Returning to reality. It can be a jarring landing, or a welcoming enfolding in the routines and rituals one finds nourishing. This one, for me? Bluntly, my feelings are mixed. Life has changed dramatically for me in the past eight days, and so coming home isn't so much a return to the familiar as a re-embarking on the process of integrating the new with the old.

Is this all too bloody abstract? I'm sorry. Talking around things is part of the process for me.

Tonight. Sable, freshly bathed, is asleep on the floor next to me. yohannon and I talked today, and I hope I'll see him this weekend. elflet is on a plane to Singapore, and I am wearing his chrysoprase pendant to the next couple of circles. I got a cold call from Farmer's Insurance, via monster.com, inviting me to interview as an insurance agent. (I politely said that if the position didn't involve Unix or computers, I probably wasn't interested. Will that be true in a month? I can only hope so.) Debbie took Rufus and Phoenix home while I was gone, which twinges my sense of foreboding, but there's not a lot I can do about it. Differential Equations plows on with me perpetually one assignment behind, which isn't doing a lot for my quiz scores, and there's a midterm on Monday. I have failed to jobhunt today.

This is the new shape of my life. I am not talking about the sea changes, not right now. When I stand back to look at the big picture, I get dizzy and fall down. New habits. Baby steps. One piece at a time.