I'm going to do homework and write my papers, honestly I am. But first I thought I should share my thoughts on Enchanted. It was by far and away the best Disney movie in a long time and without a doubt the best princess movie since Beauty and the Beast. I know, I know, we all have mixed feelings about what's good Disney and what's bad Disney but I think we can all appreciate Enchanted as good Disney. I think my only qualm with it is that it set out to obviously be good Disney. It was like they took all the criticisms of their past movies and made one to answer it. She fights, she get's angry, she says everyone is beautiful. But they do it so darn well that I can't help but applaud. After all, what's it matter if you set out to give me a good heroine so long as you succeed?

Thus, in honor of Enchanted I present to you my latest top ten. It's designed as more than just a list of famous female heroes. More specifically it is those heroines that manage to maintain their status as utterly feminine while still being strong, heroic, and completely individual. What I wondered was who in history had fulfilled the archetype while simultaneously shattering it. That, to me anyway, seems like a true accomplishment.

Top Ten Ass-Kicking Women Who Sacrifice None of Their Femininity To Ass-Kicking:

10. Xena (Post Season 3?)
You knew she would be here, but maybe you didn't expect 10. Well, Xena is great--there's no denying that. However, her character was never fleshed out as much as one might hope, and before it was all said and done while they avoided making her too manly, they did fall back on some lesbian stereotypes. Or maybe the stereotype changed to fit Xena. In any case she was the warrior princess that made us all cheer her war cry, and she got to sleep with Hercules. And Ares loved her. I think for that alone she gets my nod of appreciation.

9. Wonder Woman (Last three years)
Again, the choice seems obvious but maybe you wonder about the placement on the list. Wonder Woman is fantastic; she was the first real heroine for many girls in the 40's. But, aside from her lack of development until recent years she has superpowers. I'm not knocking her for that, but it's easier to kick-ass when you're almost as powerful as Superman. That being said in the last three years or so DC has done amazing things with Wonder Woman's character. She's human for the first time in, well, ever. Her battle with Superman to save the world, followed up by her decision to kill Max Lord is pure genius. And we all feel the weight of her decision as much as she does. And we all recognized her heroism, and her humanity, with powerful magnitude.

8. Storm (X-Men Comics)
Storm's in the same boat as Wonder Woman with the superpowers. Storm in the comics, though, before the movie misrepresented her, was an amazing study in an extremely powerful woman at the mercy of her own power. One of the most interesting and underrepresented characters in history, Storm has to control her emotions or the weather goes ballistic. And yet somehow, with all of that responsibility, she still manages to be wise, caring, angry, and passionate. And sometimes she makes even Wolverine scared of her power. That's my kinda girl.

7. Giselle (Enchanted)
Again with the best Disney princess ever. She's funny, sweet, naive, and learns real quick. So, when she's dropped in New York instead of staying a stagnant naive character she learns what true love is, how to express herself, and how to do it all without sacrificing the nobility of character we all want in a heroine.

6. Danielle (EverAfter)
The movie that made me not hate Cinderella stories! Danielle is smart! She's pretty! She's witty! And she doesn't take any crap from anybody! Ah, I was so relieved when I saw this (not to mention Dougray Scott's hotness) that I cheered for weeks. Bless you Danielle, bless you.

5. Princess Leia (Star War)
Any woman that can wear an iron bikini and still stand as a symbol for women's liberation is a rockstar. I think that covers it.

4. Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon)
One of the most depressing movie I've ever seen in my life Yu Shu Lien reminds me greatly of Storm. She is in control of her emotions and her body, an excellent fighter and protector. And she completely loves Chow Yun Fat's character. We don't even realize the depth of that love until the tragic end, but we do realize how strong Yu Shu Lien, played to perfection by Michelle Yeoh, is.

3. Sarah Conner (T2)
You see her for the first time in a mental institution doing pull-ups in preparation for ass-kicking. She may have been barely up to par in the first movie, but Sarah Conner wasn't messing around in the second one. And at no point, in all of her fighting, shooting, and terminator killing, did we ever doubt that she was a woman.

2. Ripley (Aliens)
In so many ways she was the first. You could pick Alien over Aliens, but I like Aliens better. Ripley was amazing; dealing with the emotional trauma of the first movie she saves a kid and kills the queen. She didn't have superpowers like Wonder Woman or Storm, and she wasn't trained like Xena or Sarah Conner. Instead she was just a freighter pilot who wouldn't lay down and die. And so my love of Sigourney Weaver was born.

