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Hi, I'm back from a long and story-filled semi-transformative trip down South. But first, an unrelated story.

A couple weeks ago, we had this beautiful unexpected spring day, sunny and high of 60 degrees. It was February and this is unheard of in Chicago. This was the day I washed my bike, as seen in the short movie I posted. So, in the morning, I wrapped up a couple last unemployment related matters, including printing out the form to defer my student loans. I put it in an envelope with a stamp, shoved it into the front kangaroo pocket of my pullover hoodie. Then I hopped on my bike to ride to the gym. Halfway there, I saw a mailbox on the corner at the light and slowed down to drop it in. I reached into my pocket and....nothing was there. Because I was hunched over riding, my legs pushed it out. I paused, shrugged. Continued my day. It was mildly annoying to have to print out the form again and it was a wasted stamp, but I wasn't going to let it ruin my sunny day. On the way back home, I kinda kept an eye on the road in case I did spy it in the gutter. But then I had a feeling it was going to get mailed anyway. I've found dropped stamped letters on the ground before and put them in mailboxes. I live in a very neighborhoodie neighborhood.

Then I forgot about it. In my mind, I'd crossed off "mail student loan form" off the list and didn't re-add it. Until today, I'm handling some bill-paying type business while I'm home for two days before southern California, and that includes calling unemployment, a credit card form, and then I thought oh yeah, that student loan form. I should do that today too. Let me eat breakfast first.

I just checked my e-mail and got a message from National Education, verifying my deferment. Sometimes it is the tiny things that revive my faith in people.

There are two mosquito bites on my right arm, one at the elbow, one further up; a small patch of red skin on my right hand; the smell of sweat and seat salt and suntan lotion on the brim of my hat. Still -- all intangible. They will linger for only a few days, then fade, disappear. But as I sit and press my fingernails against the skin to curb the itching, as I kiss my hand to test the warmth on my lips, as I unpack my suitcase and bring a worn shirt up to my face, I remember other things from the trip that are perhaps more permanent that I've carried back with me, I re-think them, I re-feel them, so they won't be erased with the passage of time and return to routine.

I'm in the kitchen, making pasta for lunch, because Men's Health says I should eat carbs after a workout and Real Age says I need more lycopene from tomatoes in my life, and I'm deciding if I will make my pasta al dente or not, because honestly, I maybe prefer it mushy and slightly overdone, even if that is Wrong^TM, but than again I also like my pasta with a sauce made up of herbs reconstituted in red wine, olive oil, plus canned sauce and generic garlic powder, and shakey cheese, so why stop my renegade taste preference combinations now? Ok, I will try al dente, I tell myself. Right in that moment, a slap against the kitchen windows, like being sprayed by a bucket of warning. It is raining, suddenly, sporadically, and I think, wow, I had perfect timing in getting home. I was dragging my feet after sleeping in, but I went to workout anyway, and got home right before it started. Then I kept thinking, what is not perfect timing? Because if it had started raining while walking from the train stop to the house, I would say, wow, perfect timing, I'm almost home. If it had started while walking to the train from the gym, I would say, wow, perfect timing, I'm almost to the train. Even if I had walked out of the Y and it was raining already, I would probably say, wow, perfect timing, if it had started raining before I left the house, I might have never gone to work out. When you add these things up, there isn't perfect timing, its really the majority of options most likely to happen. Which leads me to think that maybe, after all, I really am an optimist.

I went running this morning, the second time this week, I've been going about twice a week in the past two weeks. I'd like to get up to three times a week, but hey, I'll take two. It's two more than zero, which I was doing before. I've taken SAMe every morning since February 22nd, which means its been about a month. I swallow 400 mg every morning, and sometimes on an afternoon when going to work seems hard, I take another 200 mg. Today, I took the extra 200 mg in the mid-morning. I'm doing a lot, I'm doing better, but sometimes I catch myself in the lie -- that even though I tell myself it's about managing and coping, parts of me still think its about curing. So I get down on myself when its still there. I know lots of things, that is different from feeling them, believing them.

There's a difference though, which is that I'm actually feeling separate emotions, not just a grey white-noise of numbness over all things. I am sometimes gentle with myself. I'll keep at it.

Last night I started to really put together all the organizational bits and pieces of the writer's retreat packet and I'm so jazzed about this, I can hardly contain myself. I want to send out the packet RIGHT NOW, but I'm still waiting on parts from other people. Including, um, myself. I did write up my seminar description, but I want to revise parts of the story I'm sending in too. So. Excited. I get all buzzy and jumpy and tingly. Writing about it makes me think about it and I'm feeling it again.

Yesterday while doing work up in Evanston, I stopped by the inferior branch of Binny's (it's smaller and mostly seems to deal in hard liquors), which was perfect for being inferior because the random wine with which I am in love (and also is currently on sale) was fully stocked and I bought two more bottles, one to share at the writing retreat. I wrote about it already, the Dehesa Gago 2005. The other week, I also bought the Dehesa Gago 2003 and a white wine, Baso, also by my new winemaker boyfriend, Telmo Rodriguez. I was ready to live in sin with him and birth all his babies, all based on his skills alone, but then I googled him and check it out:



He would be easy to love.

I just realized my brunch tomorrow is a birthday brunch, so I should go get a card and maybe a gift. It's friday, so I'm wearing jeans and a tight t-shirt that says "Don't Get Caulky". And there's a picture of a caulking gun.