I was planning on being asleep right this very second, considering I’m on an airplane for the next three hours. But then I found out that this flight has wifi, and who am I to turn down the internet when it’s right in front of me and I have legroom to spare because this flight is half-empty? I rest my case. Plus there’s the fact that I’ve never used the internet while this high in the air, and thought it might be time to change that.

On the first leg of this trip,I sat next to a flight attendant who was commuting to work, and we chatted the whole time about traveling and California. It was fun, and he tossed some of those drinks vouchers my way, so now I’m nursing an adult beverage and enjoying how little you have to drink in the air to get a nice buzz.

Because this flight has so few people on board, the staff has been more entertaining than usual. For instance, after takeoff, they offered snacks ”buffet” style, and set up a pile of pretzels at the front of the plane and watched them slide all the way to the back during the ascent. Despite being somewhat sophomoric, I’ve always wondered what that would look like, and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the spectacle.

I’m surprised at just how awake I am right now, and also at just how active my mind is. I guess the steady hum of the airplane’s engine can be calming in its own way. I keep looking out the window and have been watching as the sun sets in the distance. I have always loved having a window near any workspace, and I really can’t beat the view from up here. I keep trying to take pictures, but nothing does it justice, and these tiny windows are unfortunately quite dusty.

I hope that, during my lifetime, planes get larger windows, and maybe even see-through ceilings, because I would love to see the starry skies up close.

I like this vantage point, and I like this train of thought. After five months working without anything more than a sick day, this feels very much needed.

It feels good to pause, and to take some time to enjoy my thoughts. I should probably make it a point to do this more often.

If I could have any super power, I think I wouldn’t mind the ability to create time. It’s terribly cliche, I realize, to point out that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done, but it’s currently something I find myself thinking about at the end of every day.

As I’ve started to fall into a new routine, I’ve found myself missing elements of my old, pre-move-back-to-New Mexico one. Above all else, I’ve come to realize I am a creature of habit. The things I’m missing have almost nothing to do with geography (though I do miss the proximity to the ocean). Rather, it’s all about the day to day.

I miss my old gym routine. I used to have a regular set of classes I attended, usually every Monday and Wednesday, and some Fridays. It balanced out my work life nicely.

I miss my friends a great deal. Fortunately, as my good friend Nico likes to remind me all the time, we live in the future. Keeping in touch with friends is a snap. Texting, email, video chat, phone calls… All are good ways to keep up with the people who matter. The things that I miss? Hanging out for dinner, watching RuPaul’s Drag Race, cooking up a storm.

My new life, so far, is amazing. I wake up every day next to the man of my dreams. I have a job that I love, and enjoy the work I do. The “what” of my life right now is something I’ve worked very hard to reach. Now I just have to get the hang of the “how”.

The mistake I seem to be making is that I’m not in the same place I used to be. I keep looking for something to replace what I used to have. I crave that familiarity. And even though I know it, I still find myself resisting the thought that I have to accept that it won’t be the same, and that’s perfectly okay.

I knew plenty of change would hit me with all this, I just didn’t think I would find it so hard to let the change fully engulf me.

I have a nasty habit of overthinking things, something that I recently hinted at. A certain amount of this is fine, sure, but not when your line of thought is desperately self-defeating. My friend Ashley summed this up nicely:

I have this very simple narrative in my mind about how one accomplishes goals. You make up your mind to do it, then you start, then you kick some ass, then you high five everyone, and then you carry on feeling pretty damn good about yourself.

I frequently break down somewhere along the lines of the “getting started” part. I attribute much of this to growing pains. When I graduated with my interpreting degree in 2006, the thing I wanted, more than anything, was to just be good at it already. More than five years later, I realize that while it is frustrating to start at the beginning, it’s worth it. Being a rookie is a good thing. The drive is there to want to be great, but there’s only one way to get there. Nothing happens overnight.

Now that I’ve kick-started my second career, I’m repeating this same process, and it’s weird, to say the least, to have both the novice perspective and the “slightly experienced” one.

