Home.

Home after being flung halfway around the world.

It seems as though you can't handle the fact that people exist independently of you, that other people are not doing exactly what you're doing right now.

. . . is what a friend said to me on the phone in the middle of the night. It's such a typical conversation for us to have, about exactly what we've always discussed, and even the way we hung up the phone (two and a half hours later) was predictable. Also the way he mentioned the predictability of everything, and the way that I felt the slightest hint of nostalgia before I heard the line go silent.

The same with my house, my street, my family -- though my brother is taller, tanner, better at piano than I remember. Everything is achingly, preciously how I imagined it would be.

You drive along the same highway and take the same exit for half your life, and everything on the way home (the bookstores, the restaurants, the gas stations and trees and lampposts) all start to mean something extremely important. The people, too, the ones fate has thrown you together with -- they all matter, they all mean everything you know about your life.

The economist's nightmare: endowment effect -- the over-attribution of value to something with only typical worth. Everything about coming home shows that we are all victims of it, and maybe someone rational is cringing somewhere at the thought of such a blunder.

But maybe the entirety of existence is just one endowment effect. After all, I was endowed with this subjective experience. Which brings me back to the quote above: How could I ever be okay with other people living their lives when I know that my life is just another moment happening among millions of moments right now, that my home is no more special than anyone else's? My friend was exasperated with me, but I maintain that it's a question worth fretting over.

Random city night #20something.

To stave off impending column-writing doom, a recap of tonight's events:

1) Ate a corn creamsicle after dinner: strange. Maybe being adventurous doesn't always pay off.
2) Met some of our students at the gate of the university. Dylan, who herded yaks by himself from the ages of seven to nine, reports being excited to "socialize."
3) Cab to Tibetan bar with students. Feigning proficiency at Chinese -- difficult to keep up.
4) Snow beer and toasting. Rounds and rounds of Psychologist.
6) Suggestive homoerotic long-sleeved dance performed by Tibetan guy with perpetual expression of orgasm (?!)
7) Belly-dancing performance (obviously not Tibetan, but).
8) Fifteen billion singers singing the same song ad infinitum/nauseum.
9) Packets of chicken feet flying everywhere (not worth explaining).
10) Immense boredom interrupted by random men toasting Mikael for being such a novelty around these parts.
11) Terrible worthless conversations back at the hostel.
12) Everyone is asleep but me + the other resident night owl.

Now my head is still full of the verb tenses we taught in class today and my hair smells like tobacco smoke and I am not finished with my duties. Summer reminds me that irresponsibility is always an option.

50.

Today is my father's birthday.

When I was little he used to lift me onto his shoulders and then "forget" where I was, and he'd wander around our two-bedroom apartment for almost an hour trying to find me while I sat way up high giggling with my legs hanging down onto his chest.

I called him this morning, and I miss him.

Family ties.

When I called my mother today, to tell her about accepting the internship in D.C., did I detect a sigh of resignation on the other end of the line?

Has she just now relinquished me from my childhood?

Or am I being dramatic?

I'm most likely making too big a deal out of this -- but that's how life occurs, right? It hinges on pivotal moments, either recognized at the time or not.

The realization that I will be away from home for so long concerns me, especially given the very real possibility that my parents will be moving within the next six months.