Gift

Heather and I spent Valentine's day with our family near Detroit.

Mommy and Daddy gave us chocolate in envelopes to open on that day. My bar had a colorful Mona Lisa on it. My parents know me.

And do you want to know something dreadful? One of our cousins is sick! But this cousin was such a good sport, and so was everyone else about our stay. Heather and I kind of didn't want to leave.

The drive from PA was rough. We stopped as little as possible, didn't lollygag, didn't run into traffic. We lapped each rest area building to keep our sanity. But it kind of barely worked. If aunt, uncle and cousins weren't there to greet us we might have been very forlorn that night.

My cousins are adventuresome, achieving, atypical, amusing, and attractive (good for "a" words, right?) and each time I see them they're so different from the last time yet very much exactly themselves.

I visited the MAC makeup counter at the mall with the gang and the manager and I had a nice conversation. I kind of want to move to Detroit now and work there.

But I also want to live in Chicago and go to the art school there. This is why: Heather and I walked by the Art Institute and, among the omnipresent "falling ice" signs on the sidewalks, a student had posted: "falling ice/falling dice/falling mice/falling rice/in any case, take care and use caution." And I laughed and said, "There must be an art school nearby." And I looked up, and there was the sign.

I'll probably want to live in all of the places I stay.

Gift or curse?

Certainly not a curse.