I often wish I was in San Francisco, and today would be a great night for it, because Sugar is revealing her identity. I already know who Sugar is, but that doesn't mean I'm any less exicted to hear about the how the evening goes.

(Also, unrelated, but I believe they are going to broadcast "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" at noon, to celebrate the 50th anniversary. Really! I miss that city.)

I'm relatively ambivalent about the day. I like those candy hearts that will go on sale tomorrow, but otherwise am happy to have today be like any other Tuesday. Jeff and I have been dating for five years, more or less this month. (We can't pin down an exact day as for a while we were dating secretly. We secretly held hands under a blanket and secretly kissed in the kitchen of the house he shared with the majority of our mutual friends.*) It's pretty great, but not something either of us feel compelled to celebrate on this particular day. The one time we did go out the sideview mirror on Jeff's car broke off and the restaurant forgot our reservation.

So really, it may be best to just stay in, avoid the coupled-up crowds, and be thankful that we all made it out of high school and no longer need to watch everyone else in homeroom receive carnations. And, if you're an internety-writerly type like me, watch twitter for updates on the Sugar party in San Francisco.

(And maybe write like a motherf*cker, too.)

*Because it is totally possible to date secretly when you live in a town of less than 5,000 and go to school on a tiny campus and have all the same friends who do all the same things. (Um, no. It's not.)

It was, like all highs, momentary, after which life relaxed back into it's normal shape.

And here's the thing. Life's "normal shape" isn't entirely ideal at the moment. Money is tight and the waitinghopingwaitingworkingwaiting cycle can be an emotional grind. Until Jeff and I have enough money to move out (in April, assuming everything continues as is,) there are evenings when I feel somewhat stuck in a second adolescence, sitting in my bedroom with the door closed. At least my writing, when I manage to get some done, is better than it was at fifteen*.

(Not that I'm getting as much writing done as I'd like. Which is, on the one hand, the story of my life. It is, on the other, always disappointing.)

But January has been a good month. The weather has been decent, surprisingly warm for winter in Minnesota and I haven't missed the snow or sub-zero temps. It has been a small gift, this ability to walk out of the house without cringing, without hunching my shoulders to my ears, without the biting wind that manages to slip under even tightly wrapped scarves.

It's been a month of maybe-not-so-small gifts, really. Like the moment walking out of dinner at the Indian place, after Vanessa's birthday dinner. The four of us were laughing and catching our breath in the not-too-cold air and I had the sudden feeling that if I could show my thirteen year old self any snapshot of my adult life it might be this one: you're still giggling with your best friend! Plus cute boys!

(It was a good month for friends, generally. Ten years (!) after we went to summer camp together I saw a friend from Iceland, who happened to be studying in Minnesota for a month. I video chatted with another friend in San Francisco.)

I ate cheesecake. Twice!

I read David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, which was both superb and fun. I kept a list of all the words I had to look up, and it was lengthier than most. I am still figuring out how to work things like amanuensis or cumulonimbi into conversation or my own writing. (I'm doubtful this will happen.)

I did not start a novel.

I did take a photo every day.

I also opened a savings account at a Credit Union, which was one of my "foundation"-related goals for the year. Things seem to be happening slowly. Opening a savings account, for example, doesn't mean there is suddenly a lot of money to put into it. I guess that cliche metaphor of climbing a mountain is apt, right about now. Or maybe that cliche metaphor about the hare and the tortoise and the race.

Climb, tortoise, climb!

So: That was January.

*I hope it is, anyway. There are days I doubt it.

Gorgeous!

Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo.

(Previously: This sky we're living under? / This planet we're living on?)

I thought for sure I would grow up and move on and that planet (that block and neighborhood and suburb) would fade like a ketchup stain after a dozen washes. It hasn't happened entirely like that. You think the world is so big, when you're living on your small childhood planet. And it is. But sometimes it is so small, too small to really leave any part of it behind.

P.S. (Make your own planets.)

I give you: Shit gay guys say to their cats.

You're welcome.

*Pre-New Years, December 30th

**Yes, the name influenced the choice, but it was also delicious.

(Original here.)

My mom started a new tradition this Christmas. Each of us stood in front of tree and held a white board on which we wrote our names, the year and a word to sum up the year. I chose "transition", which felt like an obvious (and generous) choice. And though the new year has barely begun, I've already picked a word for 2012.

Foundation.

Everything for the last four years has been temporary. Each school and job and apartment and city has had an expiration date right from the beginning. That's not really the case, anymore. So maybe 2012 will be a good year to make things solid, to work hard and try to save money, to find an apartment, to join a gym, to take a cooking class and to set goals that stretch beyond a single year. I'm not sure entirely what those will be, yet, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

It might be a good year to start a novel. Just start one and see what happens.

Welcome, 2012. It's nice to see you. Let's make some plans.

When I told Jeff I had now revised my Christmas list (to "PUPPY!") he said, "I wish people on the internet wouldn't link you to those types of videos." WHATEVER. Thank you, internet*!

*Specifically someone on Twitter. Who was it? Was it you?

I did not come home to the good news I had been hoping for and I ended up crying in a bathroom stall in the O'Hare airport. For a few minutes the only thing I was grateful for was the length of the bathroom and the absurdly tall plastic walls between stalls and the feeling that I was, for a few minutes, alone. But when I landed in Minneapolis and darted to Jeff's car in my flip-flops (having left my only other pair of actual shoes behind) I was able to laugh at my cold feet and when we went out for Thai food that night we bought a whole bottle of wine. It seemed indulgent, something we should have been doing to celebrate, though we didn't have much to celebrate. But when it came we agreed it was feel better wine, it was a feel better dinner, and we talked about our favorite TV shows and I told him about my trip and we acknowledged that we didn't feel perfect, by the end of it all we did feel better. Life is a series of victories and defeats and even though I feel like we've been dealt our share of defeats lately, there is still room to feel better, even on days preceded by breakdowns and awkward bathroom cries.

Wine and perfectly crispy egg rolls help.

My mom had surgery last week, to remove the mass that turned out to be a rare but benign thymoma. It's not a light surgery, as they had to go through her chest (like in an open heart surgery) to remove it, but it will most likely not require any follow up radiation treatments. Just many weeks at home on the couch. As weird as it sounds I think hearing first from her husband and then from my brother how well the surgery went will stand out as two of my favorite moments of 2011. (Topped only by the afternoon I walked in after work and my mom said, "Well, it's not cancer.")

The truth is, I think we are still waiting for the sun to break through the clouds. Waiting for the good news. Waiting for day lit afternoons. Waiting to get through the recovery. Waiting to be done waiting. Waiting for the predictably surprising short days to get longer. Someday, they will.