HomeFebruary 11, 1997
I'm sure this means something.
Today in Starbucks I eavesdropped on a young gay man talking to Laurel about coming out to his parents. There was a young lesbian with him as well. They were all sharing stories. What amazed me was how confident, relaxed, comfortable they were with themselves. I was further amazed when I learned they were high school kids! Boy are things different now. They are out in high school!
It's really nice to hear young queers so comfortable with themselves.
Meanwhile, I got the Auntmobile back at 6:38PM today. It was supposed to be ready at 6:00 but what the heck. It looks marvelous. They buffed it so it looks like new. I love its cranberry color, its gray interior, my own damn radio button settings, the cupholder that doesn't quite work but at least I don't have to reach around the shifter to get the coffee while I'm driving, the stash of Kleenex and sunglasses, .... , you get the idea. Tomorrow, I'll put the Rhode Island Reference Library and the spare binoculars back, plug in the phone, and feel at home again.
So, like, I, like, had, like, this idea. I would incorporate entries from the first two years of the "sabbatical" into this journal by combing the writing practice notebooks I kept starting on February 10, 1995, the first day of the rest of my life ... that is the first day of not being a corporate slave...
Two years ago yesterday I left my job and flew to New Mexico to take a Natalie Goldberg writing workshop and soak my aching bones at Ojo Caliente. It was wonderful.
Over the next several journal entries, I'll try to dig out stuff from that period as well as the corresponding period last year to see what's changed inside this weird little head (did I say little? as in don't worry your pretty little head about that? but my head is huge. Nancy teases me saying that when I was born the doctor must've announced "It's a head!"). little?