Having taken an extensive hiatus from blogging, it’s weird trying to get back into it. I’m not the same person I was when I started, and I’m not the same writer. I’ve realized lately that I miss that person. I miss the abandon with which I could write. And instead of going forth and writing, I sat around thinking.

Strange as it sounds for someone who likes to write, I’ve never kept a journal. I’ve fancied the idea for ages, ever since I was a teen. But I abandoned that idea because journals were something that could be found and read, and I feared I would share secrets I didn’t want known. Last month, I picked up an empty journal I had laying around, unused. After flipping through its empty pages, I grabbed a pen and started writing.

Every time I write in that journal now, I feel more liberated. I can think things through. Maybe some of my late nights spent thinking can lead to some sort of revelation. And maybe not. It doesn’t matter, because it’s the process that is fun. Even if I never go back to read it, I had fun writing it. I see those pages differently now; the empty pages look up at me, beckoning to be filled with words. And every day, or every few days, I am happy to oblige their longing.

I will find my way again, I’m sure. I didn’t realize it until now, but my path to losing weight last year was made possible only because I didn’t have a seemingly impossible number in mind. I didn’t think “Only 49 pounds to reach my goal of 50!”; my objective was to lose one pound. And then another. And another. And before I knew it, I’d done that over 50 times.

I’ll write one word, one sentence, one paragraph at a time. And when I look back, I suspect I’ll find I enjoyed the hell out of it all. And that’s something, I think, that is worth writing about.

Things I didn’t anticipate accomplishing during my 28th year, but I did anyway:

• lost over 50 pounds
• became a Zumba instructor
• moved back to my hometown
• cooked up a storm
• got bitten by the photography bug and bought a DSLR camera
• and today, changed out the RAM on my computer

During my 27th year I completed graduate school and had had hardly a clue about what I wanted in life. This year, I realized what I wanted and worked incredibly hard to make it happen.

Small ideas came to life in big ways. Instead of talking about wanting to be healthier and lose weight, I stopped thinking about losing 20 or 30 or 40 pounds and just went for it. Having no numbers in mind made it easier to just take it a little at a time and enjoy the journey.

I went from thinking about really living my life, to actually living it. I think that’s more than I could ask for from a year in life.

The moral of this year’s story? Thinking ahead is great! Thinking in specifics in that thinking ahead is not so great. Makes me look forward very much to whatever is in store for me this next year. I have no plans, so perhaps anything is possible.

(And who knows, maybe I’ll stop thinking about wanting to blog more and just blog more already.)

I’m watching this movie, right now, that caught my eye because it had obviously gay undertones, and it seemed like an opportune night for easily anticipated plays with stereotypes like gay guys trying to be straight. Plus, it’s cleverly titled The Art of Being Straight.

I won’t lie, the only reason I wanted to watch it for the homoeroticism. I didn’t expect to find any charm in the odd camera shots of downtown Los Angeles. Or the acoustic soundtrack. Or to be reminded of what it was like to be in the closet.

Instead of the casual sexiness I was expecting. I got reminiscence.

And for the first time in my life, I don’t mind.

I think my culinary prowess is improving. I’ve gotten really good at futzing around in the kitchen when I know I have other things I should be doing. For instance, tonight one thing on my agenda was to fill out forms explaining how I got electrocuted at work. I pulled up the email from HR, saw that there was an attachment, and suddenly found myself in the kitchen with an assortment of veggies and a chicken breast in front of me.

I generally go from “hungry” to “cooking” in 30-180 minutes. I’ll hem and haw over exactly what sounds good to me, and there’s a good chance I’ll page through a cookbook I just realized I’ve had for two years and never once read. Then I’ll decide on what sounds good and go ahead and make something completely unrelated to that. Afterward, I’ll probably kick myself for not sticking with my first appetitial¹ instinct.

