Hello, Seattle. I am an old lighthouse, throwing beams of bright light.

I should be doing mes devoirs français... but the syllabus has another wrong page number listed and I don't feel like wasting time guessing what it really means; in other words, I procrastinate. I keep meaning to write. I write in my head all the time, but I guess that doesn't count... I debate whether or not what I write is worth writing, whether it is worth reading, whether it is worth thinking. I didn't have this problem for a time. I lost self-consciousness and gained self-awareness and I wrote. I embraced everything, I tasted and ruminated, I experienced and I expressed. And now it just seems that I don't have time. I want to work on it, though. I want to make time for important things. Reading, piano, writing, homemaking. I guess I'm a work in progress... getting things to translate from thought to action.

Owww

I come to you, my nonexistent readers, at a high cost today.

I'm currently hunched over my laptop, at the dining room table rather than on the couch, standing rather than sitting, my nerves on edge lest it come. The Pain. The worst pain I can remember experiencing, and I'm guessing the worst in store for me until I give birth to a child. Yes, it's that bad, I swear. I'm not a cry-er, but I've cried today. I didn't cry when I had eight teeth extracted in the same day, or when I fell flat on my back onto a cement floor from about a five-foot altitude, or when I got bit in the face by a Saint Bernard (well, maybe that time I did, but I'm pretty sure that was because of the trauma, not the pain). This bugger has me in tears. The worst part is that the pain triggers seem completely random - I can be standing stock-still and - BAM - my face screws up, I resist the urge to say things I shouldn't say, and every muscle in my body quivers. I don't know if it's bruised or fractured, but my coccyx (tailbone) is injured, and I wouldn't mind someone knocking me out with a tranquiliser just now.

If I described to you how the injury occurred, you might question my mental health (or that of my jazz dance instructor), so I'll just say that I landed square on my arse on a hard (hard) wood floor this morning.

And now I must go, because typing seems to be triggering some sort of dizzyingly painful coccyx contractions. Somebody hook me up with some morphine or something, please?

On and on the rain will fall like tears from a star

I remember 9/11. I remember the days immediately after, like a long vigil. I remember the grief and the terror, and also scepticism. I had just turned thirteen and was old enough to understand most of it, and in many ways it stripped me of any clinging innocence. I remember the country's surging acknowledgement of God, a wave of repentance that subsided as quickly as it had mounted. We went to war and soon forgot why, and today men die fighting in irrelevant and peripheral locales. We are fragile, it is true.

Matt Damon looks ridiculous with a mustache.

Apparently I have not blogged in a very long time.

I'm now a homeowner and an overwhelmed college sophomore. I am once again sick of painting, but I've got a lot of it left to do. I survived without television for twelve days, which I think is impressive. Evidently that period was long enough to break my absolute addiction, as the TV isn't even turned on right now. I began the semester registered for four classes, planning to drop one and add a another, but somehow managed to accomplish the adding part only. Thus I have my busiest semester yet (not counting summer... but that's a different ball game). It is also the most demanding, what with jazz dance on Tuesday/Thursday, and back-to-back classes Monday/Wednesday/Friday from 0900 to 1300, involving a trans-campus sprint at 0950.

Speaking of jazz dance, it's a killer. Mindy and I assumed from the title "Beginning Jazz Dance" (emphasis mine) that this would be the perfect abecedarian experience for us, having had no dance experience. Wrong. Our first day on the floor we blew through tendus and pliés. Tuesday's class (in which I was left to embarrass myself solo, as Mindy forgot to come... [I forgave her]) involved learning chassé and pas de bourrée. The worst part is that everyone else besides the two of us has been dancing since early childhood. What?! "We're going to look like cows," I told Mindy. Wrong again. Cows can walk. Last Friday, I couldn't.

Let's see, other bad experiences... Oh, yes. I found out the humiliating way that French devoirs are due the day they're listed on the syllabus, unlike the last two semesters, where they were due the next class. Thankfully Salif showed first-week mercy. Hmm... The computers at the library are a bit cactus this year, causing me to be a few minutes late to French yesterday. What else? ... Not necessarily new info, but in general people are moronic drivers. A.) Parking in two parallel spaces on the curb should warrant you a ticket. B.) If I get to the four-way stop first, you do not have the right to go ahead of me. C.) A stop sign means you must actually stop at the sign. No leeching onto the fender in front of you and sneaking through before your turn. Really.

I realise that I get bent out of shape over things. Fact is, I think it's a hobby of mine to get pissed off at all the dolts in the world and at my unusual amount of bad fortune. I have a strange sense of humour, you might say.

