It's been a while.  It's been a while and I really have no clearcut excuse to offer for that.  I've been busy, but I've also been bored and under-occupied.  I've been scattered, but there've also been moments of focus and clarity.  But I've had two things my thoughts have continually returned to, and I guess I've been waiting for the right moment (if there ever is such a thing for anything.)  The first is my confusion about what exactly is wanted of me; by God, or the universe, or what have you.  And I'm beginning to be convinced that He/it wants me to remain unaffected by anything.  That's a little obtuse, but bear with me.  I've reached a point where I am literally paralyzed by my own enthusiasm.  My being excited about something has become something of a death knell for whatever that might be.  Some whispered rumor of a good thing warranting excitement reaches my ears, I respond with - excitement - and that thing can now never come to pass.  Again, bear with me because I'm sure this is starting to sound like it's coming from someone with a much less than adult worldview.  And I know the chain of cause and effect is rarely a clear and direct path, but the case for this has just become too convincing.  It's almost like something is trying to hammer it into my thick skull that I'm simply not allowed to develop any sort of giddyness about anything.  Or fantasize about what might happen, or what I want to happen.

I remember being 12 or 13 and walking to the community pool from my house with my best friend, Sarah.  It would be a late summer afternoon, prone to thunderstorms which would, it goes without saying, mean out of the pool.  So we somehow made the logical leap that if, as we walked, we said to ourselves over and over, "I wish it would start storming," that would hold off the thunder and lightening.  So maybe my brain is just wired for this sort of anti-logic, I don't know.  And maybe this somehow ties into the "jinx principle" in some twisted geneology.

I get scared when I get excited about something now.  How ridiculous is that?

More later, something's come up.