Tonight’s smorgasbord entailed mushroom and garlic chicken over rice. I didn’t bother to put much effort into it, so it was plain old chicken with some spices tossed over it. And some sautéed mushrooms and garlic to go with it. Much to my surprise, it turned out delicious. Naturally, I posted a picture of it on Tumblr, because that’s what I do.

Gimme another couple of days and I’ll be opening a gourmet restaurant. My paperwork might not be filled out yet, but I think you’ll like the daily special.

¹An adjective form of “appetite” I created for the sake of this post.

I guess you could say it’s been a while. 400-ish days counts as “a while”, right?

I did a lot of everything, a lot of nothing, a lot of thinking, and not nearly enough writing. It’s the latter that I’ve suddenly found myself missing.

I’m aiming to change that.

The sound of the rain falling outside my window right now is delightful, as is the occasional crash of thunder. Oh, I’m sorry, that’s coming from my speakers. LA is known for many things, but a peaceful thunderstorm every once in a while is not among them. I’ve never been in a thunderstorm with anyone from Los Angeles, but if I was I imagine it would involve them saying the same thing they say about all other variety of weather: “What?!! Where’s the sun? Why isn’t it shining? It’s summer, for crying out loud!!” I kid, I tease… but that doesn’t make it any less true. There’s a reason I have to play an mp3 just to hear some rainfall.

Speaking of summer, though, this one has easily been my best in the last few years. I attribute this mostly to the fact that I, miraculously, am no longer a graduate student! I have to exclaim that because I fought so long for it, and for the longest time it felt like it would never, ever end. It felt as if I would just continue, twice a year, to turn my pockets inside out and slug my way through lectures in the misguidedly false hope that I might one day be gainfully employed.

This summer has been a gift, in many ways. I managed to secure a job I actually wanted, and on top of that, I’ve pretty much had built-in vacation time because all the paperwork and legal mumbo jumbo takes so long to process. I found time to visit my (only in the summertime) beloved Minnesota, and bask in the glory of the trees and considerably less smoggy air. I got to spend nearly the entire month of July with my partner, who flew out to visit. I’ve lived in LA for two and a half years now and yet we still managed to do a hell of a lot of things I’ve never experienced in this city.

I took Robert to the airport yesterday morning, so he could go back to Albuquerque. It never gets easier, saying goodbye, but it turns out I found on odd remedy to take my mind off the pain: a trip to the doctor for a physical and a drug test for my new employer.

I arrived around 11 and a sweet, portly male nurse handed me a clipboard. “Do you need a pen, honey?” I grinned and, like the good Gay McGyver I am, fished out my trusty blue pen from my messenger bag. “Oh, you’ve got one already, mmmhmmm.” I sat down and slogged my way through the obnoxiously small printed forms.

(In case anyone still wants to argue about its merits, I’d like to point out here in this parenthetical aside that Twitter was practically designed with waiting rooms in mind. Trust me, everyone who doesn’t use Twitter will suddenly be wildly jealous that you have something that entertaining right at your fingertips.)

After a while, I heard a soft voice call out my name. “Phillip?” I gathered up my stuff to see who it was and was greeted by a nurse in neon pink scrubs. She wore white shoes and ponytail, coupled with an expression that said she took herself very seriously.

“Step over here.”

Okay. Done.

“Now I’m going to–okay, now step around here.”

I stepped around the counter and joined her.

“Empty out all your pockets in here please… No, your wallet you can keep, I didn’t say your wallet.”

“You said all my pockets.”

“NOT your wallet.”

“But you said–”

She cut me off, handed me a cup and informed me that I had four minutes, and only four minutes, to do the drug test. I tried to imagine what would happen if my bladder couldn’t meet that demand. She would probably harness some freakishly inhuman strength and break down the door, despite the fact that it doesn’t lock, and then tackle me and wrestle the cup from my hands. Her pink scrubs would surely get some of the blue dye on them, from the toilet bowl, and she would no doubt tell a story to all her friends about how she had to fight some big gay guy over a urine sample.

