I am in Hawaii! I was planning to write a quick post before I left, sort of a send-off, sort of an “I’ll be back with a vengeance!” because I know I’ve let my writing slip. But now that I’m here I just feel like I need to rub it in. It’s below zero at home, and I’m in Hawaii. Rachel is making me pancakes and I can see the ocean if I look over my left shoulder from where I’m sitting. This is very, very nice. I’ll have more to say, of course, but it will likely be after I have returned. There is just too much vacation to be had 
Blessings to you in the arctic!
Now, from an island.
Sunday, January 20th, 2008
Aloha novacaine?
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007
I’m trying to decide if I would like to have a crown put on my broken tooth, or if I would like to fly to Hawaii this winter. It would cost about the same amount of money. I know it shouldn’t be too hard of a decision, I mean, Hawaii? In February? Come on now, it pretty much chooses itself. But I haven’t done anything about this tooth since it broke about a year ago…
Now we’re learning, now, unlearning.
Thursday, October 11th, 2007
It appears my name was not drawn in the Michael’s “Win a Trip to France” Sweepstakes. (Yes, I entered). I really felt like I was destined to win that. I have this entire high school level French education that is quickly receding into inky nothingness. This is what I would say if I were in France: “Bonjour! Je m’appelle Domonique! Ca va bien? J’ai vente cinq ans et je suis une femme Americaine. Je t’aime. Q’est-ce que tus va faire pendant le week-end?”
When we were kids we used to play school. Rather unimaginative, I know. Usually my older sister would be the teacher, and my brother and I would be the students. On one occasion she gave us students the assignment of writing a letter. Wanting so desperately to appear grown up and world-wise, I wrote an imaginary thank-you letter which opened with “Thank you…” and closed with the words, “Thanks again.” I remember really loving that phrase, “Thanks again,” believing it to be my ticket to adulthood. It was casual, compact, flippant even, and it just rolled off of adult tongues like so many cliches in correspondence (that have long since lost any significance). I remember being so proud of myself.
So now I really am a grown-up–no faking it. I don’t play school anymore, and in fact when I step inside a school these days I feel a bit like a Martian wearing electric blue hot pants. I don’t play office anymore (another fond past time), but I do work in an office. And do you want to know how I close just about every email that I send out? “Thanks again.” I noticed that today. And I don’t think it’s always appropriate. “I’m sorry to hear that your Great Dane passed away. I know it is very difficult losing a pet. Your sorrow is my sorrow. Thanks again!” But how do we shed these obnoxious patterns?
Friends, I do not have the answer.
Thanks again.
