HoHoHo! (stop right there) On the road again

It's gotten so that I feel more normal when I'm moving around with a suitcase than in one place! I've been in San Diego for about 4 days now, and being at an airport again feels just right. I am heading to Pittsburgh for Christmas, filled with joy, our house stuffed with wonderful people, a warm fire, amazing food, lively cousins, people ripping on each other in good fun, diving into wine bottles, re-gifting from last year... oh wait, that's someone else's family.

The past couple days have been a big ol' fog-a-licious jetlaggy haze. Moving through the day the atmosphere felt almost mercury-viscous. I went to bed at about 12:30 am, and got up after a "nap" at 4:30 and really don't feel any weirder than I have the last few days. Maybe I'm getting used to it. I have no room to complain as I have three good friends with newborns, which defines sleep deprivation, really. Maybe new parents always feel somewhat jetlaggy. All I know is that in public, I have noticed myself laughing out loud at what seem to be the most usual things, and consider that sleep-deprived delirium. Coming back to Cardiff has been lovely. People ask good questions, such as, "Are you ready to be back?" and "How does it feel to be back?" and I think am not sure yet. When I think back on it, it seems a dream, packaged in a different memory section of my brain. It wasn't long enough for re-entry culture shock, and it wasn't short enough to be a quickly-forgotten little journey. For the majority, I feel really complete with the trip, as I realized something huge, albeit obvious: you don't have to go away to go on an adventure inside yourself...although it's helpful to have the dramatic backdrop of foreign countries with all of their inherent richness, challenge, and gifts. A security line on Phuket, Thailand is quite different from one in Sydney, or Beijing, or San Diego. (Out of the six countries I've been in recently, the US is the only one asking for us to take our shoes off.) The trip has been amazing. It's not over yet.

Merry, merry Christmas!! May this week and early 2010 and beyond be filled for you with joy, fun, prosperity, good health, healthy family spats, awesome presents, and some Bailey's and hot cocoa.

I can tell this entry is going off in all sorts of non-sequitur directions so I'm going to hang it up for now