I'm starting slow, aren't I?

Well, it's 1:10am and I'm still here at work, with a pair of headphones slapped on my head, Whence He Came blasting through at a modest volume of 15 (I'd have it at 20 if I were biking in the morning...hazardous, yet oh so invigorating), alone enough for me to sing at the top of my lungs without anybody noticing. In the time since my last post, I've worked five consecutive days of post-1am departures (last to leave the office sets the alarm--something at which I'm as of now quite adept...I hope), gone to Shanghai for a week to survey Chinese people's gaming habits, had a splendid time at home amongst people I know and love, and returned here with a dramatically different mindset from that with which I began the summer.

This cd's on its last song. With one week of listening under my belt, I know that it will end in approximately 8 minutes and 23 seconds, fading out on the very timbres with which it began, in a manner reminiscent of Death Cab for Cutie's "Transatlanticism". I highly doubt that I will finish this entry before then. When I finally leave this place, I will lock up, ensure all doors are secure, and embark on a 20-minute bike ride down University Avenue, cross the freeway, and bike another 5 or so minutes through darkened suburbs. It's late enough now that the roads will be quiet, and the traffic lights will finally relent and usher me home rather than stopping me at every turn. The brisk night wind won't affect me too much--the jacket I bought while back home will see to that. Then a shower...long, short, stunted...who knows? And a few moments of lying on the sprawled futon mattress I call a bed this summer, staring at my ceiling fan as it makes its faint yet constant rotary sounds, like a waltzer alone practicing his steps, in preparation for the dance to come. It is the only sound in my room now, for my computer has asked for a few weeks' vacation. Too much use, apparently. Too much use, too little life outside.

And I will lie there, looking upward as those energy-saving lightbulbs of mine finally hit maximum luminosity, and without my clock to remind me, I would not surmise that the hours approach two. Or three. Or bedtime. And I will wait for a while...perhaps open the good book and continue my undisciplined trek through an elegant letter of timeless virtue, or dig through my boxes for a recent collection of Peanuts, and along with a few refrigerated packages of chocolate koala crackers and perhaps a cup of tea, enjoy a moment of laughter, guided by a simple scribe and small people. ..and a dog. I will press the rightmost button on my alarm to ensure it goes off the next morning, then perhaps remember to set it earlier to remove the many extensions I had pleaded for that morning.

And among this, at some time I will turn off the lights, and perhaps think about some of the people I am privileged to know and call kin. Perhaps remember a few of the moments that last week's trip home so kindly gave me. And I will wait in that silence, without any fear, without any unsatiated longing, without any weariness, without--I will wait.

Because that will be the time to converse about such things. To converse about these and other concerns, other thoughts, other dreams.

And know that soon, the joys do come to pass. They come to pass whenever I return Home.