A quick entry of two notable photos.

After a not-so-good day, Jeff hands me a little package and tells me to open it. Inside I find Moleskine's Paris city notebook. [what is it?] I see the 'CDG,' for Charles de Gaulle, and I burst into tears, for his spouse is a fountain pen lover who adores little perfect notebooks like these and who is very very nervous about going to Paris alone.

"Make your notes here," he says. "It won't be the last time you go to the city."

I may not have him with me on his trip, but suddenly I have city maps and addresses, and I have a spousal good luck charm.

My smile blossomed at ten after four, when he walked in the door, unexpected, early.  I had commented to Adam online a bit earlier that there was something calm and perfect about the afternoon: the raging storm; the slanted lamplight across my laptop; the soft sound of snoring, geriatric cats.  Suddenly, it was better.

Jeff smiled as he put his bag down and said, "Stacy sent us all home."  He put down his string bag of water bottle, lunch remnants, and snacks; he took his place on the other couch and I paused from debugging.

"I don't know what it is I want tonight," I said, "but I want to do something a little different.  I just don't know what."

"Why don't we go out to dinner?"

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, and by that I mean "this doesn't have anything to do with Valentine's Day," I present something I love:

Open data formats.

Most of you know I've been logging my listening habits over at last.fm for several years now. Some time ago, a nifty gentleman wrote a set of scripts (available at lastgraph.aeracode.org) to generate a visual representation of a single user's listening habits over time.

2005

2006

2007

I think I have earlier data saved on files at home, but I'll have to check. Clicking on the files will take you to the larger versions archived on flickr.

A little voice inside my head said,

In lieu of the entry I'm actually taking time to write and edit and revise and actually think about, I present linkfood.

'In Teh Beginning' (lolcats meets inexplicable meets ... uh, you'll see)

From Colter: 'How To Get Your Love On' on relationships:

She and I are the unintentional peas in a pod; five or six years ago we were introduced by friends who knew her, and her husband, first, and who thought of Jeff and I as "another Brian and Suzan." They were as right in many ways as they were wrong, for we are as radically different as we are eerily similar, and our friendships keep doubling over and crossing themselves and coloring and re-coloring over the lines as a result.

We've relaxed since getting here, having put down our daily lives on the floor next to our bags and picking up something simpler. We've flitted from restaurant to restaurant, snagging wings here, Chinese there.This afternoon, we went gifting, bringing Patrick along for the plan of getting him a birthday shirt. A simple plan, a dress shirt; help Patrick finally find a dress shirt he liked that actually fit, buy it for him and wish him a happy birthday.

To you, love, from across a timezone, my voice and my words to you.

Eight years married, ten years together; a third of my life now wrapped up in your presence. We've said this every year: it's not the ceremony that holds true importance, it's the everything that comes after that makes a marriage, and you, dear, I have loved more than anyone else I have known in my entire life.

I may fly away, but I am aware, oh so keenly aware, of where home is.

Here's to life. Yours, mine—and most importantly, ours.

Home soon.

The incantation remains the same:

Memory, leave me something - I lose so much on a daily basis; give me this, on days when I was happy, for the days that will inevitably come when I am not, so that I may remember the taste of these moments that, inevitably, go…
— 'Rockies on my right,' 10 October 2004

"She's not a Chinese puzzle box like you."—Chris

I forget sometimes that what I write here doesn't necessarily have to come with an explanation or an easy answer. Some days and some sentiments require me to take a deep breath and trust that what I say will be accepted for what it is, no more and no less, because I am as complex as my life and as simple as my love.