.: This has been my vacation: a time of deep, burnished gold, of deep laughters, of distended but joyful bellies protruding outward and daring the world to challenge it. I can feel the solid core of my stomache, it is like a hard, smooth biogeometric phenomenon, sort of like a bowling ball but alive, sometimes malevolent, most times glad for its anatomical rental space. The recent glut of meals– from kielbasa to meatballs to baklava to bagels to peas to bratwurst to hiedelberg bakery bread– has actually shifted my entire center of gravity and– what’s worse– even caused me to scope out the diet books at the Utica Barnes & Noble.

But the vacation slows to its end. Well, actually– with all the work I have been doing lately– it seems quite over already. The last few days have been a blur of computer work and the familiar headaches at the day’s end, mostly from the brain-bit-rot of staring at the screen for hours, but also from the body-cramp of an unnatural sitting position and the low-lying frustration at all the things that didn’t work.

I realized this today, that I somehow ended my time here before it actually came to its close. I know it is for a good cause– actually, it is for my parents, so that makes it simply the best cause– but before my plane takes off, I vow to have one more adventure…

But if I sound sad, let me set the record a bit straighter: I am not. No, not at all. See the laughter on those faces, up above? That is an echo of my face, a reflection too. There is so much joy, it falls from the sky, mingles with my breath, fills my stomache to the bursting-point. You are what they eat, you say, and I agree; but I would take it further: you are also what you breathe, what you smell, what you hear, what you say… you are what dog-hair clings to your polar fleece pants, you are what pictures you stop to take beside a frozen stream; you are every skidding slide on an ice-coated road that dislodges the vehicle beneath your fingers. I am every conversation I have had with my parents.

it is late now.. I will finish this in the morning..