old/new (nothing borrowed, no longer blue)

Items found while cleaning out the contents of my '96 Camry, a car I have driven for a whole decade:
- A parking permit for the Texas Legislative Council, from a job I held in 2005.
- Gas receipts from Kansas City, 2005 (from a road trip), when gas was closer to $2/gallon.
- A receipt from a collision repair place in Austin, totalling more than 5k, from that nasty wreck in '01.
- Written directions from Davenport->Chicago, circa 2007.
- Mapquest directions (Mapquest! hah!) from Austin, TX->Davenport, IA, when I first went to check out the grad school at which I ended up spending 3.5 years of my life.
- Mix cassette tapes with music like: Rainer Maria, The Sea and Cake, The Gloria Record, Built to Spill, Very Secretary, Braid, and Komeda. All made prior to the year 2000.

She was a mighty fine auto, that Celia. Took me from Austin to Iowa (rested while I went to Quebec), to Houston, to Atlanta, to Washington. Never had nothin but Texas plates. It's fitting that she'd be buried with those. I drove her more than 100,000 miles.



And now. I have started with a clean slate. Bought the nicest thing I've ever owned (and totally fallen in love in the process). Meet Sexy Sadie.



It'll be fun to go through the memories I'll have collected with her, ten years from now. I plan on enjoying every mile.

gratitude

I love that I live in a city with amazing mountain sunsets, and that views seen from my walk home from the grocery store can make me sigh and get all giddy and feel pretty alright, even after a totally exhausting day at work.
I love that I'm not tied down to any one place or person, and that I'm free to do whatever suits my fancy and go wherever I'd like.
I love that I have patients who value me so much they give me hugs and cry because they are grateful for what chiropractic has done for them.
And that I have friends who are always available - any day of the week - to trade secrets with or sing karaoke with or listen to me bitch or help me through a car purchase or loan me money when I have locked myself out of my apartment.
And that I have a dad who I can tell about my crazy single life, and who laughs with me about it.
I love that rooftop barbecues exist in my life, and photo-boothing and soul nighting and Tuesday morning brunching.

My life is pretty great, and really funny sometimes. (Even when it's not.)

clarity

Amazing things can happen when the day starts with a full-body massage, ends with a hot bath, and there's a prozac-like cup of coffee in the middle.

Hello again, Big Picture. Long time, no see.