If by arms, of course, you mean “the reach of the sharpened claws of two cats.” But it’s okay by me.

My sister looks good, all things considered (she’s in the early baby phase of motherhood, meaning that she sleeps — well, never). My niece is beyond adorable (grain of salt warning: I think all babies are adorable until they hit the age of two, at which point they should be marked “RETURN TO SENDER”). My sister and brother-in-law live about five minutes from Chapel Hill, in a semi-secluded neighborhood that borders on a huge amount of natural area — meaning that the entire four days felt much like staying at a cabin in the mountains, only closer to civilization. It was a perfect placement.

Didn’t go out at all — not counting the two times that Mandy, Bird, sometimes Chris, and I went to Elmo’s, their favorite place to eat — which was a really nice bit of decompression for me. Read LIFE OF PI (finally) and SOCK (Penn Jillette’s pop-culture-soaked noir debut/metaphorical look at the atheist’s view of religion), watched DONNIE DARKO and RETURN OF THE KING and HIDE & CREEP… generally, lazed. Something I have a hard time doing, and something I need to do more often.

Also, avoided the computer for four days. That may be the key to a rich and successful life. Must look further into that.

Strange things on return, too — got an email from one of the many and sundry online dating services that said I had gotten a wink from someone (for the fortunately uninitiated, a wink is a non-message of interest. It’s cheap and safe. Sing it with me….), and a subsequent message saying that someone I had added to my hotlist (a way to bookmark profiles you find interesting) had added me.

Intrigue! Delusional hope! Etc.

Well, having now spoken to said someone, it turns out to be someone that I met years and years ago, and then again, and then again — her brother is a great guy who is a good acquiantance of mine, and we have a lot of mutuals (both acquiantances and interests). I have always found said someone very attractive, but from a distance; call it fear of what might come out of my open mouth.

And so we are set to meet tomorrow night for drinks and conversationalizing*. I look forward to it with great relish.

(*Conversationalizing is neither a word nor a sloppy attempt at euphemism. It, much like my choice of ‘relish,’ is a bad hangover from reading too many books in a short timeframe, and having not written anything outside of computer code for four days.)

Random leftover thoughts:

• Why must airports feature voice recordings using local dialect? There’s nothing like being reminded that you’re in the South by hearing a pre-recorded message in a deep twangy drawl. Nothing, that is, save getting kicked hard in the jewels. Or shooting moonshine. Anally.

• The universe has a skin, and that skin is translucent, sometimes. I don’t know what that means, but it presented itself to me in the smoking closet in the Nashville airport and has remained in my forebrain since; therefore, it is true.
• I am once again reminded that there are no rules, only expectations.
• Applying desired change to your life (more to the point, your unconscious way of approaching and living life) is difficult; resuming life is equally difficult. Sometimes, it seems like a really fun concept to just wipe everything and start over — not out of need or even desire to do so, but rather to avoid having to return from a break from the norm.
• From LIFE OF PI (pt. I):
  

  I can well imagine an atheist’s last words: “White, white! L-L-Love! My God!”-and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, “Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain” and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story.

• There is no quicker way to find yourself ass-deep in drama than to declare yourself happily free of it.
• From LIFE OF PI (pt. II):
  

  All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in a strange, sometimes inexplicable ways.

Now, off to do some work.