Today the sky is a piercing blue, and sunglasses are not a luxury, but a necessity, as rays bounce off the snow and hit the eyes. Because I am transitioning onto some medication, my pupils are so dilated that you can barely see the ring of blue around them. It's hard to look into my own eyes, but I have been wondering things about them. For example: do pupils reflect, or are they big black holes? If my pupils are big, does that mean you see more or less of yourself, more or less of me?

In any case, it's very Minnesota over here, down to the milliseconds it takes for one's hand to freeze in the cold, and I am for the first time in a while feeling my heart melt back into a dark, deep, familiar well of loneliness. It is the only thing I've been drinking from, and I don't know if there will ever be a permanent fix for that.

I've been thinking about Amsterdam a lot, and whether or not it would feel good for me to be in the Gender Sexuality and Society Master's at the UvA, and walk circles every day in a place so dear to my heart. Whether I am emotionally capable of shipping off somewhere to do TEFL work. Whether I should work on revitalizing my dying Dutch, or (enough already) learn Spanish.

So many whethers, right now.

I went to see Barb. We talked about a lot of things, but one of those things is this:


You know how there are old souls and young souls? You're a middle-aged soul, caught between the drug of emotional youth and the wisdom of emotional old age. This learning will help you grow into an old soul.

Therapy is such a necessary thing. It is work and fighting and sometimes frustrating and scary, but it cuts to the heart of things, and I never leave feeling worse than when I entered.

Today is a day for some deep south folk blues. Well I've been sittin here drinkin, just about as lonely as a man can be.