I was off-base, thankfully...

...I have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. It's serious, but it's not THAT SERIOUS. Not like transplant serious, or meds serious. Not like my friend who has hep C and deals with the fact that liver transplant is a possibility. It's not a definite inevitability, but just a possibility. But that's bad enough in my mind. He contracted hep C from childhood blood transfusions. He's been very supportive of me and has had good advice since the beginning, and I am grateful for him.

...drop me head-first into the trees....

I applied for my supervisor's now-vacant position. I want it very much, but there are no guarantees in life, but that the sun will rise and set, as will the moon, and that death is inevitable. Pretty heavy stuff to associate with a job, I know, but I realize that there's a vague sense of dread in me - dread that I'm not good enough; that as much as I've overcome the fibro and dealt with the migraines and done the very best damn job I could in spite of the days I sometimes miss, my health issues, which I have worked hard to overcome and to not let slow me down, will in the end be my downfall; and that I'll be stuck in here, in this town, as a reference librarian the rest of my life, and that's a terrifying feeling.

Getting my supervisor's job will be change, a new challenge, something to enliven my life, and will open new opportunities. I need them - novelty keeps the blood fresh, the bones strong. And lest I go crazy waiting for the right ship to take me Home, I need something that justifies my remaining here, some piece of logic, a tidbit of reason that makes staying here obvious and appropriate. As well as a little balm for the soul that so desires to be Home, to finally be totally embraced by the City Beneath the Sea....

....sometimes I dream about places I've never been, because they don't exist. I'm nearing 30; I still daydream. My heart has some weight to it today - the man who saved my life nearly 20 years ago - in a November that has never fully faded from my mind - passed away this weekend. But for him I'd either be dead or institutionalized. Simple as that. And I can't help but mourn the passing of such a man, a great man in his own right...

...but it's not just that. My heart is heavy anyway - a keen sense, a ghost of mortality haunts me today, the age of my parents, of my beloved aunt and uncle, and the frailty of all whom I love...it's a passage in a book I unreasonably revisit. It's that morbidity in me, an Irish genetic predisposition to melancholy. I'm manic today, I can tell - sitting at my desk is not enough, working at my desk is not enough - I want to be out in the cold day, foaming and thriving, active, singing....not sitting at this desk (nice though it is, with the addition of a turquoise-colored foo dog and a little cloth owl perched on a real stick - a little sachet with googly eyes - to add to the cheer), silent, typing, thinking...

...it is almost 2pm. At 4pm I will go across the street to Starbucks to see my friend who works there. She is moving away, and I want to take her out for a meal before she leaves. She's moving back in 6-8 months, but I will miss seeing her. What began as a sense of familiarity born from my love affair with Starbucks and frequent visits grew into a genuine sense of warmth and mutual affection. She's a lovely girl, and she brightens my day, from her septum ring tucked safely up her nose, to her penchant for goth fashion discretely hid under Starbucks green-and-black, and the fantastic faces she makes. She first came to my attention because she's a doppleganger for my best friend who lives in Baltimore, and it was comforting to see her, because she made me think of Nadia...but she's become precious to me as her own person...

....I can't leave off looking under every leaf....

I came into this world singing, I think, in my soul, and it hasn't stopped yet, that singing, that resonance with the world, with the flesh of the earth, the bones of the sky, and water which is blood. I hear it all humming in music, humming in the trees, humming humming humming, and I am ever trying to nail down the lyrics, which are too subtle for these mortal ears, for the mortal years that lay on me lightly sometimes, heavily at others, but nevertheless outline the time I've spent wandering, roaming, and wondering, loving, writing, and yearning....