Ever Get The Sense...

that this is the first day of the rest of your life?

today, i have that sense.

the sunrise was especially beautiful. i'm grateful i was up to see it, jetlag be damned. hello, philadelphia!

Preparing To Leave

is far more intense than leaving itself (which latter involves walking out the door, hugging rosy, letting the liftman handle your luggage, turning the music in the car way up, and not looking back).

this time around it has brought dinners, lunches, endless cab and bus rides, gmail chat and facebook and email ad infinitum, coffees, last-minute errands like new glasses and backing up data, switching phone lines in advance so that you're wired when you get there, constant to-do-listing, inevitable phone tag with people you want to talk to, a cough and cold of the deflating/debilitating sort you haven't had in years, not much reading, not much family time, not much rest. the constant checking of your ticket to make sure you're flying when you think you are. also: distancing yourself from the right people, and the unsettling feeling that whatever you're doing right now you're doing for the last time in a while.

in the more immediate sense, it means realizing you have way too much jewellery (and how the heck did you fit it all in when you came back last september?) because it takes 25 minutes to pack it all, and hunting frantically for the chess set you got for your birthday last year that sat on a shelf for months, boxed and waiting to be lovingly stared at again one day in good company, and now suddenly cannot be found.

i'll only sleep well on the plane now.

*ah-chhhhooo!!*

Help, I Have No Future!

i know that one of the best things about email (as opposed to, say, the public nature of your facebook wall) is that it's supposed to be private, so that no-one [well, except google's ad servers, or anyone who can find out your password, or anyone who sits down at a machine from which you haven't logged off properly] knows who you're corresponding with, or what unsuitable things you're saying in the shroud of perceived privacy, or what sorts of risible mailing lists you're on.

but sometimes the contents of your mailbox need to be openly advertised to the world. this is one such occasion, because it made me super-sad. my tarot.com weekly romance horoscope says:

Love Horoscope for the Week of:
Monday, August 20, 2007

Sim,




that's it. funny, because i spent all last week juggling the dastardly thought of potential arranged liaisons and the enjoyable security of past connections and the exciting actuality of being in bombay. [code for: there were boys in my life last week, so wtf?!]

now, it's quite possible tarot.com just did the HTML badly on this email, and my romantic future is actually all set, and profitably so at that. but whatever the cause of this glitch, here's an APB to all my boys, real or imagined -- you need to fix this problem, stat.

PersonalDNA

first there was visual dna (see mine here <http://simran.nomadlife.org/2007/03/visual-dna.aspx>).

now there's personaldna:

About You: You are a Visionary

• Your imagination, self-assuredness, and knowledge of the world combine to make you a VISIONARY.
• You have clear notions of how things could be, and the confidence to try to make them that way.
• You enjoy having a routine, and prefer comfort and familiarity to risk and adventure.
• Not needing others' approval to forge ahead, you are confident in your designs for the future.
• Your imagination allows you to envision the world as a better place.
• You're better at thinking of the big picture than you are with details, and you can see wonder in abstract things.
• Style and appearances are important to you, and you have a good eye for beauty.
• You are somewhat rigid in your beliefs, which comes from both confidence and an aversion to change.
• You are good at creating works of art in forms with which you're familiar.
• Your independent streak allows you to make decisions efficiently and to trust your instincts
• You much prefer to have time to plan for things, feeling better with a schedule than with keeping plans up in the air until the last minute. Your decisions are well thought out, and you're not the least bit impulsive.
• Generally, you believe that you control your life, and that external forces only play a limited role in determining what happens to you.
  

If you want to be different:

• Appreciate the earthly, functional elements of things.
• Your clarity of vision sometimes prevents you from being open to new ideas. Try expanding your horizon of experiences, and experimenting with novel ways of doing things.

How You Relate To Others: You are Free-Wheeling

• Your charismatic nature, liveliness, and independence make you FREE-WHEELING.
• You don't mind being in the spotlight, preferring social gatherings to quiet nights at home.
• You take a practical approach to people, not getting too involved in their feelings—or their business.
• At the same time, your acceptance of others leads you to be understanding of their life circumstances, even if you don't quite understand their emotional reactions to some things.
• Although you have a wide circle of friends, you're very discerning as to whom you can trust.
• You're not rigid in your beliefs about the world, and you don't want to impose your perspective on others, but at the same time, you know that plenty of people don't always act responsibly.
• Engaging with others is a large part of how you live in the world, and most importantly, it plays a role in how you see yourself—you tend to learn a lot about yourself in situations where you are with other people.
• You have an understanding of the complexities of situations, and you don't judge others too hastily.

If you want to be different:

• Your open-mindedness about the world gives you a great perspective on things, but your lack of trust in others limits how close you can get with them. Try opening up to people a bit more without losing your healthy skepticism.
• While being the life of the party will occasionally come naturally to you, be sure to reserve time for yourself—see what you can learn by spending some time observing the world rather than just by diving in.