much easier to know the answers if you know where to look

Take the guitar player for a ride
Cause He ain't never been satisfied
He thinks he owes some kind of debt
Be years before he gets over it

So pleased I am with this weekend.

Good friends, in a good town, with good things, and good times. Are you getting the picture yet? I fully understood my love of all things americana-folk at some point over the weekend. Maybe it's that I can now successfully write folk songs...that I'm actually happy with.

I'm planning on entering some Tour's next spring/summer, definitely a few good one's here in Nashville. One will be a century ride--maybe I can win it! Ha! I just zinged myself.

If you haven't, just indulge yourself in Tallest Man On Earth (apolgies for the Myspace linkage, it's all he has). It's beautiful, raw, guy-and-a-guitar folk.

Went and saw an apartment today...fell in love as soon as I stepped inside. Original wood floors, circa 1930, 50% larger than what I'm in now, lots of windows, dining room, huge living room, cozy bedroom, yet mediocre kitchen (oh well). I'm 99% certain I'm going tomorrow to snap it up.

Woot!

To seeing that smile, hearing that folk and perusing Zen and The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.

don't dream it's over

As I got back in the car that night out front of the restaurant, I had an overwhelming feeling at that very moment.

I realized I was never going to see that girl again.

It hit me like a moment of clarity. A wind-sucking blast to the chest that I could only figure was a gut-feeling. Afterall, it was all a fluke, chance meeting anyways. There was no reason, no recourse and certainly no insurance for such an arrangement. No, no, this was certainly the last time.

Without much pause I decided to push through and went to turn on the car, when I then turned on the radio for the first time, because, well, times like these call for music.

At which point, I heard this song. And my eyes began to well.

In that very moment, the song which had literally just started and whose first guitar strum I immediately recognized, I realized something very comforting. So incredulously uplifting and encouraging.

Maybe I would see her again.

Maybe, just maybe, it was all just beginning instead.

What?

I'm back from Maine?

...

I did not get that memo.

Apparently, yes, it would appear, that the six-week trek/expedition/vacation/foray to the northern reaches of Maine has come, developed and ultimately passed by.

Let's get one thing clear, if I haven't made it abundantly clear elsewhere: I absolutely loved my time in Maine. The trip was all about the science and acquiring samples for my research. That was successful and revelatory in its self. My PI (principal investigator) explained where he saw all this work going and I have to say...

WOW.

I have a lot of work ahead of me as we hope to publish two papers, one in a relatively prestigious journal such as Journal of Biochem, Biochemistry or maybe Evolution, etc., but the real crux of the research is being saved for the highest-impact, highest-prestige journal in the world: Nature.

I mean, it's hard to even fathom this. Especially when I will be first-author on such a paper. Of all the opportunities made, experiences earned and general life lessons I would get from this incredible job...this was by far the last thing I expected to get.


Actually.

The last thing I expected to get was finding something so special while I was in Maine that I find myself waking up with smile on my face, having an extra skip in my step through the day.

She's special.

The kind of special you write home to mom about.

The kind of special you don't rush and you let be its self.

The kind of special that I am not going to let pass me by.

Unlike those six weeks in Maine, this is something not so temporary but just as exciting and eye opening.

I went to Maine in a state of mind that said the world was my oyster, and somehow I left with an attitude of I could really do and have anything.

It's not a coincidence.

Maybe it was all by chance, but that's not how serendipity works.

Here's to us.