five years later

On Saturday, May 29, 2004, I gingerly launched into this blog thing in an internet cafe in Madrid. I wasn't even sure I was doing it "right."

For the past five years (minus the one-year hiatus following my exchange student experience when I didn't think this blog was necessary anymore) I have raged, snarked and confessed here. I have waxed poetic, verbose and danced the happy dance. I have made friends and rediscovered the absolute joy of writing. For my dozen faithful readers, lurking and not, I am grateful and touched by your companionship on this journey. For those of you who stopped reading or didn't find my entries compelling, I am grateful to you for stopping by anyway.

For those I've offended, well, move along. Go on.

Jesus, it's starting to sound like I'm breaking up with my blog. I'm not.

[Note: No, I haven't lost my mind and reposted. Last month, thanks to the miracle of setting the publish time for a blog entry to a specific date in the future, I wrote this post.
Then, promptly forgot about it.
So, yesterday morning I dashed off the previous and now redundant post. This is what happens when you try to out-organize yourself. I'm going to go check the draft section of my blog now.]

epiphenita turns 5

Five years ago today I sat in an internet cafe in Spain trying to peck out my first post on a Spanish keyboard. I was sure I was "doing it wrong." I was far from home, excited and a bit homesick. Not to mention struggling to decipher the melodious cacophony around me. Or rely on words and humor to make myself understood and accepted.

I loved my experience in Spain. It was all about communication. And the perfect marriage for the birth of a blog (though married to what I'm not really clear. Hell, I call dibs on immaculate blog conception). I love writing here. It is one of the no-brainer wins for technology in my life.

I've been absent these 4 weeks. Well, these 2 months. I am constantly jotting down notes on paper or in text files on my hard drive. I take photos to share. I've got a b(ack)log of shit to share.

However, and speaking of backlogs, I am off to a routine colonoscopy* exam so I can't spend much time here. No really. Gotta go.

*If the mention of a colonoscopy brings a chorus of "TMI" you really shouldn't read this blog anymore. I plan on breaking down whatever flimsy politeness barriers I've been working behind. Buck up. There will be shit jokes.

max! wild things! mischief!

I was skeptical but this looks amazing.

And if that weren't enough this just in:
"Sendak mentioned in a September, 2008 article in The New York Times that he is gay, and had been living with his partner, psychoanalyst Eugene Glynn, from 1957 until Dr. Glynn’s death in May 2007."
via wikipedia

Okay, it's not just in, as evident by the quote. Am I the last book-loving queer in North America to find this out?

How I love Max. I'm so making a wolf suit for my first grandchild. If and when that ever happens...no pressure.

m'aider m'aider m'aider

Enter May.

I feel like I've stepped into the ring everyday this week. Sometimes the opponent was Job Queue or Sorrow or Domestic Repair. Most days (and I am not alone in this) I felt tag-teamed by arthritis, impending salary cuts, swine flu, domestic chores that have no end, etc., all underscored by an atypical desire to flee.

I breathe. I take my walks. I rely on common sense and past experience to know that this bombarded feeling will pass.

The other day a tree roach (for those of you in cold country, read: huge motherfucking roach) crawled up my leg. I yelled, I swore, I danced. Critters are back from their brief winter holiday. It was amusing to watch, I'm sure, and oddly grounding. Sometimes we get balmy days and butterflies. Sometimes we get swampy days and a roach crawling up our pant leg.