Houston - We're ready to go...

T-Minus 7 hours and 50 minutes... I'm ready to go...

No, its not such a big deal, not right now it isn't, but it'll become more so later. I've needed a break for quite some time. I'm finally getting it. That's not the big thing. Several times today I was asked if I was ready... Does born ready mean anything? Yeah, I'm ready.

Now, as for meeting my family in Moscow on the way home, well I'm not so sure about that. I mean I'm excited, but I'm incredibly nervous. Lu said it best, "That's kinda scary and kinda cool." Yes to both, a bit more of the first rather than the latter, but still both.

Isn't it alwys the case that both fear and an anxious joy lie in wait of each other? Its like in the play Runs With Scissors where our hero is deciding between leaving this world at the mercy of ALS or on his own terms that he also puts forth the nature of a good narrative as a tension between "death & love". Sseems as if there's some truth to that. A certain cause and affect. "Why do men chase women?" asked Olympia Dukakis in Moon Struck to which Danny Aiello replied "Because they're afraid of death." Is it that we need love as a way of fending off death or do we gladly sacrifice a piece of our own individuality in finding love so as to die a little on our own terms? And like any good shaman, reborn into plurality. Oh wait, I can't pontificate on this subject at this hour, its not even that late, but I'm that dog tired... so off to die a little death---"Fear is the mind killer, fear is the little death"