if you need to head to the bathroom, get a drink, or take a smoke break, it's probably best to go ahead and do it now, we're likely to be here a while.

the muse is a flighty young thing, coming and going as she pleases. i won't go as far to say that she's flaky, that might piss her off, and who really needs that? but given that there's tons on my mind and i haven't written in almost a week plus her tendency to come and go, it was sort of incumbent upon me to take note of some of the stuff i was feeling and thinking about, which i had plenty of time to do, what with spending all day on airplanes.

i got back yesterday afternoon around half past one local (pacific) time after having gotten up at about half past five eastern that morning. such a long day, and like i said, way too much time was spent in airports and on planes, about ten hours, in fact. i do ok with it for the most part, it's not a fear or anything like that, but i get restless; really, really restless after long enough and yesterday wasn't any exception. i did have a good book to read and tons on my mind, which helped the time pass.

i don't suppose i really have to say that my trip was awesome, it was. good company has a way of refreshing me in ways that i'm not aware that anything else is able to, and i was definitely in good company. katie and i go back a ways, all the way to freshman year of college, about five years ago, which is as long as i've known all but a couple or three of my friends. we were pals in geology class which was always a thrill-a-second affair, especially that day we walked into class and the professor said that we were gonna spend the day looking at sildes of dirt, after which we summarily looked and each other and said "yah, let's go to lunch."

it was a relaxing weekend, but definitely very emotionally loaded, i won't go into much detail, anyone that needs to know already does. there's such a high in reconnecting with a friend, especially one like katie. i realize that i've either already started to or am about to sound at least a bit sappy, which is frustrating because it seems (to me anyway) to take away from the reality of sincerity, but i feel like friendships like this are rare. there's all the stuff that should be there, the thoughtfulness, the sincerity, the giving, everything, but what separates a friend, a true friend, from a good acquaintance is when that kind of a relationship is sustained either over time or distance or both. thoughtfulness and sincerity and giving seem to me to at least have the ability to appear quickly. love, however, takes longer to grow and when i look at a friendship like this, love's had the time to grow, and i feel like it definitely has grown, and characterizes it.

sometimes it feels like the words are all i have. maybe that's why i write notes, and even then, i'm not sure that they can adequately convey the purity of what i mean and what i feel. i've found that usually someone else is better able to say what i want to say and that they've already said it, this is one of those times, and for once, it's not even c.s. lewis, i promise. :) this one's from frederick buechner, he says:

your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace and joy and freedom for me. to see reality--not as we wish to see it, but as it is--is to see that unless we live for each other, and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life, only where there really is, in just this sense, love.

he's right.

feeling: transparent and in need of affirmation
thinking of: emotion, sin, inadequacy, blue, words, communication, friendship, rareness, purity, sweetness, joy, sincerity, love
music: "every new day" five iron frenzy, "blue eyes crying in the rain" willie nelson, "sunday morning coming down" johnny cash, "kite" U2, "world full of hate" dropkick murphys, "don't walk away" MxPx