Moving on to a little optimism. We have a house! It's about halfway re-painted indoors! The TV is operable again! We have a coffee maker! We have coffee! We have coffee! We have lots and lots of coffee! (It's keeping us alive.) In 105 days we will be on Christmas break. The weather has been beautiful and autumnal. I baked peanut butter cookies Tuesday night at about 2230 and they were so yummy. We're going to go watch Star Trek at the Union tonight = free snacks ftw.

Time for this desultory post to come to an end - I've a few things to straighten up around here before heading to campus. Unpacking and settling in is a wonderful but time-consuming thing, no?

Like an opera at a disco, when all you wanted was a rock show tonight

The fabulous weekend is long since over and I'm pretty sure the next couple weeks will go even faster. I still haven't begun to pack at all, nor have I chosen paint colours for the house. Today our final loan approval should come through, and then closing will be about a week later. So... hopefully still moving before school starts? I guess in the worst case we'd move the weekend after school starts. I really want to paint before we get all of our junk inside.

About the weekend. The traffic was generally constipated on our way into the city. Rush hour on Friday is probably not the best time to drive through Chicago. It was around 1700 when we reached the limits and would have been around 1800 when we reached the surprise shad our directions not led us astray a mere half mile from our destination. Long story short, we drove a good half hour the wrong way before we stopped to ask for directions. The helpful guy at Sports Authority told us the quickest way to get back on track would be to take the freeway back, and this would have been good advice had we not been caught up in a traffic jam due to an accident. Eventually, at about 10 past 1900, we drove up to JAPANESE HEAVEN. I can't believe Adam kept the surprise a surprise for almost a year. Mitsuwa Marketplace in Arlington Heights is now officially my absolute favourite place ever. It's like a mall. There's everything one could possibly want. Most importantly, there's KARL!!!!

Next to Karl Kakes (which are pretty much mythical), Meiji Karl is the best sort of snack food. Unfortunately, we'd never actually sampled its glory until yesterday, as the only place I had hitherto found it was the internet with its exorbitant shipping rates. But now my quest is over. Karl is in my pantry. How freaking fantastic is that?

We also bought some new Pocky flavours, some new Calpico flavours, and some snack packs of ChocoBoy, along with a bottle of organic sake for Mom.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We didn't actually shop until Sunday. Friday night, we barely had enough time to order dinner before they closed. Adam got a beef noodle bowl and a peach smoothie with black pearl, and I got shrimp dim sum and a honeydew smoothie with black pearl. I honestly don't know exactly what black pearl is, but it's good! Everything was brilliant.

After eating, we made it easily to Sweetie and Papa's, and were the first ones to get in. Gary was waiting as the 'welcoming party'. We unpacked, and shortly thereafter Ryan, Luke and Wes got in.

...more later. Mom's just got out of her appointment.

Day 1 - of a trip

I've got hours ahead of me here at Panera in Moline, and I plan on writing. First I wanted to charge my iPod and figure out how to save a few YouTube vids on it. I don't think I mentioned last that I had discovered a few song downloads from Stones in the Field - a Celtic band with which an acquaintance once played. I bought their album a few years ago but it got cracked or lost... all the good ones always do. Who knows - maybe it's having fun in the parallel vortex now.

It is a lovely rainy day. Driving in heavy rain is not so fun, but drinking chai in a corner booth is definitely a good rainy day activity. I really want to listen to Christmas music. I really want Christmas. Actually, I'll take autumn first. Minus school, it should be wonderful. And since school means free college football, I'll even accept it with relative pleasantry.

I'm afraid my mind is a protean jumble today. Going to Chicago does this to me. It's only a day trip, but it seems far enough away (and still foreign enough to me) that one could almost consider it a road trip. But it's not a proper road trip, and I end up going home with a vague sense of unsated wanderlust.

Well, omg. I figured it out. Syncsta's Numa Numa vid is now playing on Hello iPod. This is a moment of tech-victory for me. Allow a moment of self-revelling, s'il te plait! With this newfound skill, I may ditch this spacey post and build a glorious video library on my 'pod. Thank you, Narcoblix, for the little tutorial.

Until next time...

Scudamour

Unbelievably enough, we're leaving tomorrow to spend the weekend at Sweetie and Papa's in celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary. Of course, this means that we could be closing on the house a week from now. And that means that my summer holiday is a third of the way through.

Time does pass too quickly. It's been a year and a half since I last saw Dad. Over two years since I last stood on Virginian soil. Eight years since I last visited any of my Dad's side of the family. About twenty years since I last saw the place of my birth... eleven years since the talked-of 10-year reunion. Sometimes I wonder if I've fallen into Othertime... or if its true name is just Away.

I should go pack.