Once I was finished with Our Lady of Urinalysis, it was on to the doctor for the physical examination. They had me toss off all my clothes and then cover myself with a hospital gown, to which I had only one reason to protest.

“Way to tell a guy you don’t want to see his beautiful, Southern California tan.”

I don’t think she even heard me. Selective listening and no sense of humor? That is professional street cred, yo.

The doctor arrived a half hour later, interrupting my game of finding hidden pictures in the drywall of the exam room. He was disheveled, wearing a plaid shirt and wind-blown hair despite the day’s utter lack of wind outside. He wiped some crumbs from the side of his mouth and stared at my chart.

“You’re vaccinated?”

“Sure.”

“No you’re not. Are you?”

“What are we talking about.”

“TB.”

“No.”

“Then you lied. It says on your file–”

“Read it. It says tetanus, and I get a yearly TB test.”

He left the room, either to regain his composure or else to go finish off the last bite of his sandwich from lunch. Five minutes later, he returned. Lunch, it was.

The rest of that experience didn’t get much better, though the guy who did my TB test was pretty cool. The needle pinched more than I cared for it to, but the man was like a real human being instead of a robot. He had a skin tone that made me think he might be from India, with an accent that made him sound like he was from somewhere in South America, perhaps Chile. His name was reminiscent of some kind of Italian food, too. It was that last detail that seemed to matter most at the time.

Compared to yesterday, today seems like a paragon of wonder. Not one thing on my agenda is something I would prefer to avoid, and I aim to start the day by going to a nearby lake and enjoying a walk in the sunshine. That’s the weird thing about being done with school; I’m finding myself doing completely new things, and I’m really getting to enjoy my free time. There’s a lot of hidden treasures in this city I have yet to see, so I may as well get started.

I heard once that when you’re trying to find something, the best way to do so is to stop looking for it. As of late, I have found myself trying to find things about me that have gone dormant. My sense of humor. The flow of words from my fingers on the keyboard. As I have finally come to feel rested, at long last, I have been frustrated by all I seem to have lost.

It finally hit me this weekend, when I gave myself the opportunity to not do anything productive, where it all went. It’s still there, just expressing itself in different ways. It was Sunday, actually, when it occurred to me that I was bored. I wanted something to do, and was actively seeking out things to occupy my time. Remember that exhaustion I described? It seems I’m finally beyond it.

Next step, just putting one foot in front of the other and getting going. If only I could remember how to walk.

The Obvious

It would appear that, in my absence, I forgot that I could write for the internet. So to clarify for anyone who may not follow me elsewhere around the internet, I’m still alive and kicking, sort of.

The Burnout

It should come as a surprise to none (though it was something of a surprise to me) that all I want to do when I get home every day is just sit outside on the private patio space I don’t have with a glass of wine or a margarita I do have and just watch the world go by. Mine has been spinning fast enough at this point that several vacations are definitely in order.

The Lost Sheep

The only problem is that, in the flurry of boards and comprehensive exams, it seems I forgot how to relax. I spent more than two months literally planning out my days and weeks to the hours and minutes of wakefulness in order to squeeze in work, homework, hours for my externship, and studying for my comprehensive exams and the national Praxis exam. The days blurred together and I wasn’t sure they would ever end, and yet, next thing I knew, the big day had arrived and boom–seven hours later–it was all over.

The Opposite

On occasions when I used to find myself procrastinating, I now find myself being productive. On occasions when I used to find myself being creative, or giving voice to my thoughts, I now find myself being introspective, wanting to take a moment to think things through. Where once I felt reserved, I now feel confident, and vice versa. In short, this is a turning point in my life I never quite anticipated. I worked hard and always kept my eye on this time, and yet, now that it is here, I realize that there is much I still have to figure out.

The Questions

Am I ready for this change? Absolutely. I have much to look forward to, many questions to ask myself, and so much still to learn. Life, it seems, is only just beginning.

Photo Credit: Me! With my camera phone!