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my nexus

How on earth does iTunes sometimes just seem to know how to play dozens of amazing songs all in a row when I set it on random? Half the time it's clueless and rifles through the dregs of my ~15,000 song collection. But the last two days it's been on. It knows when I need it most. Of course, I'm simply ascribing nonexistent intelligence to a randomization algorithm, but I still like to think that there's a subroutine somewhere in there called InitFuckingAwesomeJukeboxPlaylist();

It's bloody cold out. I've finally seem to come to some sort of understanding with wintertime. I've got my routine down pat, which means getting up a bit earlier than I'd like, but also means I get done with work with just enough time to get an hour-long walk in while the sun is still partially above the horizon. It means bundling up in winter coat, gloves, scarf, and stocking cap. I have to slip the cap over my head and headphones, which makes for an odd looking scene, but I don't care. I'm not gonna win any beauty contests or fashion shows anyway. So yeah, while it's often a struggle to convince myself to brace against the elements and get out there in bitter wind chills, it's always worth it. Even if I'm out there doing pull-ups in my "wrapped up" garb. The depths of winter are when my body needs its exercise the most. I can't stand that cooped up feeling, and the winter already ratchets up my "time to hibernate" instincts. There's also quite a bit to be said about the joys of coming home after three miles in the cold and wind and low light, warming your hands, throwing on a sweater, and basking in the glow of your warm, welcoming home. I feel satisfied looking from my perch out on frozen streetscapes and snow covered rooftops. I feel like I earned my respite having braved the elements.

I'm also happy that I've managed to balance my wintertime cravings for "comfort food" type stuff with my passion for/commitment to healthy eating. That means endless varieties of soup along with hearty, low-fat stews improvised from cans of various types of beans and veggies I have around the house. Vegetable and hummus platters. As much fruit as I can get my hands on at this low-variety time of year. And tons of tea. Chai with milk and sugar, green, just about any kind, really. And as the days get darker, so does the beer. Oatmeal stout, ESB, winter mild. But all in moderation -- I firmly believe in enjoying what you enjoy in life, but meted out in reasonable doses, you know? It works for me.

Otherwise, I can't complain about life right now. Work is a groovy balance, just the right mix of keeping me busy and not bothering me in the slightest. Friends are great, reviewing albums is killer (I still can't get over it!), and being back in a place with proper seasons and being close enough for regular, normal visits and time spent with family -- it's perfect. Everything is far more good than bad right now, which is more than I think I ever envisioned it could be at this point. Don't get me wrong, I have the usual complaints -- it's cold; I'm a little lonely tonight; some friends are growing distant. But there are so many other things to banish those petty things you bitch about. I'm getting out and about, running errands, taking care of Christmas shopping, and spending festive winter nights wrapping presents and listening to tunes. I'm making new friends! Who'd have thought it? I'm feeling confident and capable and like I'm nourishing myself the way that I need to, and that I hadn't always been doing during my time in California. It's good. With that said, there is something...

Walking home earlier this evening, I turned the corner from south Grand onto Wyoming, my old street before I moved to California. I decided to take a different route home today, just for variety's sake. The air was perfectly crisp, the sky nearly cloudless. It was that sort of freeze-dried December early evening that makes the city look absolutely fucking fabulous. Those 36-3900 blocks of wyoming are easily my favorite in the entire city. So beautiful. The Christmas lights strung up and down the fronts of all those stately old Victorian houses. The columns and their remarkable flourishes hearkening back to time when the architecture of the mundane seemed to mean something more to people, the sight of the church spire rising up from its little hill. Utterly beautiful, magical, and right. It made me want to duck in to the Black Thorn for a pint, to warm up for a bit, maybe play the jukebox and have a game of pinball. But I passed. I keep passing. I've been back here for almost 4 months now and I pass every single time. I keep walking for the same reasons I still haven't gone in to Pho Grand for a big, steaming bowl of pho and a plate of spring rolls. Memories. All of these places haven't shaken off their old associations. Like it or not, this neighborhood was the site of a great passion. I walk past the corner of Grand and Wyoming and down Wyoming, past the church and my old apartment building, I pass the spot between the side walkway and the little back area behind the restaurant where I so brazenly couldn't keep my hands off of her. Hell, it's not just that corner, it's in the park by the lily pond, memories of impenetrably humid summer nights, dangling feet over the side of the pond. I walk past Mekong, its cozy window booths, little sidewalk cafe tables, and Vietnam-outline neons & think about the time I took a crazy chance on love, and how the taste of Tsingtao and crispy spring rolls is now permanently linked in my mind with that nervous, excited sensation of spilling my guts, of planning out/daydreaming about what life in Sacramento was going to be like. Of not knowing what the hell I was getting myself into even though all I knew is that I couldn't not go for it.

Here's the thing, though. I don't pine for her. I honestly don't. There are times when I miss her, but no more than I think anyone would miss a former lover and friend, someone that they shared three years with. But I don't think this is all about her specifically. Well, of course it is, but it's mostly not, if that's at all understandable. It's way more about his place, this physical location, coming imbued with a visceral sense of what happened here. It always was mine, and it is yet again. But it was also the scene of what felt, and still feels, like a spiritual awakening, the first baby steps towards the adult me that I always wanted to be and never thought I'd get to. That this sensation quickly became linked with a person, with the rush of falling madly in love, then being whisked thousands of miles away, and then eventually returning because I could barely bear to be away from it -- well that's occasionally just a little bit overwhelming. Or bittersweet. Or confusing. Or any number of emotions. So I'm still working on getting back to these places. And I will. Just when the time is right, when I feel right about making them mine again, when I can extricate the vestigial passions and the past from what is now my present, and I plan on making my long-term future, complete with new passions, new loves, new memories forged. But right now the ghosts are still too strong. At least they certainly still are with certain places, and at certain times. For some reason I can still go into Mokabe's, order a nonfat latte, read my book, watch the world go by, and feel like I own the place. Hell, it's my nexus, after all.

then / now