for I'm not my former

Yeah, so actually, I lied and I am not going to write about that baby from my travels, and that story will just have to wait for another day. Actually, I am no good at a cliffhanger. Actually, I think cliffhangers suck anyway. If you already know what you have to say, it's probably wise to just say it, rather than build up anticipation that always ends in a whimper rather than a bang. And if you don't know what you have to say, there is no guarantee you will be able to figure it out by the next day, even if you set a false deadline for yourself.

Anyway, I talked to RR today and he filled me in on everything I am missing at work. And let me tell you, his little status report did nothing to sway me from my current plans. There are entertaining stories from that world, and certainly entertaining people (Y'all may recall a certain KL? Apparently, she fell off the 'crack is whack' wagon at a conference this past week.). But I haven't felt once the slightest pang of regret that I quit that job.

RR also gave me a lecture about how I need to get my a$$ back to California post-haste to find an apartment, as he has decided I am cutting it far too close. I feel like I have been getting a lot of unsolicited advice lately, and I wonder if I am somehow putting that damsel in distress vibe out there. If so, I want to know, because I didn't even know I was capable of that vibe. And it would be good to know, so that maybe I could reproduce that vibe at some later date, like some occasion where Clive Owen happened to be passing by me on the street, for example.

I was the first masi to hold D this afternoon. The other masis are even more remiss in meeting him than I am, so at least I've got that going for me. Before I went over, I baked chocolate chip cookies. Since I've forbidden myself from buying any additional baking products, I improvised today, using honey and raw cane sugar instead of brown sugar. I think they turned out okay, because when I got home tonight, there was only one cookie left from the dozen I'd kept out for the parents.

It's weird though, still, being in this part of the country. I drove about an hour to visit my cousin and her baby D. My cousin, it just so happens, now lives in the same town where W grew up. When I was in college, one year during some break, W suggested I come down to grab dinner. It was a bit of a disaster. I wound up totally turned around, lost, and (yes, I am this old) this was before the days of cell phones, so panic settled in more easily. I had such trouble finding my way around his town that I wound up crashing at his house that night, rather than try to find my way back in the dark. This decision got us both in trouble. His dad poked his head in a couple of times that night to make sure I was the only guest in the guest bedroom. My mother was infuriated that I had spent the night at a boy's place, and she was deaf to any facts beyond that key one.

I was so young then, to think of it. To think I was too nervous to drive home. It's almost a foreign concept at this point. What was there to fear? Back then, I never found my way around. I was given carefully scripted directions, and I was adept at following them precisely. But following a map, plotting my own course, these ideas were not only unfamiliar but also quite unwelcome. And writing that last sentence is so jarring, because it's such a far cry from how I feel about things today. But that was who I was.

And it's just odd, because I wonder if I'll ever just be someone. Because right now, it's like I keep turning into someone else. When I got to my cousin's house, she offered me a Smirnoff Ice, because, as she put it, "I remembered that you like them." Really? When was that, back when she was buying me alcohol because I was under-age? But she wasn't wrong. There was an embarassing period of time in New Jersey when I was consuming unwise quantities of Smirnoff Ice, no doubt. Even though that seems absurd to me now, I just can't help considering whether I'll be eyeing someone strangely in five years when they hand me a Grey Goose & Tonic for the same reason. Sure, I am no longer ignorantly hoping for the world to remain static. But I wonder if the dynamic equilibrium will ever be reached. And will I ever settle on just being something, one thing, and stop trying to be something, anything else?