1. Batgirl--Barbara Gordon (Batman Comics)
Batgirl is shot in the spine by the Joker, undressed and molested. And yet, all anyone talks about is how hard it was on her dad. Well, this is my opportunity to say there is one truly amazing hero that stands head and shoulders above the rest, and it's Barbara Gordon's Batgirl. After healing up she gets in her wheelchair and assumes the mantle of Oracle. She willfully continues to put up with all of Batman's moody shit just so that she can keep fighting the good fight. Her heart is broken by Nightwing, her home is destroyed by Batman, and she moves her base of operations and keeps on fighting. Batman may be amazing, but Batgirl is awe-inspiring.

In the past week I have been mistaken for a lesbian, and a man. I feel I'm doing pretty well. I'm thinking that perhaps tomorrow I could wrap myself up like a mummy and see if anyone mistakes me for a leper. Neither one of these mistakes offended me; there are far worse things people could believe of me. And, in actuality, being mistook for a lesbian doesn't bother me at all. The circumstances surrounding it, however, are a little more difficult to puzzle out.

In a game similar to truth or dare, but without the dare, I was asked the question "since you like hot girl on girl action, how do you think that will affect your PhD dissertation?" It threw me for a loop, not for the misnomer that I like girl on girl action, but for the assumption that such a proclivity would affect my dissertation. It seems that sort of an idea is indicative of what might be called passive bigotry. I know using a word such as bigotry is inflammatory, and I don't actually think the person who used it is in any real way a bigot, but I do think the belief that just because someone is gay it would automatically affect them in an academic arena qualifies. For instance, you would never ask a black person, or an asian person, since you are [fill in the minority] how will that affect your PhD dissertation. The very idea seems ludicrous. Unless that person is specifically studying literature from the field the one has nothing to do with the other. And even if I were gay and studying queer theory, it is still an assumption that I would approach the topic differently than a heterosexual studying queer theory.

I've been thinking about this for awhile. Once it was clarified that I was (am) straight, mortification abounded and I felt sorry for the questioner's unease. Especially because there seemed to be an undue amount of embarrassment brought on by the situation. And so I'm prompted to ask, is being thought gay really so insulting?

Perhaps for men it has a different connotation than it does for women, or, perhaps, for another woman it would be insulting. But I think what bothers me isn't that someone might think I was attracted to women instead of men, but the stereotypes that go with it. I'm speculating here, I have no idea what prompted this belief other than the "gaydar" went off, but to be thought a lesbian instead of a straight woman seems like it must have come from only a few things: I didn't seem obviously attracted to men, or I didn't seem particularly feminine.

What is it about "butch" attitudes that makes us immediately think of dikes? I understand the certain looks associated, but I don't have a shaved head, a mullet, or a proclivity towards wearing flannel. And even if I did, why would that point me out as a lesbian? Why is it we, as a culture, seem so infatuated with the idea of being able to fit everyone we meet into a particular mold? To some degree it makes sense; it orders the world around us and allows for some feeling of control and understanding. But in a very real way it limits us. It prevents us from seeing people as they actually are and promotes the characteristic of seeing people how we think they are. Or ought to be.

I've grappled with this topic for awhile. Along with typical masculine and feminine stereotypes I've witnessed the constant behavior of men dating girls that were a little bit weak or unable to take care of themselves. Guys who walk up to friends who are girls and say "hey I would like to date your obviously cute and obviously unstable friend." And girls who walk up to friends who are guys and say "I can't date him because he doesn't take care of me." What is it about weakness that is so appealing? Hell, what is it about being taken care of that is so appealing?

As a brilliant friend of mine once said, the beauty of not needing to be taken care of means you are free to take care of someone else when they need it. To me that seems like a more fulfilling relationship. I know I couldn't stand to date someone, guy or girl, who constantly needed me to put his/her life back together. I also know I couldn't date someone who was incapable of helping me put mine back together on occasion.

And so the point of all of this rambling is to say I don't care who thinks I'm gay. It's not an insult. But I do care that people make sweeping judgments about, not just my, but everyone's character based on a perceived sexual orientation. I care that people pigeonhole each other and assume that just because you're strong, you can't be hurt. I care that people, when discovering sexual orientation is different than they thought it was, have to strive to find a new pigeonhole in which to fit someone.

