I tell stories of my life, little novellas of people I've met or things I've done: the guy I shared a house with briefly in 1999 who was a biochemist or something but the highlight of his life was watching original Columbo reruns. Or Laurel O'Rourke, one of the Wanderers, a beautiful itinerant teenager in western Wisconsin who slept in her car when it was warm and couchsurfed when it wasn't. My English teachers in high school impressed upon me the importance of detail in writing, so I treasure the details of my stories more than anything. Yes, Cabo San Lucas is beautiful, at least from the distance, but the story is about trying to find a plant nursery to buy dirt for the aloe plants the woman pulled out of her garden for us when we lived on the boat.

("Wanderers", to me, describe the many people I've met who go constantly from one place to another, one boyfriend or girlfriend to another, even across the country multiple times. Sometimes these people are just free spirits; most often, though, they're confused, or running, or just lost souls.)

I don't know...I feel like I tell more stories than other people. Have I had more adventures? Do I just remember more details? I do purposefully squirrel details away when I do stuff, so I can tell the story later. I'm sure that's a big part of it, but I think I've done more stuff, too.

Come to think of it, there's not a whole lot of boring going around my family. We're lucky. (My little brother's past looks even better on paper than mine, though it's funny how motivations can make the story: "I moved to Wisconsin for a couple months" just begs the question pre-emptively answered by "I bought a one-way train ticket to Wisconsin to become a professional vocal percussionist". Hey, some chances work out better than others.)

I went to a pretty rowdy Passover seder last night, about what you'd expect for a dozen fun-loving left-leaning folks aged 25-35. It's difficult to say what made today hurt more: going to bed at 2am, being woken up at 6am with a hangover and unfortunately thumpy music, or sleeping another hour and then going to aikido at 10am. Hangovers are rare for me, but the raucous good time with nice people and meeting an interesting strong woman made it worthwhile.

Hey, look. Time to pass out.