I'm sitting at an antique wood dining table, leaves neatly tucked under, audibly entertained with NYC radio and my uncle's 1960s speaker system. I've left the apartment once today - a brief stint outside to get some food - and have spent the rest of the day numbly watching stale American sitcoms. It's been great.

My plan was to walk over to the river, scrounge up an inviting bench, and pass away the hours re-reading Life of Pi. I read Yann Martel's book back during the summer I spent taking classes at FIU, the summer I had my brush with radio fame on the Diane Rheme show (I'm the last question of the show! Though Diane said I was from Michigan instead of FL).

The book quickly moved onto my Top 5 list, but as time passed my ability to recall the magical feelings the story invoked has disintegrated and I wanted to renew them; with each page turn now, it's like brushing off the comfortable dust of time that rests gently on a friendship. With the progression of the story I'm rediscovering the intellectual spark that drew me to each paragraph the first time, in much the same way a good conversation creates the same intellectual spark that draws me to certain people. I feel the book testing my boundaries in ways it didn't before, what I'm going to be suckered into believing this time, which allegory I'm going to fall for this time. Pi quickly ingratiates himself: Is he really a boy learning to train a tiger in a liferaft drifting through the Pacific? Or is he a boy driven to murder for sustenance? I so desperately want to believe in the fantasy of the story - that's what good fiction can do, remind me of the fantasy in my own life to believe in - but in the back of my mind I see the symbology of the tiger representing the personal dynamic between Pi and the other survivors on the boat, realism swaddled in fantastical imagery.

The past three weeks have been wonderously freeing, letting me succumb to the vagabond I've always dreamed of being, triangulating my travels between friends' houses, home, and adventure. Traveling has served as my life's mirror, relfecting who I am most clearly when I am outside the comfortable confines of regularity and life's routine. I can feel myself further refining with each trip what I enjoy, what makes me happy, what I'm still searching for, and what I've found. I'm reminded over and over how very lucky I am to be where I am, physically, figuratively, and mentally. There's nothing better than meeting new people, having new conversations, to highlight who you are.

As always, I jotted notes down on post-it notes along the way. My most recent (disjointed) revelations:

• There are people who give you a glimpse of how others see you - the best possible way others see you. A confirmation of the way you'd always hoped to be seen - sweet.funny.enchanting. Isn't that what everyone wants - for someone else to see them smart and beautiful? I have this newfound confidence around people who see me how I desperately want to be seen, who both eke out and engage the parts of my personality I like best. That's what any relationship should do, though, right?


• I can't see his face as clearly anymore; time has pixelated it in my mind and photos don't show the clarity of his lips my mind did. With time everything falls away into bits, scraps of a life's memories blown about in the dark alleys and caverns of our minds, reminisces of the people and moments we'd said we'd never forget.


• I'm overwhelmed by my country's excess. Everytime I come back after an extended period of time away I experience the cultural shock of AMERICA jammed in your face - the dirt, the consummerism and consumption, the massive amounts of wasted space, the demand to count worth in dollars. But the chip on my shoulder for the country that I do, somewhere inside, hold a dear fondness for quickly brushes off because this place is also just so easy. We're all spoon fed entertainment and thought by the mass media and the ever-glowing bright lights everywhere. I frustrate myself. I don't want the main reason I want to live abroad so desperately to be because I crave a new challenge, an adventure I stubbornly, blindly, think can't be here, because I'm running away from my fears of settling in a place alone or stagnating for too long and losing my drive or curiosity.

Class was fun, Rome was the most beautiful city I've ever been too, and Groningen is on my list of potential future residences.

Next is the fun of Kingston, NY with an amazing family I want to be adopted into, then patriotism in Boston for the 4th, then back to the beautiful sunsets of the middle of the Gulf.

Ahh, it feels good to write and get this all out. I think it's time to release my internet tether and venture outside.

1. I <3 Europe. In general. The Netherlands are particularly great, because that's where I am right now, but I really the think whole continent's got it going on (see numbers 2, 4, and 5).

2. I <3 the World Cup. Hup Holland Hup!

3. I miss air conditioning.

4. I love cheese. And kiwi fruit. And small kiwi fruit spoons.

5. Have I mentioned Toblerone yet?

Love,
Jen

PS I can't wait until NY/Boston...my girls!! I absolutely am the most excited person I know awake right now, at 7am GMT +1!! I should start making notes on everything we need to talk about, all the special dances we have to do in our pajamas, all the cheesey puffs we have to eat, all the zoological institutions we have to visit! :)

What a perfect night, as perfect nights go. I worked out, played bingo, and wandered around a bookstore for 2 hours before settling on several solid choices.