But more than any of that, more than any of that being done to me, I care that I do that to others. I care about that a lot.

So I just saw Beowulf and I'm, well, perplexed. I offer up a spoiler-alert for the principle of the matter, but I'm not sure you can really "give away" this movie. Needless to say it's different than the saga, but it does stay true in ways no previous movie has accomplished. However, the ways it deviates--I'm just not sure. I walked out and could only say "huh".

Beowulf has always been a figure more romantic than literary; that is, because of the lack of text offered and the writing styles of 8-900 A.D. England the saga doesn't offer up much in the way of character development. Different movies have approached this different ways with varying degrees of success and sometimes outright failure. Beowulf featuring Christopher Lambert comes to mind as an example of failure; so does Beowulf & Grendel starring Gerard Butler. The 13th Warrior has met with derision, but I still maintain it is one of the better ones. Partly because it maintains the feel of the story, but especially because it provides the emotion I, at least, as a 20th (at the time I read it) century reader felt like should have been there but was inaccessible to me. I imagined that in its day that emotion rolled out of bards' mouths, but when I read it I had to imagine how I would feel if this story was told to me in an easily connectable way. As it was I always enjoyed it, barbarian/warriors are obviously one of my favorite hero archetypes, but for as fantastic of a movie as it made in my head it never seemed to translate well to screen.

This movie approaches Beowulf as the story of a man. A fantastic approach, really, but the screenplay doesn't provide us with much of a man to connect to. In an effort to depict him as heroic but flawed, his heroism is beyond measure, and his flaws are so enormous as to be nearly unforgivable. What the viewer is left with is a polarized man--one half is amazing, the other half is despicable, and nothing much exists in between. Towards the end of the movie an older, and much wiser, Beowulf demonstrates more range of thought and emotion; his character is more easily sympathized with and relatable, and following the last great battle you do find yourself cheering for him, and mourning for him. The end to some degree makes up for the lack of development in the beginning, but to some degree I still felt cheated. Cheated because I was denied watching him grow in the same way the beginning denied the chance to get to know him.

And perhaps the part that really gets me, the part that has me writing this now, is you are never given a true hero. Beowulf is heroic; he fights bravely, and honorably. But his character is flawed in ways that, for me, deny true heroism. I know, that's harsh, but it's true. It isn't a simple matter of sex, him cheating on his wife, or sleeping with the enemy; it can't be simplified that way. But at the same time, it does come down to sex and wealth. Grendel's mother hangs his men from the ceiling; she is evil. And not evil because she is a demon, or even because she takes revenge. But because she traffics in men's souls. She offers deals that offer much for very little on the surface, but the price of giving in to her, the price of agreeing to her terms is your integrity.

And so I guess that's what bothers me. Beowulf can fight monster's, but he can't fight a woman (yes, she is a monster too, but not so obviously). And for that to be his greatest weakness, while I understand why, is to deny him the sort of integrity I need in a hero. I need a hero that isn't swayed by wealth or beauty. I need a hero that can say no when tempted with an alluring deal. Being heroic is more than physical for me; it's as much an ability of the mind, a mental strength, as it is a bodily one.

I would have been okay with the movie had I been presented one character, one male character, that obviously, and fairly easily, said no to Grendel's mother. I wanted a hero from among the warriors that was as noble in spirit as he was in deed. And I didn't get it. Hrothgar's Queen was the closest by far, but hers was a strength I understood and, while respected, didn't inspire the sort of adoration one of the warriors should have. That's due in part to the time and situation her character existed in. She couldn't be Wonder Woman and she was never presented with the temptations any of the men faced. But what I wanted from one of the men, what I really wanted to see, was a Superman.

You can be heroic in many ways. Beowulf was, without a doubt, an amazing warrior and worthy of song. He was a good king and friend. I wouldn't even call him a bad husband per say. But he was weak when he needed to be strong and so, while he was heroic, he wasn't exactly a hero. The point of the movie was that he was only a man, and I respect that. But men can be heroes sometimes, and so I guess I don't accept that in order to show he was a man, we have to accept he was weak.

I think there is a place for stories about men who struggle with their character. And I think there is a place for stories about men who struggle with their heroism. I just wasn't prepared for Beowulf to be one of the former instead of one of the latter.

