Landed

So I'm in Shanghai. It's almost 8 pm here (its 6 am at home) My body has no idea what time it is. Typing means I can't go lay on the bed, which is a good thing.

After 20 hours of travelling, I do stupid things. Like LEAVE MY IPOD ON THE PLANE. If I wasn't so tired I would be way more upset that I somehow left my most important keeping-my-sanity (and expensive) travel companion. Fuck.

15 hours is a long ass time to spend on a plane. I slept a surprising amount considering I didn't take the sleeping pills. Good thing I didn't. since I got to see the North Pole and Siberia, which was awesome. The sun didn't set the entire flight, which meant I spent a bunch of time with my forehead against the window.

Randomly, I got to sit in first class from Austin to Chicago. Which was cool. Not as cool as it would have been to sit in first class to China, but I'll take what I can get.

It's dark and cold here, but I am excited about the little bit of the city I've seen so far. There is a lot of construction, bright lights and cars that don't recognize pedestrians as a reason to slow down.

We're heading out to dinner soon. Hopefully I will get to practice the five Mandarin words I think I've learned.

stretchy thoughts

Think stretchy thoughts for me tomorrow, since I will spend about 20 hours on airplanes starting very early in the morning.

So touch your toes, maybe bend into a couple of yoga poses and send 'em to me. I will be in my small seat heading to Shanghai. Here's hoping my plethora of electronics, books and medicines (prescribed and herbal) get me there without losing my mind.

I am going to buy one of those donut shaped neck rest things at the airport. Dorky? Very.  But, there is no way I am doing the sleepy head bob for 15 hours.

Hunting for Gray

Age. It's not something that I think about, yet it's been a constant companion lately. I am settling into maturity, gearing up to wear it like a comfortable t-shirt.

It started with the photo albums. When I look in the mirror I see the same me I've been seeing for years. I've looked the same since I was in college. Yet, a nostalgic tour through all my photo albums a couple of weeks ago showed me a face that was entirely different. Younger, rounder, often surrounded by bad, somewhat poofy hair. Even the newer albums showed me a face that was slimmer, more like my mother's.

It's clearer to me that I am now 10 years older than the girl I think I see in the mirror. And that short hair doesn't actually look good on me.

I go downtown to bars much less than I used to. My appreciation of the live show of a band I am lukewarm about has plummeted. I leave both earlier, eyes burning from the smoke and grateful to be near peeling off my smoky clothes.

Conversations about maturity have been afoot lately too. And not the dirty, whispered meaning of the word that implies old, and settling and boring that I aggressively clung to for years. Instead it's a bold definition that means content, and happy and, well, mature. It's a definition I am comfortably settling into. And settling into adulthood doesn't feel dirty.

Adult used to mean compromise in the worst sense of the word. It meant giving up and giving in. It meant a house in the suburbs and a itchy feeling of restlessness at night when the 10 pm suburban quiet rolled in.

But being adult means being comfortable with who I am, appreciating how lucky I've been, enjoying the people and things in my life that bring me joy and brushing aside the ones that don't. Being an adult means I don't need to act like I am 18 or 22 anymore, and I don't need to explain why to anyone. It means I go to bed early the night before a flight, and I am hopelessly out of fashion among the tragically hip 80s-wearing kids in their pointy shoes and mullets.

This weekend my high school friend Mike came to visit. But Mike is actually someone I've known since 5th grade. I've known him 18 years.  18! I got my first (of many) horrendous haircuts at 10. I got caught reading Judy Blame's Forever. I started shaving my legs.

Even the years of friendship scan an impressive number of years: 14. Mike and I aren't the type of friends who wax poetically about the years past. Yet, several times this weekend, something made us feel old - such as the pinnacle of our musical awakening, the early 90s, having been almost 15 years ago - and would catch us off guard.

When I left for college my Dad told me that time would go by faster as I got older. I nodded in agreement, even though I didn't understand.But now, 10 years later, when 10 years doesn't make up 50% of my life span, I can feel time flying by at a dangerously quick speed. I expect I'll be close to breaking the sound barrier when I am 50.

It was just a few years ago that my mirror face was actually 20. But today, I can see where my wrinkles are going to form (around my mouth where I smile),  I hunt gray hairs that insist on springing curly (curly!) off the top of my head, and I occasionally check on my growing number of freckles to make sure they aren't more than friendly reminders of spending too much time in the sun.

Busy and Uninspired

So the whole "new job" thing has been keeping me feeling busy and I haven't been very inspired to write. So I haven't. I am working on managing my work/yoga/dog schedule.

But on cool things that are coming up front.

I am going to Shanghai for work at the end of the month and then straight to SF for a week for GDC and to visit some friends. Currently my US passport is at the Chinese Embassy so they can issue me a Visa. Whee!

Mates of State is coming this weekend, which is a show that I am excited to see.

I wrote a large check this week to a flirty salesman to redo my floors. I am ripping out all the nasty carpeting upstairs and replacing it with wood laminate. It's going to look great. I can't wait.