And before that...

Well I guess I left this thing on a pretty sour note, so i should point out that I'm not depressed at all anymore, even though things have gotten, in some ways, worse. Bad news is in no short supply this year, in the obvious senses but it also just seems like everyone is having some degree of serious personal trauma these days. The health of people I care about seems to be particularly cursed. But there's not a whole lot that can be done, and getting incapacitated with fear and sadness every time someone is diagnosed with something or other doesn't really seem like it's going to improve the situation any, so I guess the only tactic is some form of optimism and indulgence of our own humanity. I've been indulging the shit out of my humanity. Here's how!

Me and Mars went to the Sequoias and we touched them, they are furry and they give a little when you touch them, and they want to be held and they exude something Good and many of them are older than Jesus. And we saw a black bear and two deers and a chipmunk and snow and the milkyway and we saw the sun set on a lake of puffy clouds with mountain peaks poking out when we emerged at 5,000 feet from under a heavily overcast day. And we smelled it, the way you can never ever smell it from an airplane. And we were glad. And I love her.

And a few weeks ago I had a giant sushi dinner with a few of my aunts and uncles on my dad's side, and my Uncle Toshiaki looks exactly like he did when I was 11 and I love him, and I love all of them, and my Uncle Tommy is a master sushi chef in Vail and he made a feast and there was eel sushi shaped like a dragon with octopus sucker eyes, and I ate a raw quail's egg with fish eggs and cucumber and I ate urchin, which is not unlike the first french kiss you ever got in that closet at Samantha Feasel's house.

That and I decided I'm gonna be an elementary school teacher. I was honest with myself and there's a whole diatribe I could write on why, and maybe I will later on. Hopefully fourth or fifth grade-ish... right around when girls start hating math and science and both boys and girls are losing that natural desire to do well in school and their excitement about learning. It's a paycut, but seriously, I was seriously considering becoming a nun. No, seriously. I was researching convents on the internet. But this way, i can still get laid sometimes. Maybe. Get laid sometimes maybe, and do work that actually matters, and that I don't have to go into mad school debt to do.

So that's the plan.

Oh yeah and I'm gonna take Kung Fu.

Yay 2002!