So I just had a very interesting experience. As I was driving home at 4 am I passed what appeared to be an extremely drunk driver. The light turned green and as I came up behind them they didn't move. Changing lanes I passed them then saw in my rear view mirror that they had finally gone through but were weaving erratically behind me. They also approached my car very fast from behind. I have friends that consider playing "Stay between the Lines" a time honored tradition, but when someone seems to be obviously jeopardizing the safety of everyone on the road I take it pretty seriously. Thus, I called 911 and reported. My phone call to the Northern police department, however, was very different from a similar phone call I made in Massachusetts for the same reason.

When I called in Massachusetts they asked for a description of the car, but when I said I can't make out the license plate the officer quickly told me not to worry about it and to stay back from the car. They asked for neither my phone number nor my name. This phone call asked for the license plate number, the color, model, my name, and my number. It wasn't so much that those questions seemed out of place, as she seemed irritated that I didn't have the answer. She also asked me if I was following them after they turned off the road I was on and I told her.

Now, I understand it's hard to track someone down without a plate number, and I don't know what she would have said if I told her I was following them, but judging by the tone of her voice it seemed that she wanted me too. On the one hand I can understand why that's a good idea--if they do hit someone I can be there to report it. But on the other hand, I don't particularly want to be the person they hit. There are a lot of accidents in Vegas and many of them serious. I've worked hard since moving here to not be a statistic, but I find it odd that a police department would ask you to enter into that situation.

It could be I'm making too much of her tone of voice, it was after all four o'clock in the morning, and it isn't that I don't understand why she wanted the information she did or why she would ask me to follow, but in Massachusetts it was very clear over the phone that it was more important to them that I stay safe. I definitely didn't get that feel from this phone conversation. And so that made me wonder.

I've never lived somewhere where it was obvious that the safety of the citizens was not the first priority of the police. Sure I've heard about it here, but I hadn't experienced it first hand. And that isn't to say that all previous police departments were angels, I lived in Boston for goodness sakes, but most of the previous faked it pretty well. Many people have discussed the police for the northern suburb, and I had casually wondered if they really were that bad, but now after tonight, I can't help but think they are. It isn't an academic feel, more a gut instinct brought on by tiredness, the uncomfortable experience of nearly being run over by a drunk and the phone call, but it is a strong feeling none-the-less. Perhaps this is all emphasized by the very real feeling I had that nothing would be done, not because they wouldn't find the person, but because she (the woman on the phone) didn't care. I've never conversed with blatant apathy from my police department before.

In all fairness, she could have been having a bad night. She could have been tired. There are any number of reasons why my unease is completely unfounded. But since moving here I have witnessed one fatal accident, and one accident that resulted in the car exploding--I don't know if the driver got out or not. There have been numerous other accidents along with one person attempting to run me off the road. And so, after passing a drunk and talking to an apathetic cop it makes a person wonder.

The universe, in reply to this wondering, will no doubt see to it that I get a speeding ticket soon. But I can seriously hope that whomever was driving the truck I passed tonight never drives like that again. If that's how it has to balance it out I'll take it. Either way I hope never to have to make another phone call like that again. Especially because I worry one day I'll be making it after they hit me.

I thought I would share the latest and greatest from the front lines of teaching Composition to college freshmen. Their latest paper, on The Matrix, required them to define reality in their own terms and discuss it in relationship to the movie. Most of them, so very many of them, defined reality as something particular to each person and made the claim that whatever we perceive individually is real. I'm not attacking this claim--it's an argument that can be made, but I do enjoy pointing out what the argument means. I also use this as a sounding block to work out my thoughts before I begin discussing with them the implications of such a claim.

First of all, if something is only real because someone believes it then the America's were not real to the European nations prior to their discovery. Obviously the Vikings has stumbled across it, and the Native Americans knew it was real, but none of the Europeans were wise, so--does America exist in a separate place from Europe, or does the European thought trump the reality of the Native Americans'? History tells us what the Europeans believed. Second of all, racism, sexism, classism, are all very real to the people that believe them. Does that mean, then, that because Billy Bob believes minorities to be less intelligent and moral than whites that they are?

These are both fairly obvious outcomes of the discussion, and my point in sharing it is not to point out the obvious, but to show how students, when shaping new ideas, have such wonderful, marvelous insights, but just can't quite think through things all the way. In their attempt to answer a question definitively, and a concurrent attempt not to devalue anyone else's thoughts, they forget to think through what they're saying. And I find this worth noting, specifically, because I think it's a common mistake.

