Maybe this is why people are so afraid of commitment because once you do make that leap you don’t know how many laws you’d break to keep that lover, that child, THAT FUCKING DOG in your life.
-- dooce

Yesterday found me running (ok, honestly, it was just a jog) on a treadmill at the gym, craning my neck up and to the right to watch an episode of Oprah in which she makes peoples' Wildest Dreams Come True. I love when Oprah (and Rosie O'Donnell back in the day) does these sorts of feel-good shows -- there's nothing like watching someone make other people happy to make me swell with good human-comraderie feelings. Sure, I might have teared up a smidge when a busload of Disney characters poured out of a big Oprah Wildest Dreams bus to surprise a deserving teacher and her first grade class with a trip to Disney Land, but I had to crack up when we got to the third Oprah surprise victim.

This woman had a few children of her own and volunteered to raise her sister's handful of children too after her sister and sister's man became addicted to heroine; somehow, this bunch totaled 12 chitlins and they were all crammed into her three bedroom house. Oprah, the kind woman she is, first took the large family on a 20 minute grab-everything-you-can trip in Toys R Us, and then surprised them in yesterday's episode by telling her she was buying her a larger house and completely decorating and furnishing it. Well, by golly, when she announced the new house, I almost jumped off my treadmill because the slightly older woman on a treadmill behind me just screamed! I cracked up -- this woman behind me was clappin' her hands and beaming and yelped an emphatic, "yea!" a couple times. I love south Florida.

I hope it's not possible to overdose on NPR -- the undercurrent to my life -- because I've been listening to it for like 4-5 hours a day. Man, it's just so good. Even when my laptop is playing music, I still keep the radio tuned to WLRN in the background. Right now it's Talk of the Nation.

I submitted an application yesterday to the National Park Service to volunteer at Biscayne National Park with their Sea Turtle Program, cleaning the beach and counting eggs, among other tasks. Park volunteers can also help with biological research, counting organisms of certain species to help the naturalists catalog the park's resident populations. I really hope they take me :) (I mean, jeez, have I mentioned I was on the award-winning Stranahan High School Envirothon team, "Dees Nuts and Berries"? I was the berry. Hehe)

I've been enjoying putting pen to paper the past few days, returning to my old school roots, and jotting down random sentences that come to mind in the car, as I lie restless trying to fall asleep, in the middle of a meal. I feel quite prolific, building a personal catalog of thoughts defining this very nebulous time.

I think I might go to the beach this afternoon. Isn't it amazing how wildly emotions swing and change?