last night a storm blew in

The sky was neon green and the trees were slapping the lines hard enough that they broke. There was the silence that you can only get when the electricity is off - that bone-deep sound that in my head means Mexico. Remind me one day to tell you about Mexico and Guerrero Viejo and the goats and stone sofas and bats in the church and trees growing in the adobe and the story that was born there that I never wrote, but that still talks to me.

I'm on an Anthony Bourdain kick - there's something about the man that fascinates me, with his bald-faced fury and his weird sensitivities. It doesn't hurt that he's one hell of a writer, either. At any rate, I'd been reading about his visit to Saigon when the lights went out, sort of wrapping myself in his sorrow and self-awareness like his text was lotion.

When the lights went out and I couldn't read anymore, I crawled up and looked out the window box, thinking about me and my writing and my reading and my life.

Well, I did that and I oohed and ahhed over the rolling thunder that lasted for minutes at a time.

There are so many things I don't write down - for a lot of different reasons. The main one is that pride thing. I worry that I'll be boring with the constant refrain of 'I hurt' and 'I'm going to bash his head in like a baby seal' and 'I'm too busy to think'.

There aren't any trips to Saigon in my future, no deep thoughts about politics and war and things that, if I let them, dig into the back of my brain and live there like emotional tapeworms.

There is music, in my future.

Cancun.

Vegas.

Cowboys.

There is this eternity of work - book after book, project after project.

There is this woman-child who, whenever I begin to believe has outgrown me, comes to me with this look of pure panic in her eyes. She honestly believes I know everything and can fix it, no matter what it is.

I keep looking at condos on the beach. It's been seven years since I went to Padre and I want to go. I want to walk on the waterline at 2 am and smell seawater. Watch the clouds roll in.

I keep hearing this voice in my head that is laughing - somehow set free from years of being told no and it says 'Greece, we've always wanted Greece'.

Italy.

Spain.

Egypt.

Rio.

*grins*

I actually looked at learning Portuguese this morning.

Maybe Saigon is in my future.

Someday.

After London.