I found a wifi spot, so I’ll update more tomorrow. It’s been a long, event-filled day worth retelling, but it’s too much to tap out single-letter style. I’ll be writing it all up tomorrow at Coffee & Roses in High Point instead.

Well, provided there isn’t more icy death from the skies. They were predicting 3 to 5″ here, which is apparently a huuuuuge amount. (in Iowa, we call that “a dusting”, but I get it. Seattle’s the same way.). I may be hibernating in the hotel tomorrow for an entirely different reason.

Either way, for those that knew of the impromptu trip today, I’m home, I’m safe, and I beat the snow. (And it took only a miraculous two and a half hours to drive back here from where I was. Made awesome time.)

Wish us all some warm, snow-free thoughts.

It’s been a few days, I know. Sorry for that, y’all.

This hotel claims to have wireless, but the Mac isn’t connecting, so I’m having to tap this thing out on the iPhone. (I love this thing, but for heavy-duty typing, it’s not my favorite tool.)

To be (necessarily) brief, I’m full of words right now. It’s like there’s something really huge coming, either on the horizon or in my head, and I can’t see it yet, but there’s just a ton of things I need to do first, and they’re all two days past due.

I’m hermit-ing in this hotel room in the meantime, licking some imaginary wounds and getting all the spiritual cramps worked out. Sometimes that’s with some concrete planning, sometimes it’s with really out- of-character-for-me sobbing, but it’s working out.

I’m okay with that, really.

When things wanna move, apparently they will really move, on all kinds of levels.

A better recap (and pictures) when I can find a reliable wireless connection.

Okay, so.

Usually I have pretty pictures here for y’all.  I have some today, too, but they’re on my phone, and apparently, when it’s going to be a Very Bad Day, one of the things I do is forget my phone charger in Iowa when i’m a bazillion states away. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I was chuffed this morning.  My flight out of Omaha was at 9:30 and I’ve been looking forward to getting back here to North Carolina for *weeks*, so today couldn’t have come fast enough, really.  I packed the last of my stuff this morning, got all dressed and be-coiffed and was dropped off at the airport with plenty of time to spare.  (It was, by the way, -15 outside when I was dropped off, too.  Not including wind-chill factor, which made it freeze-your-snot cold.  Seriously.)

After standing in line for about a zillion years, I find out that my flight is CANCELLED.  Not delayed, but CANCELLED outright.  And when I finally got to the counter about an hour later (no, seriously — around 10:45), they tell me that to leave from Omaha’s kinda hard on Delta Airlines.  That they can get me to Greensboro…on SUNDAY.

Um.  Unacceptable.  I have plans this weekend and I’ll be damned if I’m going to break them because y’all can’t figure out your asses from your elbows.

So he does some checking.  Says there’s a flight that gets into GSO at 8:40 p.m., but it leaves from Kansas City.  I make the decision on the spot to rent a car and take the flight, but he holds the Omaha flight for me, too, in case I can’t get a car one-way.  I toddle off, rent a car with no problem (that’ll figure in later, remember that…), and go back to the Delta counter.

The guy’s talking with some other people, so I wait, nearby.  He talks to them for around 20 minutes, but that’s fine — I drive fast, and the flight doesn’t leave until around 3 (when, incidentally, I SHOULD have been LANDING in NC to begin with…), and I hear this lady making a commotion behind me.

It took a second to realize she was making these noises AT ME.  She was, and I kid you not, *bitching* about me “cutting in line”, when all I was doing was grabbing my boarding passes, and trying to be polite by not interrupting him, even though he told me to come back and get the passes as soon as I had the car.  (Directly to him, he said.  He’d printed both.)

So the people in front of me leave, and I take the step up to the counter, and this woman, who is a grey-haired grandma-looking type, PUSHES ME OUT OF THE WAY.  Yes, PHYSICALLY.  And when I said, “I just need to..”  she CUT ME OFF, and YELLED (no, really, YELLED) “OH NO YOU DON’T, I WAS HERE FIRST YOU NEED TO STAND IN LINE LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE.”