And since I know he'll read this and is so good about commenting, I'd like to give a HUGE shout-out to my dear friend who is now also my only Bingo Champion friend, Mr. Tommers!!! If only he had remembered to yell, "BIG BLUE BALL!!" when he won Big Blue Ball with a B-10. It's ok though, since he did jump up and down, do a few herkies, and make his excited face (fists clenched, balled up around his cheeks) as the ENTIRE bingo hall laughed at him. It was amazing. $105! 95% of the credit goes to his lucky bingo shirt Gaby made, which said "I only come for the Big Blue Balls", 4% of the credit is for Tom's perseverence in getting the Big Ball seller to come back to our table for one more round of tickets, and 1% goes to the oragami crane I made out of the losing bingo sheet he had already played.

And just for the record, my bingo shirt from Gaby says, "I sling ink like it's my job" (For you amateurs out there, that refers to the inky dobbers you use to mark the spots on the bingo board).

I adore the bookstore, the calm and quiet of the aisles that belies the hightened activity in my mind as I get drawn to interesting looking covers, intrigueing titles, fall in love with stories and pine for more time to be able to read every smooth cover I touch. I feel no shame in indulging all my senses, burying my nose in the spine and gently pawing the pages. I rationalize why some purchases are worthwhile while other selections should be gotten from amazon. com - 'oh, well I'm willing to pay extra for this one [compare to online] because part of the in-person purchase price is for the enjoyment of getting to rifle through its pages in the store, absorb the fonts and page spacing, and revel in the textures of the plot in front of me, kind of flirt with taking it home or not and tucking it safely under my arm for passage to next section and my next interest'.

It was tough to decide, but this lineup just felt right:
The Mermaid Chair (Sue Monk Kidd) - I loved The Secret Life of Bees and picked this one up to round out the relaxing/romantic/girly category of my selections

Night (Elie Wiesel) - I really enjoy books that chronicle personal stories from the Holocaust and this is a classic in the genre. One of my all time favorite books is My Story: Alicia Appleman Jurman, quite possibly the first time I cried reading a book, and the first book I read 3 times. And every time I borrowed the same copy from the Hallandale library!

A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson) - I've wanted to read this for a solid 2 years

My Ishmael (Daniel Quinn) - I read My Name Is Ishmael for Environmental Ethics, and enjoyed it so much that I've been meaning to read this sequel ever since

Marley & Me (John Grogan) - our next Period Club (aka all the girls I know at work - all 7 of us - got together and made a book club. Our first book was to reread Davinci Code and see the movie together after having a sleepover and potluck dinner last weekend - lots of fun) book selection. It should be a cute read.

I was seriously tempted by Jared Diamond's most recent work, Collapse, but feel like I should get through Guns, Germs, and Steel first. Richard Dawkins and I went back and forth a few times, but I decided I really just want to re-read The Selfish Gene again (which I read partially for Tech's version of freshman "English" and kept the book). Similarly, it was agonizing for me to walk away without John Irving's - my absolute favorite author - newest, Until I Find You, but again realized I'm just longing to re-read my abolute favorite book, A Prayer For Owen Meany and likely wouldn't enjoy the new one that much because I'd be thinking about Owen's story.

In addition to the books I bought tonight, I also have several I've accumulated over the past year that I'm in various stages of completion. Having unfinished books lying around stresses me out, so I'd also like to read One Hundred Years of Solitude and Catch 22. I don't have much hope of finishing Reading Lolita in Tehran because as much as I enjoyed parts of it, it's not gripping me enough to slough through the last 70 pages (same goes for A Staggering Work of Mind Blowing Genuis or something like that). PLUS! I want to re-read Life of Pi (my 2nd favorite book ever) and The Alchemist to refresh myself with the stories in each.

Reading is romancing my mind and therefore makes me nervous to start a new book. I typically embark on a new read with such high expectations, and am afraid before I even start that I'll be disappointed! So I have to convince myself I can start before I even begin. Insane, huh?

I just hope I can find the time to read all these great books I now have lying around, and finish one before getting distracted by all the other options - I certainly don't want to be in the middle of several all at once.

Aside from my great book trip, I was also told tonight on the phone that I'm "not as awkward as everyone thought" and am "good with really young and much older people,"
generally either the 5 and under crowd or the Parent group. Awesome. :)

On the way home tonight, I saw the ducks along West Esplanade have returned. I wonder where they were all this time and where they went for the hurricane.

I'm an emotions hypochondriac, I've decided. There are a few television shows that somehow manage to impose the feelings of their characters onto me, to make me feel like I have those same highs and lows. Only I share their tears without really having the same resolutions. Or problems. How have I become so emotionally suggestible in my old age?

Life is running away but I'm reining it in, slowly, but fencing in my mind and only focusing on small conversations throughout the day, long emails that should have been written months ago, and hidden smiles nestled in unlikely places. And by ignoring the other things I should be doing but don't want to (or am afraid to). It's a good (but bad) thing I've got so much work to do to keep me busy (or not thinking). Hence the lack of posting: no thinking = easier on Jen.

I really should look for my daily interest in places other than morning meeting recognition, bingo, and digital media. I have a feeling the 10 hr flight Friday will be a good time for me to catch up with myself and all the thoughts I've been avoiding processing.

And my laundry still keeps piling up. Sigh.