i don't want to start every post apologizing about how i haven't written anything here in a while, so i won't. i'm not actually sorry. i do love you, though, and think of you often.

i've gotten bad at journaling. i do a lot of writing, but i never write any of it down (no, i did not mistype). things that were once very important to me just aren't important anymore. i realize that interests develop with time, and affection is meant to shift from activity to activity as i proceed into "the future," but nothing has come to replace what i had. like those famed dandelion seeds are being carried absolutely nowhere by an unwelcome wind. if you have an answer for this, please share it with me.

i do not have a very active prayer life, but i ask that you pray for me, and also for my friend owen, whose heart is heavier than a 23-year-old's ought to be.

i'm not sure how i'll have time to do everything that i'm meant to do. i've been looking for jobs and getting that particular kind of headache that grinds in one small point at the top of the cranium, a little over to the right. my right, your left. i can actually hear it hurting. no, that's a lie. people don't hear pain. but the part about me having a headache is the truth.

i went on a cruise with most of my family over christmas. the trip was swollen with emotion, mostly happiness.

i read everything is illuminated on the ship. checked it out of the ship's library, which was nearly as extensive as the brackett library. the first 85-90% of the book is fun fun fun and interestingly written, and the final few pages are torturous, vivid holocaust stories, stretching for miles. i felt duped into reading the saddest book in history. i should have seen it coming, though, since joyce carol oates warned me in her cover blurb that my heart would break. you aren't supposed to throw things off the side of the ship, but that's what i did. not the book, but the heart shards.

other things happened on the cruise. i saw the big island, maui, and kaua'i. i communed with a yearling humpback whale, who as of yet has not told me his or her name. i found that boy--the boy you see on the first day of the trip and with whom you are happy to be confined to a ship. i only saw him a few other times, though, and he steadily decreased in attractiveness until finally i saw him wearing a basketball jersey. and karyn, having just horribly lost a game of horse to josh and ellen on the ship's basketball court, was unimpressed. the relationship was very short. i'm not sure that he even knew that we dated.

i actually have a boy problem right now, and i'm not sure what to do. but i know what not to do, and that's blog about it.

my cat abigail sleeps with me every night. she went to the vet a few days ago, and it turns out that she has a yeast infection in her ear. she was humiliated.

back to the cruise. the ship was enormous, and so were our rooms, since we got the handicapped suite. i ordered a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from room service more than twice. milk and cookies. grapes and m-n-m's. breakfast in bed.

my wonderful parents got me a digital camera for christmas, and so i took some pictures while we were out adventuring. these are my favorite shots.

















new years is far and away my least favorite holiday. there's nothing special about january first that should move me to examine the progress of my life. there's nothing intrinsic in january first that that day should be the beginning or ending of anything. beginning and ending exist infinitely in every moment. and yet one cannot help but make assessments.

so, here is mine: i have regressed in nearly every capacity. i've become a very small child, and i've piled on layers and layers of armor. this is wholly counter to my idea of love as disarmament. i want to be capable of every kind of love.

i just really don't want a loveless life.

i suppose that writing about this means that maybe i'm not acting as protected as i feel like i'm acting. this is the most honest i've been in a very, very long time.

i got some bloodwork done thursday to see if i'm anemic. i'd rather not be anemic, but it will explain a lot of what's been happening to my body that i haven't been telling people. really, though, honesty is difficult.

in kaua'i, i bought a print of a pen and ink drawing of taro fields. the artist is a czech man who came to america to pursue art. he said "people move to america, and some change for the better and some for the worse. but they all change. is it true?"

i took his picture, and it didn't come out very well.