The guy handed me my passes.  I turned to walk away, and told the lady, “Listen.  I know you’re frustrated, but that?  Was unacceptable.”

It’s rare that an old lady will call you the names she yelled as I walked away, but hey.,..age does not necessarily = maturity.

*  *  *

So I drive.  Three hours.  Get to KCI.  Pay for the car, because apparently, Delta didn’t call ahead, and *I* had to *pay* to get out of *their* mistake.  Fine.  Whatever.  Just get me the hell out of the midwest.

I go to check in, and the lady can’t find my revised ticket.  And when she finally does, the reason she can’t find it is because the guy in Omaha…?  Reserved a flight for *tomorrow*, not today.

Now, tell me something:  If I’m in such a hurry that i’m willing to drive three hours in a rented car to get to the next airport you service…wouldn’t that imply that I’m not wanting tomorrow’s flight?

By the time the (very nice, but very confused) ticket agent was done fixing this mistake, I had three minutes to get to the gate.  Running in heels?  not easy.  Running through security in heels?  Not allowed.  They made ‘em hold the plane while I beeped.

At least I was on my way to Atlanta.

*  *  *

Flight was uneventful, for which I’m eternally grateful.  Apparently, there was another plane headed for Charlotte today that went down in the Hudson River.  I think my Bad Day isn’t quite as bad in comparison.

Not that it makes me any less disgruntled.

*  *  *

So now it’s roughly 9 p.m. when I get out of Atlanta and into Greensboro, and I haven’t eaten anything today.  I’ve been from one plane to the other in rapid-fire succession, and I haven’t had a chance to eat anything.  I’m starving, the caffeine wore off hours ago, and I’m exhausted.  (and, incidentally, my fingers are swollen up so huge that my wedding ring is turning my ring-finger blue and I can’t get it off.  No idea what’s causing it, other than altitude.)

I go to pick up my rental car, which I’ve already paid for online, mind you, and the lady WON’T GIVE IT TO ME.  Says my card is “prepaid”.  Which it’s not.  It’s just a regular old credit card.  But she argues with me for a good ten minutes, at which point I’m almost in tears, I’m so pissed off, and when I say to her, literally, “So who do I talk to about this?  I just rented a car from you three weeks ago with this same card, and it was fine *then*….what can I do here?”

She looked at me, and in the snottiest voice I’ve ever heard, says, “The taxis pull up over there.  I’m sure they can give you a ride.”

No shit.

(Still no word on whether I get my money back for that rental or not, either. GRRR.  Phone calls will be made tomorrow, for sure.  As soon as I go buy a charger for my phone.  *whimper*)

Meanwhile, I should mention that I walked two counters down from Avis/Budget to National/Enterprise, and rented a car without even a blink of an eye, with the same card, for about $20 less.  I may have kissed the guy’s hand.  Seriously.  I think he’s scared of me now.

*  *  *

Now, I did most of my hotel shopping online this time, since a) the place i stayed last time wanted some insane thing like $179 a night, and b) I get frequent flyer miles through Northwest (who are also on my Bad List for this Delta fiasco since they own Delta now and put me in this mess to begin with).  I picked a place thta had a couch in the room, because I wanted to get some relaxing done.  And it was cheaper than the Hampton, by a longshot.  Prepaid for that, too, and since it’s via the NWA site, those reservations are unbeakable.

when I get here, I find it’s not a hotel, per se, but an extended stay thingee.

And the couch sucks.  So does the fact that it looks completely un-secure.  And it makes that first run-down hotel I stayed in look like the Ritz.

If I go somewhere else, I lose the money I paid here, *and* I have to pay some kind of insane rates.

I swear, if I didn’t have plans this weekend, I’d change my tickets and go home now.  Seriously.  It’s been *that* kind of a day.

*  *  *

I’m officially declaring today a Do Over.

