I can't believe that I didn't write a thing while I was alone. I suppose it was because I worked so much during the last two weeks.

But I have to say that I have a new appreciation for how she feels when I am staying late at work. There is nothing worse than being alone in your own home. I don't mind being alone. However, any place in which you are alone, but know that someone is usually with you, makes it even more lonely. I can see why I get planitive phone calls at 5:30 asking when I am going to leave work. I would be calling too.

The lonliest time is 9:30 when you're in your own house. It is late enough that you know no one is coming and you have been there by yourself long enough to want someone to talk to. And yet at the same time, you can't go to bed so early, so you only have more time ahead of you to contemplate your situation.

I am glad that she made it back safely and we are together again.

I am very sad that I will not be with my wife on Valentine's Day. She has gone on vacation with her mother and two siblings.

However, as a Valentine's Day treat, I have updated the mainpage of my Web site with a love poem. No, it is not 'the' love poem, but one that she really likes. I can't remember where I got the inspiration for this poem. I suppose that I should say it was from my wife, but I don't think we were dating at the time I wrote this.

I am fascinated by the hopeless romanticism of William Tell in this poem. His earnest belief that he might one day walk into the basement and find a hole to China waiting to take him to his lover resonates with me. The idealism and complete trust that love will conquer all is becoming especially poignant to me while I am alone.

It's 4:00 a.m. and I can't sleep.

I am hoping that writing will clear my mind and help me slip back into peaceful oblivion for a few hours.

What has been keeping me awake tonight is the very human dichotomy between reality and perception. How difficult it is for us to move past the feelings we get based on what we perceive. How difficult it can be to step outside our egocentric view to look at the broader realities that drive the situations we find ourselves in.
And yet the dichotomy comes into full force when someone who has the bigger picture is so grounded in the reality of all the happenings it includes that they don't overlook the perceptions of other people.
This is coming out poorly without being able to explain the entire situation. I do feel comfortable saying it is work-related, and I want to find a compromise but don't quite know how to approach it.

I am discovering in myself an interesting trait that I didn't know was lurking inside me until recently. I am ambitious. I don't feel this in a self-serving way, but rather I am no longer at ease with letting the world pass me by as it is.
I know that I can be a positive influence on the world around me. I cannot be contented with simply following the status quo. This should not be interpreted that I am looking for change for the sake of change. But when I feel that there is something I can help become better, I feel a moral imperative to step up and attempt the change. I try to avoid being so dogmatic about my views that I force my vision through if I realize it is not for the best.

I feel that I have started taking control of my life. There is one around to do it for me, and now that I have a family of my own, I am the one responsible for guiding it. I cannot simply react or worse passively watch what is happening in my own home. I speak in the present and the future tenses.

Well, I think I have said enough for one night. I don't know if any of this will make sense to me in the morning, but I think it will at least help me fall asleep now.

So much for January.

I can't believe that 2004 just showed up at the doorstep and is already making itself comfortable into February. Just who or what does this year think it is!

The audacity boggles my mind.

But while we are talking about the weather, or at least in my mind if you are going to mention January and February, then you need to mention the cold, if only briefly.

I however, have no intention of being brief.

Having lived in a fair number of places, I feel that I have endured the full range of climates. I was fortunate to spend some time in mild, sunny California but also in blazing, desert California. I lived in the Mediteranean, dry clime of Southern Italy and the bone-drenching humidity of South Korea. I lived in Utah, with no Fall or Spring, just long winters and short summers. I even did an equitorial stint in the Philippines during an El Nino year, it was hot 24 hours a day. And I don't just mean a little hot, I was sweating while I showered!

But living in Boston has to be the hardest yet, or perhaps the immediacy of it overshadows my other experiences. Whatever the case, the two winters that I have spent in Boston are the coldest years of my life. When we arrived, literally the day after we unloaded our truck, we were snowed in for three days. When we finally decided we had had enough, I had to chip an inch of ice off my car. It was like Magic Shell on an ice-cream cone. The entire car was coated, entirely. That was the winter of snow. Every other day we were getting more snow.

This winter has not gotten nearly as much snow. In fact after the first big storm of the season, there hasn't been snow to speak of. But it has been cold. Not just freezing cold, because when the temperature hovers around freezing you get the snow. This has been bitter cold, with air temperatures of 0 degrees Farenheit, and wind chills taking some places down to -80 degrees. You don't want to leave the house it is so cold, but at the same time, staying home isn't much better because the heat all gets sucked right out.

So that is my weather update. Too much cold out here in the East.

I will have to read back over this in July when I will be wishing for a touch of cold weather.