moving right along...

when I hear that I think of Kermit riding his bike, singing that song. It's cute. I think that's before the bad guy tries to eat his legs, right?

Anyway, I'm back home in Evansville now. I've put 1,000 miles on my car in the last three days. 150 of which were not supposed to happen and were logged in Kentucky accidentally. I was supposed to be in Kentucky but I was going west and not north and didn't figure it out until too late. But I made it home anyway.

All that to boringly say, I'm back!

pick it up and turn it on its side

That's how to get my laptop to work again.
My laptop is quirky. It was given to me. Who knows how old it is. It has XP so it can't be that old. Anyway, the speakers don't work. Neither does the delete key and the cursor buttons (well, sometimes they work...sometimes). Once last week the whole top row of letters went out. But the big issue that kills me is that sometimes--without warning--the screen display will just start to fade and fade and all the colors wash together making the computer completely unuseable.
But this week I figured it out. I have long theorized that it has something to do with laying on its side or not. I had just never tried it while the computer is on. But its true! This week I got brave and after it started to blur out I turned it on its side and shook it (is shook a word?) and it works!

So for now, the lappy's back in action.

Cities and Nights

I've always loved driving through cities on expressways at night. There's just something exhilarating about it. I did it the other night...the 408 heading east back home right through downtown Orlando. Its a beautiful thing.
Of course, Orlando isn't really a huge downtown area, but there's just something about seeing the buildings all lit up and driving through...really fast....or errrr...exactly the speed limit...
I've had this love of cities for a long time now. At least since early college, if not now. I've just always loved the life there. Of course, they can stress me out, too. Being alone in downtown Chicago (which I've done a few times) can be fun, but has always made me really tense, too. I guess if I knew it better, it wouldn't freak me out so much. That summer I was there I felt like I learned it. But later when I went back, the familiarity was gone. I think that must have been because I was no longer with at least 10 other people at all times. Funny what that brings.
There is a sense of community in cities that the 'burbs just don't have. I live in a subdivision. I hardly ever see my neighbors. I go to the same grocery store pretty frequently and rarely do I even recognize the workers much less the other customers.
We have this deep need for community, I believe. God puts it in our hearts. Something about ciites make you live in that reality more, I think.
So if you can, go hang out downtown tonight, wherever you are. Chances are it has a lot more personality than whatever is on your typical eastside hang out. Breath in the city air, take a minute to people watch. If you can, drive there on the city streets, not on the expressways. Of course, you can always get on the experssway and drive through it a couple times, just for fun.

Coke

Today I'm really really tired. For those of you who don't know, this has been pretty common over the last couple of years. Recently I'd been feeling better so that's probably why this comes as a surprise to me this morning.
Of course, it could be because I violated some pretty big adrenal health rules yesterday: Coffee (even though it was decaf) and countless Hershey's kisses. Basically what happens when someone with sub-par functioning adrenal glands (me) takes in a bunch of stimulants (like sugar and caffeine) is that they get all revved up, then they take a nose dive (hence me being exhausted today). In normal people, this happens but your adrenal glands are healthy enough to make up for the nose dive. But mine aren't. So I'm crashing...still. And I'm sort of sick to begin with. So add some stimulants to a compromised immune system and what do you get? An intense desire to crawl back into bed.
So what am I doing now? Drinking a coke. I love fresh coke. Not the kind from a two-liter that has been sitting around for a couple of days. Something about drinking coke from a cold can is just so amazing. Why did I do it in light of all that stuff I just wrote? I don't know. I think I just want to feel better today. And I know that if that's all I have today its much less than what I had yesterday which means that tomorrow will be better than today. Does that make sense?

So today, I'm trying just to function on a task that has a lot of emotional stress attached to it. Its hard anyway, but when you add not feeling well to the pot...
The other day I was journaling and realized that I really was beginning to move out of being so wrapped up in how I'm doing physically. Today is really just one day. Tomorrow will be a new one.

Ever find one of those words that seems like it was made to describe you alone?

from wordsmith.com...

esprit d'escalier (e-SPREE des-kal-i-YE) noun, also esprit de l'escalier

Thinking of a witty remark too late; hindsight wit or afterwit.
Also such a remark.

[From French esprit de l'escalier, from esprit (wit) + escalier (stairs).]

We're all witty. It's just that many of us think of our clever remarks a bit
too late. The French call it the staircase wit, indicating that one thought
of that perfect retort on his or her way out.