I’ve still got seven full days to enjoy what’s left of this whole experience, and I plan to do just that, no matter where I end up.

At least I’m not doing the backstroke in the Hudson, right?

SMUT, the Valentine’s Day ‘09 collection by us over here at Happy Housewife just went live, a little bit early. (I’m so tired that I probably won’t make it until midnight, so y’all get a few extra hours to peruse.)

If you missed all my earlier ballyhoo, this is the collection I’ve been working on for a few months now: 16 scents, all based on those mid-century tawdry bedside pulp novels…with names like “Too Hot To Handle” and “Scandalous!”. (And yes, I admit that I giggled the entire way through finding the descriptions and coming up with scents to match. Just awesome. I love my job.)

So stop by. Buy some perfume, and get your inner Wanton Wench revved up and ready to go.

* * *

I’ve been running around for a few hours now, packing and booking hotels and buffing myself to perfection. (Well, okay, as near perfection as I get, which is decidedly unperfect at the moment. But I’m all smooth and glow-y from the sugar scrub, at least.)

It’s the packing that’s making me a little crazy.

See, I have this uniform that I wear. Like, every day. Not like a uniform-uniform, but the same general clothes. And I’m so not one of those clothes-girls that when I find things that fit and don’t look all that half-bad, I tend to buy multiples. Long-sleeved button-up shirts. Black pants. A couple pairs of basic shoes with varying heels. That’s it. There’s my whole closet, other than a couple t-shirts, and some ill-conceived pink shirt thing that I thought was kinda cute. (It wasn’t. But it’s nice and cool in the summertime, so I keep it.)

Anyway, I’m packing all of this and realizing that I AM THE MOST BORING PERSON ON THE PLANET. And better, that people that see me a lot must think I never change clothes, ever.

At least wash days are easy.

And I know I match. Which is a concern when you’re too busy thinking about relational character databases to give a flying monkey’s ass what you look like. Just sayin’.

* * *

Speaking of Steve Jobs (which I didn’t, but he’s got that whole uniform thing going on, too, so it sparked the thought), did you see that he’s stepping down from Apple until June to get that hormone thing under control? Leaving the COO in charge (which, I am sorry to admit, I always pronounce out loud as COOOOO, like a dove, and it makes it very hard to take these poor operations guys seriously, even though they’re far more competent than I’ll ever be if I live to be a zillion years old *and* suddenly sprout a whole bunch of IQ points), and a whole buncha Apple investors really, really nervous.

There’s only one Steve.

Someone linked this video of a commencement speech he did at Stanford in 2005, and I’d never seen it until today.

Wow. Go look, if you haven’t seen it. I’ll wait.

(puts on the Muzak…)

See what I mean? The man’s freakin’ amazing.

That whole part about connecting the dots when you look back at them? That’s totally what I was saying a few posts ago. At the time all these random things were happening, I had precisely Zero Clue what I was going to do with all of these weird and varied interests and skills. None. None Clue. They were all just random dots on a very large piece of very white paper with seemingly no connective threads. (I mean, really….interactive/experimental fiction and random studies in how the senses affect one’s brain chemistry? And political science/law mixed with how to tell the difference between sixteen brands of coffee just by smell? And a bizarre interest in why people buy things they do? And, and, and…? Like ANY of that seems to have much of a connection. Or it didn’t at the time.)

But all those dots lined up in a weird pattern that defines my life now. That feed into what I’m doing and fuel it. That spark off completely random and creative tangents that change the way I look at things versus the way everyone else approaches them.

Steve’s a flippin’ genius.

* * *

I need to go get the rest of my (seventeen completely identical) shirts out of the dryer and get the rest of the technology packed up and ready to go for tomorrow.

Plane leaves at 10 a.m., and you’d better bet that I’ll be on it.

Eight full days of temperatures that aren’t preceded with a minus sign, good friends, and a whole lot of Just Me Time.

Can. Not. Wait.