It always comes down to this.

The thoughts, they always come, in pulses and gasps and stuttering flows of intuition all at the wrong times. The attempts, futile, to pull it together, to make sense of the images and flashes of thought that come at me when I'm more interested in attempting to live my life: the images that stay with me when my eyes close at the end of the day.

How I see the same things in people, over and over, as the years pass. The names change, the people change, yet these are the same eyes and the same mind still looking out and observing, the still point of onlooking that can't seem to look away.

The intellectual part of my mind registers the differences between people, knows their intrinsic differences that make them into different people, but there's still the less cognizant part of me that still comes to a shuddering standstill when confronted with inexplicable strangeness and similarity.

Everyone keeps asking, what’s it all about?
I used to be so certain and I can’t figure out
What is this attraction?
[duncan sheik]

Welcome back. Life returns, the friends go home, the cats relax, and my fingers start tapping almost of their own accord. They make it clear that whether I want to or not, it's time to start writing again—not because I should but because I must.

"And I could stand here waiting
A fool for another day
But I don’t suppose it’s worth the price, worth the price
The price that I would pay"
[d.s.]

Put the music on. Don't turn on the light. Listen to the cats in the next room, industriously tussling each other in brotherly fashion. Despite the fact that no one is here but me, I attempt to physically hide the fact that I am writing—because, of course, if no one knows I'm writing, no one will know to ask me whether or not I was able to finish what I started.

Like most native Arkansans, I watched yesterday's inauguration of George W. Bush with a mix of relief and sorrow. For at last, it is over!—and sadly, yes, it is over, and we will probably never see the likes of such attention again. That quiet, rural state has been in the limelight for the past eight years, and what an incredible time it was to be living there when Clinton was first elected.

The closing of this man's presidency closes an eventful chapter in my life, as well.