Maybe I didn't blog you quite as well as I should have...

...but you were always on my mind.

So what's going on, internet fambly? It's been an odd couple of weeks. Moments of difficulty, frustration, growth, gratitude. Tough days, good days. Days when I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, and other days when it feels like nothing fits anymore.

You know, basically life'n'stuff.

I'm at work right now. (Duh, Dave.) Work's good, though I'm working on being more productive (he says as he types his blog).

I now live about an hour from work, and close to church and family. That's been an adjustment, because i don't like mornings, and I have to get up early to catch the bus/train. I'm groggy, cranky, and generally a bear in the mornings. But I'm making it work. Adjusting.

Not quite totally moved in. Kitchen, done. Living room, sorta done (though I have two boxes of books with no home; i tossed an old broken-down bookshelf I was using for extra storage). Bedroom/closet, ha. No, not done. Not even close. I don't even have any of my electronic equipment set up, aside from my TV and DVD player in the living room. No PS2, no computer. Who has time?

Church is going well. I've been asked to "graduate" up to the next age bracket, and co-teach the 27-35 class. This is an adjustment. I've been part of the young 20's class for 6 years. I really will only know a few people in the other class. But you go where you're sent, right? Right.

...Wow, you'd think that by taking essentially two weeks off, I'd have something more pithy to contribute to the digital swamp. Apparently not much more than a "this is where I'm at" update, huh?

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Odd experience of the week: Going into my old Papa Johns, ordering some pizzas for the family, then sitting on the bench and waiting for the pies to get done. I heard the familiar hum of the oven's conveyor belt, saw the dust of the dough table covering everything with a fine white powder. The smell of the store hasn't changed; vaguely appetizing and yet still old and grey, like the fleeting memory of food. I had spent many Saturday nights there before, could almost feel it returning to me slowly, the excitement of a good night's tips, the frustration of a slow night's boredom and the endless stack of boxes to glue flyers onto and fold, bend, snap, fold-fold, close.

And as I stood and started pacing a little bit, looking at everything, watching the employees (who were probably starting to get alarmed), I had to fight off the urge to fold boxes, or jump on the cut station and start cutting and boxing pizzas. I looked at the chart with the delivery totals on the back wall, partially obscured by the oven, and thought, "I could beat all of these kids." These kids. I listened to them talk about their high school football teams, and their prospects for the upcoming year. And I resisted, thankfully, the urge to intone with some "back-in-my-day" stories of the pizza business. Instead, I just waited, took the pizzas, said thank you, and made my way out, leaving a storefront I used to know well but can no longer claim as my own.

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I found some scraps of paper, stuff I'd written two and a half years ago, in a box i was unpacking on Saturday. Two poems, and part of a conversation with a long-standing character of mine from a yet-unfinished novel. And I thought, Wow, these aren't bad. Not that I'm any good judge of what is or isn't bad, especially when it comes to the glaring blindspot of my own writing. But, if nothing else, I enjoyed reading them. I can't say that about everything I write, especially years after the fact. But I liked these. Maybe I'll bring them by sometime and give you a peek.

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I need to get to work. Things are piling up, getting hectic. But... I don't know. My heart's somewhere else right now. The where is what I'm trying to figure out.

Take it easy, kids. I'll talk to you tomorrow about something or other. Pinky swear.