One of my cousins came out as a lesbian recently. She has never been all that humble. Everyone is trying to figure out what that means for her children. I gave my aunt a little advice based on the trials of my childhood, but they were unique circumstances.

I’ve always thought about what my father must have been like when he was younger, happy and alive. Sort of like the father in field of dreams. Lately I’ve been thinking about my mother and her sisters, and all they’ve been through. Life is so long. I talked to an old friend from middle school recently who has moved back home. She said being around the school has really reconnected her to those times.

I’ve been dirt biking this weekend. It’s been fun. If I wasn’t at my mom’s house right now posting from my phone I would say more.

I took inventory of my dating history recently, recapping how each relation has changed me. I continue to think a lot about the perfect relationships where I just wasn’t happy and the failed ones where I was. I seems hopeless, but I don’t feel that way. I just go on living.

I hid under my comforters in pajama pants and an extra large hoodie, talking to my mom on the phone about today’s doctor visit, love, and my earlier call with dad. There is a strange state of aloneness that I am accustom to when it comes to my father. Mom said his situation makes her sad. She knew him when he was more alive. I barely did, wide eyed and full of innocence. I like to think I didn’t lose that innocence, I just gained some wisdom to keep it straight.

Despite it being ten o’clock, I went out to the shop to work on the dirt bike. Something still wasn’t right with the kick-start kit that L and I had installed a couple months ago. Over the weekend I had pulled the crankcase cover again and fiddled with it until I was pretty sure I understood what was going on. By the end of the day, I was ready to reassemble the engine but lacked oil. I got some, but ended up watching movies with the girls instead of going back out later. Tonight, I got it all back together. I had also rebuilt the carb again. I’m glad, the float valve was really cocked up and needed to be replaced rather than cleaned. It took a while to get the engine to stay running, and then a while longer to get the idle set screw on the throttle thumbed down. I put about twenty-five cold miles on the bike though, wandering around the area. It took a while to get used to the lack of power and the squirrely tires. The BMW has really spoiled me.

It’s nice to have it running again. It’s nice to ride around on a clear night to the city lights. Once again, I looked off in disbelief as to how I got here. I wonder, if I ever have children, if I’ll get used to this feeling by then.

Current theme song: Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime

Current theme song: Desperado (as covered by Johnny Cash)

I scour M’s blog for something I read last night to quote for context.

I’m glad you’re alive. I love you and I want you to keep your head above water, but I don’t miss you any more. Not like I used to.

I had a physical today. It’s been about four years. I felt accomplished, like this was some significant bucket-list quality feat. The doctor mostly told to me work on my hygiene. This came as no surprise, I led him down that road anyway. I know what my problems are, and I’m getting around to them. Doctors always tell me my neurology is fine, but that I really should go to a dentist again. There’s a bucket-list item. Anyway, my past physical trauma is, as they say, unimpressive. That’s good.

He was glad that I see a counselor regularly, although I felt like he expressed as much in concern for my stress level. Of course, I go to therapy because I’m twenty-eight and I feel like the quantity of people I date isn’t going to change the reality that I’ve only really liked a couple people in my life and it wasn’t reciprocal. Not that I’m trying to get anywhere in particular, but my biological imperative isn’t happy about waking up alone every morning.

I heart still skips a beat when I run across L on the internet. It’s my little secret, because there isn’t anything to do about it.

I was thinking over some chili at SP tonight about how writing a special girl, or even a girl I’d like to be special, is a unique release for me. It’s the closet I come to not being alone, when I am, in fact, physically alone. Writing L is usually sending my thoughts into a void, and I wonder at times if it is because I never hear back from her, or because I slaughter my thoughts with censorship whenever I interact with her.

I listened to Dad talk for twenty minutes today, about what his financial plans are now that he’s “fifty-eight and a half.” He got talking about his financial situation and how he has put himself in a place where he can spend a little money now. He talked about the “icing on the cake” of finding out his long term disability should last until sixty-five instead of sixty. I can’t quite tell if he expects to be alive when he’s sixty-five. I don’t think so.

Thus, the next car will have heated seats, and he’s going to get the house painted.

I just realized what that strange feeling was that comes with dating women in their early twenties. Its that I’m dating women in their early twenties still. I’ve lived my life so upside down, ageism be damned.

5:30am. Brewing coffee. I adorn my giant orange volunteer parking hoodie from MOFGA CGCF.

I had a dream about Matthew and Peggy. We are at my Grandparent Saunder’s house, bickering in that little way about something to do with the diesel sedan we were taking somewhere.

I got this message on Goodreads last night, “you’re adorable and i like what you read. cheers!” I like being adorable.

Waiting on coffee, then a few hours of webex trainings for the Red Cross.

Then I should leave town. I never do really. Last night I thought about it, and the new bike isn’t set up for it yet. I laughed though, I do have two trucks. That still counts. I’m sure I’ll just nap though, having only slept a few hours tonight.

Maybe I’ll just “work”. I wrote a gitorious redirector the other night. That was fun. Hpricot and screen scraping wasn’t really that bad.

I’ve spent the last three days with the flu, the bulk of which in DC. I managed to sleep most of the flight home, to which I attribute the fact that I didn’t vomit. Since I landed, I’ve been sleeping and watching netflix. As time goes on, the insanity and confusion settles and more of reality seems to stick.

I watched Blue State. A vocal liberal man who is disgusted with Bush’s reelection decides to move to Canada in protest. A woman, who turns out to be running from her redeployment to Iraq for the Army, goes along with them. Politics ensue. It’s well written. The more I think about it, the more I realize this. I stopped at one point and considered if I’m being a bit hypocritical for considering myself a critical thinker when I’ve never been one to take music or movies apart much, but rather look for solace in them.

The background music is now a Bukowski film. It reads like one. I mean, it watches like one.

While traveling through Canada, they stumble across a draft dodger who has been living in Canada since the Vietnam war. He lives in a hand built log cabin in the middle of nowhere and they reconsider if they want that life. This is, of course, striking to me. I’m not entirely accustom to this yet, to the difference between returning and escaping.

Ultimately the movie was about taking a stand for what you believe, and I’d like to think it was also about the depth and difficulty of politics.

I’m in the front of an airplane to LA using my phone to have a pissing contest with my friends on the internet about which of our well-paying jobs’ offices has the better liquor cabinet and I think I probably have no right to complain about anything ever again.

I can agree with the sentiment of that. I’m regularly reminded of how much I have compared to what I started with, while I’m still unsure if it is worth the while. When this flu began, it started with a panic attack. I reached out to M.

When T and I caught up after my trip, I went on for a bit about different ways of loving people, and different relationships. What being in love with M meant these days.

Facebook tells me one of my aunts is going back for more surgery for cancer. We’ve got pretty high rates of cancer in my family. I wonder if they’re higher than normal. Another Aunt goes on about a soda can leaving “under god” off the pledge of allegiance. Turns out it’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it is interesting to take some time out to read about the history of the pledge of allegiance. In particular, “under god” was added in the 1950s, and wasn’t part of the original pledge as written in 1892, by a Christian socialist no less.

Meh. It’s all just surface.

Choices to be made.