More mundane:

A relief: the vet pronounces Tenzing almost completely well. He says his eardrum is a bit ragged from the infection, but that it's starting to heal. The swelling is going down, and the little purrball should be completely well in another week.

A happy and relieved kittymommy.Did more planning for the Great Adventure To Canuckistan[tm] today. Andy confirms that he will be going. So far, that puts the list of attendees at Jeff, myself, Heather, Jess, and possibly Gareth. Then, of course, there's Brad, who will be thoroughly terrorized by the time we're gone.

I'm having to play travel agent—we're all needing to go in on separate airlines. Heather needs to go on Delta, Jeff and I on Northwest, Andy on US Airways. We all need to arrive and leave Sea/Tac at approximately the same time—from different airports. To say this has been a bit challenging would be a bit of an understatement, but I think I've got it mostly under control.

It should be quite nice—I haven't figured out a full list of interesting things that we could do, but that'll come together over the coming weeks. I'm refusing to plan the actual trip—I'm just going to present everyone with a list of options and let them decide what they'd rather do. I think everyone will be happier that way.

Less mundane:

Andrew called tonight. I love hearing from him—I should call him more often, but I always seem to resort to email instead, since I never seem to think of things to tell him during times that he would be home. He's going to present a paper in London, and Joy will be studying in Salzburg this summer.

It's hard not to envy what they're doing; I look at them and see how things could have been for me, if I'd decided to stick out a literature degree and go on to graduate school. Even now, when I hang up the phone with him, there's always a five-minute pause of sheer doubt and questioning on my part.

I know—as certain as he's reading this entry—that he's hoping that I'll go back to school to get the literature degree I seem to be studying for on my own time. Go about this process of tapping whatever creative energies still live in my head. Then, after that, picking up the pieces of my writing and finding some way to make it my full-time endeavour.

Maybe he's right. I've never been totally satisfied with anything I've ever done, and I find myself wishing that my next bit of employment will be both artistically and spiritually enriching. To do something creative, something requiring thought and insight and my instinct to put things right… and to go home at the end of the day feeling that I accomplished something, left my corner of the planet in a bit better shape than it was when I awakened.

That's what I really and truly want.

Far too often, I joke with my friends that I should become something utterly different than what I am now. A traveling food critic; a fact-finder for travel guides. It would satisfy my wanderlust and my drive to write, but not my drive to set things to rights.

I do not know how to satisfy that need. I know better than to picture myself as a crusader for, well, anything at all, really: as someone once said, I shouldn't belong to any organization crazy or desperate enough to have me.

But, on the other hand, it is painful for me to truly look around me at the society I live in. I see so many things that need doing, need fixing, that need someone to pick up the reins and say, "Okay, here's where we make our start on making things better"—that I find it easier to retreat and do nothing.

Paradoxical, isn't it? So many things that you want to tackle, to fix, to make right—but the sheer volume of them all makes you cower in your own house. Afraid to start; doubting that picking one cause, one need, and devoting your energy to it would be enough to topple the mountain.

I look in the mirror and see a person who does not truly know who she is or what she is capable of—only the whisper of knowledge that with some courage and determination, she could be something infinitely better than her current state.

I'm not a perfectionist. I just wish I could go to sleep at night without the voice in the back of my head saying, "You cannot have back your wasted days. Make them count."

(A lot to think about after such a short phone call….)