We are all so afraid to say that someone else is wrong (excusing those situations where people refuse to say anything but) that we never recognize the lengths to which we travel to justify other's thoughts. In an unconscious effort to support the First Amendment, and I would say a reaction to the conservative limiting politics of the time, we adopt a whatever-you-think-is-cool-man-just-don't-hurt-anyone attitude. We even take it so far as to apply it to history saying things like, well the society of the time said it was okay so we can't judge it.

What no one seems to realize is that you can understand why someone does something and still recognize it as wrong. I know why Medieval knights married twelve year old girls. It was still wrong. I know why colonizers kept slaves. It was still wrong. I know why the English slaughtered the Irish and Scottish (among others) and even attempted to breed the Scots out. It was still wrong. I understand these things; I understand the benefits these decisions offered to the society in power. But in understanding it, I don't, automatically, have to condone it.

My point then is not so much on reality and what is or is not real, but on our individual abilities to reconcile what we really, actually do believe, with what we really, actually want to believe. It's a fine line, but an important one. And I know that most of my students won't get it--they might not even get it in this lifetime, but unlike them I no longer traffic in the "that's the way it is so whatever" attitude anymore. Instead I write this silly thing and hope that if one of you ever meets someone and she says "I believe that whatever people think is real, is real" you will look her in the eye and say "No you don't. Now go figure out why."

Tomorrow I will be beginning my Problem/Solution part of the semester. That title is, of course, a useless one as I attempted to sequence all my classroom activities, but it is important to share. It is important, because I needed something filler for tomorrow. They turn in their papers and start the next unit, but what was I going to do to fill the time? I decided to address the "literature problem."

The problem with current literary studies is addressed by Elizabeth Kantor in her essay "Unlearning Literature." She offers a critique of college professors and their teaching techniques. That critique doesn't bother me, as such, I have lot's of problems with the way students are taught today, but the thrust of her critique...well, she's wrong. She is wrong in the way Ann Coulter is wrong. She is wrong in the way all people who are so embedded in the system that they cannot see it's problems are wrong. Yes that was very Marxist of me, but don't worry, there will be more.

Kantor says, "Universities are full of trendy English professors who don't read Shakespeare for the beauty of the poetry or its peerless insights into human nature. The point is to uncover the oppression that's supposed to define Western culture: the racism, "patriarchy," and imperialism that must lurk beneath the surface of everything written by those "dead white males." (The latest book from University of Pennsylvania professor emerita Phyllis Rackin, for example, investigates how "Macbeth" contributed to the "domestication of women.") With their low opinion of Western civilization, it's no wonder that so many English professors teach material that isn't English literature at all: Marx and Derrida -- and even comic books, politically correct bestsellers from the '80s, foreign films, and pornography -- rather than Shakespeare and Jane Austen."

Oh where to start? I'll give you one more choice tidbit first: "Western culture isn't in our genes. It's learned. And despite what the typical 21st-century college professor may believe, Western civilization has conferred enormous benefits on the human race: extraordinary freedom and respect for women, workable self-government, freedom of speech and the press."

I think I want to share my favorite thing about this first. Her belief that Western civilization is comprised of only Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Beowulf, and the rest of the literary cannon. My second favorite thing, is that she equates only these texts with the development of great ideas, i.e. "freedom and respect for women, workable self-government, freedom of speech and the press." My last, and most favoritest thing of all (yes I said favoritest) is her complete, literary blindness to the themes of "patriarchy" and "imperialism" in those dead white males.

I'm not going to go through for you and list the instances that Plato remarks on women as less strong then men, too emotional, or weak. I'm not going to quote from Milton when he refers to Eve as the subject of Adam, serving not God directly but God through Adam. I'm not going to show you passages from Shakespeare where women are broken, like a horse, and then held up as the personification of the perfect wife. I'm not going to do any of that, because it is all obviously there. In the same way that Shakespeare also offers amazing soliloquy's questioning racism and the nature of thought or Milton challenges established authority and makes his reader second guess what they know. I'm not going to point out that the culture we have today, the beliefs, thoughts, educational system, and government is made up of Marx and Derrida as equally as what came before. I'm not going to point any of that out because it's common knowledge. It's there if you look.

