THE PEOPLE IN ME or THIS DAY 29 YEARS AGO or A NICER WOMAN

With one more day left to read D.C. Berman's "Self-Portrait at 28" while still 28, I've decided to put it off once more.

Wellllll... I did read "Self-Portrait at 28" twice in the last year. Once, bit by bit over the course of a few months beginning with a verse read online in April or May during my trip to Europe. I don't remember when I finished it but it was months before the second time when I read it in one sitting, kinda' drunk, late one night.

Actually, about that trip to Europe: it took so long to digest the experience that I've been at a loss as to what can/should be said about it until now. The best part of the entire trip was walking way way way way out to the edge of a cliff with my best girl and best friend, Erin Nicole. It was miles and miles of red Maltese dirt, sleeves rolled up, talking talking talking with the sun beating down hard but a big bottle of water and a bag of chicken-flavored chips keeping us going. It took hours upon hours and was exactly what I wanted to be doing with the one person I wanted to be with and I knew it at the time too, which is lucky because most people don't know how great something is until it's long gone.

That was the best part, to be sure, but I also marveled at the world there at the edge of the cliff, with the White Temple on one side and a couple smoking a j-bone on the other. The ocean (the Mediterranean Sea, actually) took up the entirety of my vision and I wanted to piss off the cliff like I didn't give a shit but was so worried someone might come up and push me off that I went back to our hotel afterward and dreamed about falling off the cliff over and over again, doing that falling-in-dream-leg-kick-thing (this was terrible). Later, back in Paris, I lied about pissing off the cliff anyway. But I digress....

Hm... trying to find my train of thought again. I wanted to write about how stupid I felt reading that poem whilst drunk, how off the experience was for something that always elicits an intense emotional response from me. I'd like to write about choosing to be sober but I feel really happy and in love with life and full of gratitude for my girlfriend who I love so damn much, Chacho, Mavis and Peta and want to pay a certain attention to that right now. It might seem a little precious or something but I've felt so bad for so long in so many ways and paid attention to too many other, false things when my immediate little family is amazing and I'm so fucking fortunate to have what I do.

Hobbling to work on a bum knee, even that felt so good out in that sun.