everybody put your best suit or dress on...

So the past year was a little shook up, and here's to 2007:

*New Years in a new country: I saw, loved, befriended, dined, danced, imbibed and conquered Amsterdam, Vire, Mont Saint-Michele, Paris, and Barcelona.
*I said goodbye to the best apartment I may ever have, packed it up, and left my car behind
*new city, a new job, new friends, and a new life.
*visiting and falling in love with Portland, a next best city. --also including Spanish Coffees, and Fujiya and Miyagi.
*good music, good times. top ten highlights include: Bjork (vip), Gunther, The Decemberists, Pretty Girls Make Graves (for the very last time ever), Hot Chip, Arcade Fire, Ryan Adams, Mr. Benjamin Gibbard (front row), Wilco (with aftershow party) and David Bazan.
*six different room-mates
*losing a previously ever-present hope
*4th of July without fireworks
*three different positions in three different Nordstroms
*losing and discovering what could be great love
*I stood up as witness for two of the best girls while they changed their names and lives forever, in a year that included many more in that vein.

*I visited Point Reyes, and hiked to a waterfall in Roseville over Memorial Day weekend
*new relationships with my family
*I grew my hair out "long"
*creative cooking until payday
*I chatted with Ben Gibbard.
*wine-tasting in Napa
*I bought nine bus passes, and only maybe that many tanks of gas.
*I went to a Giant's game, and a Warrior's game, (but not a single Padres game)
*I watched the San Francisco Opera perform Samson and Delilah while under blankets and stars at the ballpark
*I crossed 4 of the bay area's 7 bridges (9?)
*I danced with Matt in San Francisco --video up July, 2008. www.wherethehellismatt.com
*I turned 26 and was surrounded by a wonderful combination of old and new friends, with deliciously decadent cake, champagne, dinner in North Beach, and drinks at Bourbon and Branch, and it was a very good day.



I made friends, commitments, and mistakes, and learned lessons, learned about love, joy, myself, and a new city.


While 2007 comes to a close, I can only conclude that it was a tough and toughening, but good, year, and that as always, I am a work in progress.

wanderlust.

I wish I could travel more. I sometimes feel like it would be worth it to take out a big loan and spend time living and traveling elsewhere. Even if I had to spend the rest of my life paying it off, while I have the time and non-responsibility of being single and childless and without serious commitment like a career I've worked way too hard to bail on, or a mortgage or anything, to just go. But yes, I ache for adventure and travel, and really at this point, i think I have nothing else to really satisfy me the way that other places do. Maybe if I DID have those commitments, those responsibilities, I would be equally happy to be wherever I am, and everyday would be an adventure, learning about a husband, about having a family, about those new responsibilities, then I'm sure I wouldn't be lonely for other places, other adventures, the hope of meeting new people to share them with. I think sometimes I use adventure as a substitute for a partner. When in a relationship, I'm content to just be cozy and go on living in the day to day, and when I'm somewhere else, I feel proud of myself for being there, I do all kinds of things, and the new city is my friend, that maybe I've made with someone, maybe i've met alone, but then, it's okay to be alone. Is that absurd?

This is only the beginning.