empty. sept 13th.

there were a couple things i forgot to write about, from the star party.

one was seeing jupiter. it was so bright and big in the sky that when i saw it through the scope, my night vision in the eye i saw it through was completely shot for a good ten minutes.

it was incredible, though. and worth the loss of vision. you could see the red streaks (equatorial bands) in the scope. quite pretty. last time, mars was merely a little dot, no detail, not quite as exciting as i had hoped. but jupiter this time did not disappoint.

the other was 'ding'. it's a substitute for 'that's what she said'. much shorter, sweeter, and to the point. when with middle aged men who are fathers of teenagers, we were ding-ing every five minutes. it was funny.


i spent all of yesterday in bed. i even took a nap when i couldn't keep my eyes open any longer in the afternoon. i wrote a lot, read a little, and really just laid around all day.

this head cold took a lot out of me. i unloaded some of the stuff from the car first thing in the morning. i couldn't find the energy to do the rest then, so i finished it around 5, and then kit and i went to the indian buffet.

i guess i was in the shower when i thought of it. it seemed like it would help clear out my head cold. i guess it seemed like the equivalent of chicken soup.

and it was good. it was great, actually. i left stuffed, and got back into bed.

and fell asleep early. again. and woke up tired, but feeling less sick, and that was the point i guess.


i guess i had a lot of time to think yesterday, what with all the laying in bed. and the total lack thereof in the mountains.

and i thought about moving home a little.

i guess i'm trying to think about it at this interval. and i keep wondering if i should schlep all my stuff down there. what if, after a few months, i'm ready to go somewhere else? what if i feel stuck and claustrophobic once i'm there? what if nina's right, and i'm not happy there? what if i should be anywhere but there?

i can't really figure it out. christmas there will help. because i can take another stab at two weeks home, and see what i get out of it this time.

everything just feels so effortless when i'm there, and that's not exactly what i want to go for. i don't want to be bored. but i also don't know what i feel like doing. and i know already that i can't live at home. i'd only be willing to do that for a month at most. and i think that much time would make me slightly crazy.

if nothing else, i had intended to use coffee for meeting people, and finding a job in a bar, and getting networked in business-wise. and i wouldn't be honest if i didn't admit that i wanted a little gathering, a welcoming party of sorts.

there's so much time. i shouldn't even be thinking of it. or him. but it's such a mystery to me.

i guess that i'm just dealing with it in my own way now. because instead of being really sad about him leaving there, and kissing those silly teenage dreams goodbye, now i just feel a little disappointment. it will be interesting to see what happens over the next few months, as far as how i feel about it. how much or how little i think about it.

i guess that's the beauty of closure. what little bit i didn't seal up when i was home this summer is all i'm left to contend with. the rest of it has taken care of itself. which is a huge relief.


and as for the rest, i don't know why i've been thinking about ever so much, i guess because of getting the agreement in my email and thinking about it since. i keep having random thoughts, mostly caused by the guilt i feel for being so much happier than i was.

i spent a while talking to kit about it on the way back from the mountains.

i'll have a fleeting thought of 'i wonder if he's happier' or 'i wonder what he's doing' from time to time. and what i hear in my head more than anything else, is him saying (just before i moved out), 'it's never okay when a wife leaves her husband'.

and for whatever reason, i assume it's my guilt, i just keep re-realizing that i left my husband. i left him. and i walked away from him. and my marriage. and though it makes sense, and i know i needed to, it still feels very foreign. because my life right now just feels like a continuation of how it should have been about ten years ago. like this was the next step i should have taken, as opposed to getting married and moving away.

it almost feels like the marriage never happened at all.

and while i'm partially content to let it feel that way, i wonder how it is that it can feel that way.

my marriage was very real. it was seven years of my life that i won't get back now. and what makes so little sense to me is how it can honestly feel like a bad dream that i woke up from. how can almost ten years of my life condense down into a 15 page document that doesn't cover anything really? how can it become a little stack of papers that costs $900?

when will it be over? when will he forgive me? when will he move on?

i can only worry about what i can control and my half of things. i can't worry about him anymore.

because i left him. because he was a horrible husband.

and because i deserve better than that. i didn't deserve an anchor. i didn't deserve to be taken advantage of.

i'm glad i woke up from that dream and left. but it still feels like something that never actually happened at all. and if i do move home, i think it will be a continuation of that feeling. then it will really never feel like i went anywhere or did anything else.

maybe what i should be thinking of is, if not phila, then where? from here, new york makes the most sense. but i can't afford to do that, and i wouldn't want to pay so much for everything. if i was going to do that, i'd just go to san francisco. it's so far, though. and i don't want to be that far from home. phila has been perfect in that way. just a short flight away. or a full day's drive.

there are places i want to visit. portland. boston. seattle. but besides boston, they aren't options for moving.

i need to be in touch with alice's roommate, so i can look into that. i think that will be the ticket for me, or at least a good place to start.


i think more than anything, what i look forward to the most is not worrying about who is around.

and what i dread the most is moving everything down south and then wanting out and moving it all again.


kit asked an innocent enough question the other day. and all this time later, i still don't know how to answer it.

she asked me what i want to do with my life.

and i do not know.

just when i think i have it all figured out, something changes and then i question myself and my motivation and my deep seated desires.

i really don't know what to do or where to do it.

i don't know if i want what i think i want anymore.

it's like i've stopped trusting myself since i left ever. or that i'm just really fickle and don't think that what i want today is what i'll want in a month from now.

back to feeling unsettled, i suppose. i probably feel this way about once a month. and that's when i decide to think about it. at the time when there's absolutely nothing comes to mind. so i think about not thinking. and write about not thinking.

stopping. now.

and back to reading, because this is a lot of writing without anything to say.