Literature is neither perfect nor perfectly flawed. We have reached this point in our civilization by learning from our mistakes and making the same ones over, and over again. Christians were persecuted by the Romans. Christians persecuted the Jews. Catholics persecuted the Protestants. The Protestants persecuted everybody. The white settlers committed genocide against all peoples they colonized. The African tribes committed genocide against each other. Men have subjugated women in a patriarchal society. Women have pigeon-holed men as both perfect and useless, sometimes simultaneously. To deny that literature of the past does not promote the ideas of the time that bore it, patriarchy, racism, is more than simply naive--it's stupid. To deny that canonized literature of our past hasn't shaped our culture for the better and the worse is equally idiotic.

But more importantly than any of that is the underlying belief Kantor spouts that modern literature isn't good enough. That what we create today, in modern times isn't "Western" enough, or deep enough, or insightful enough. How better are we to see our culture today, than by what it produces? Canonized literature can show us the flaws of the past, but modern culture can show us those we are repeating as I write this. If we don't look at what we are, if we don't discuss, if we don't teach our children to recognize it, then what are we doing? Thinking of the '50's when everything was perfect? Except for McCarthyism of course. McCarthyism which looks suspiciously like how we are "safe-guarding" ourselves from terrorism now.

We have women that hate women. Not for any better reason than because "girls are whiners" and "criers" and every other female stereotype promoted in media, including old literature still discussed, today. Women that have no idea how deeply misogynistic they are. There are Hispanics that hate Hispanics. Blacks that hate Blacks. And some that hate everyone. People absorb the negative messages of society, not from thin air, but from what is around them. That includes the literature they read and are forced to read, the television, and movies. It also includes societal values that have been absorbed from literature and media of the past. Until a discussion is began about why people hate what they do, or feel as they do then all our great ideals--freedom, truth, equality--are nothing but fantastic rhetoric. Until we acknowledge that those things haven't been arrived at, we aren't there, and furthermore, that we never were there, we will never get there. We will certainly never get closer.

So no. I don't think Shakespeare and Jane Austen should disappear from the curriculum. Nor do I think they should only be discussed in negative ways. But I do think Elizabeth Kantor is an idiot, and a harmful one at that.

I'm trying to write a paper on Nietzsche and it's really not going to so well. I also just finished my book and it was good (as I knew it would be) but slightly bittersweet. I hate it when the new book in a series comes out but it doesn't resolve much, or it resolves just enough to make you want to read the next one. I get it, but it's still annoying.

On another note, the time changed happened today and I am finally able to pinpoint what causes my seasonal depression. I know that people theorize the lack of vitamin (k? b?) from the sun causes it, and some have suggested that being in Vegas might ease my winter blues, but I feel the beginnings stirring in my psyche and I know that this winter, like all winters, will be a battle of me being depressed, knowing it, trying to avoid it, and failing miserably. It is the sun setting so early in the day. For some reason the sun rising later in the morning doesn't throw me--perhaps because I am no a morning person, but when it twilight hits at 4:45 and dark sets in around 5:45 I find a sense of sadness pervading that wasn't there Saturday when it set an hour later. I like night, I am a night person, and so it doesn't make sense that the sun setting earlier would affect me so strongly. And yet, it does.

Perhaps it is the feeling of another day gone coming too soon. Perhaps it is a combination of Sunday blues and early sunsets. Perhaps it is just my body's natural knowledge of another winter. Probably it is a combination of all, including my natural hesitancy of being in Vegas. I never stumbled when people asked me how I liked Boston. It was an easy question with easy conversation. I have yet to provide a satisfactory answer to Vegas. I don't hate it. But I don't love it. Maybe it is because I'm getting older and traveling around is more a hassle than an adventure; maybe it's because my friends are having children and I wish I were there to see it. Maybe it's because desert isn't my natural environment. Whatever the reason I am happy here when I am with people, but rarely content on my own. And yet, after being with people for more than a few hours I begin to crave solitude. There's a contradiction for you.

Who knows what the point of all these musings are. Probably they stem from my discovery the other night that Orion is on the other side of the sky from where I am used to seeing him. Such a small thing really. But when you look up and even the stars are different...then you know you truly are in a different land. There's something unsettling about that. Five years ago it just would have been exciting. Oh well, it's always okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it just isn't the end yet.