I filled up my shoe and brought it to you.

With what? What did you fill the shoe with, Bob?

Well, I am doing a couple things right now. 1) The blog I wrote yesterday was the boring-est thing anyone has ever composed, so I thought I needed to do myself a favor and write another blog, so that whoever reads this thing will continue to do so and not be so turned off by my depth of dullness. 2) I finally created a blog on blogspot called jungledream. I am not sure if I will really start blogging there, because I love this myspace template and I am really terrified of losing my momentum if I switch over to the generic brand. Furthermore, I am a person who gets attached to old stuff. If it works, why change it? I like this Myspace blogging, as disfunctional as it may be. I don't really care if it is hard for people to get to. In fact, I like it that way. And blogging on Myspace seems like its so unintentional, like I don't really blog or feel like I am trying to get people to read the stupid junk I write. Finally, I am afraid that noone will be able to locate my crappy blogspot blog, and I vow to never send out a mass email to my friends saying "Hey! Check out my new blog on....." That would suck. It would be absolutely destined for failure then.

I'm having another problem which has led me to create a new blog. That problem is the fact that I am running out of beloved Bob Dylan songs. I thought the day would never come, but it's becoming harder and harder to find a good lyric that comes quickly to mind from a song I've never used before. That means I need to 1) buy some new Dylan albums; 2) start using other lyrics from songs I've already used, or 3) start using less interesting lyrics from songs I like less. Any thoughts? I doubt it.

Tomorrow is my sister's birthday. I want to write an ode to her. She is on her boat. Sailing to the Caribbean. I love that girl. Or woman, maybe I should call her. Perhaps I can fill a shoe with something and mail it to her. But how do you mail something to a sailboat? Darned if I know. But there must be a way... But by tomorrow!?

The other problem with blogging is that while I'm doing it, I think of all the million other things in the world I could be doing. When you are doing any one thing, there are infinite other activities you are not doing. For example, just within our apartment, I could be cleaning, filing papers, drawing, folding laundry, writing a letter, doing yoga, making cookies, doing a project I can make money for, or hanging pictures. It's stressful. And that was just the list of stuff that quickly popped into my head. I have this same mental agony about living here in Oak Park. I will never get to spend this day or year of my life living anywhere else, and there are a lot of places I could be living, many of them being beaches and/or islands.

One quick thing I am always wanting to blog about, despite the fact that it really doesn't seem to go in this particular blog, is the fact that everyone has secrets. I was at a party some time ago, hanging out with all these cute, interesting, healthy, normal people, when it occurred to me that so many of them had really dark secrets from their past that not many of the other people (if any at all) knew about them. Stuff like rape, bulimia, serious drug abuse, abortion, sexual abuse, you name it. For some reason, people have told me many secrets. I am pretty good at keeping them, and I never forget them. They make life seem much more gritty and they make humanity much more human. I believe it is so important to share secrets. It makes you realize you aren't alone. I bet many of those people at that party assumed everyone else was healthy and perfect and devoid of dark secrets--that they were the only one pretending they were normal and hiding a checkered past. And it's just not true. We all have stuff we're hiding and wishing never happened. That's one of the other crazy things about life.

This couple at our church has been waiting to go to China for over 30 years. The husband is an ethnomusicologist, which is just a cool fact. The wife went for one year when she was in college, and she has been thinking she would be returning soon for, yes, the last 30 years. During that time, they've had about five kids, at least one grandchild, and some difficult times. The wife was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, just as they were making final preparations to depart and begin their life in China. So, they had to postpone the journey yet again. Over the last year I've watched all her hair fall out and start growing again. She doesn't cover it up or hide it. I hardly know them, but every time I see her, she makes me cry. I love her so much. Well, she has completed her chemotherapy and they are moving to China... next week!!! Can you believe it? A dream fulfilled. I won't be surprised if something else happens to delay the trip again, but I believe it is really going to happen this time. What a crazy world we live in. Nothing happens the way we think it will.