...Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds*
January 24, 2006

Sunday marked the passing of my second year in Cairo. I can and can't believe I've been here this long. I definitely never thought I'd make it this far. I'd write more about it, get all reflective, but I've been sick with the bird flu this week, and I don't want to think too much.

Do you ever feel like shedding your friends or the people in your life? It's not that I'm tired of the people I know. It's that I'm tired of people knowing me. Sometimes - maybe once, maximum, twice a year - I get this feeling like I wish I could start over, and I guess I just feel like it's that much harder to start over when you're carrying with you all the people and things that want to remind you of what you were, and will naturally point out inconsistencies. I guess I just want to hibernate. Not at all physically - I've been enjoying going out lately, meeting new and mostly strange people. But I want to hibernate and burrow down deep inside, and I'd like it if no one tried to force me to come out.

*Only one person guessed, though correctly, at the source of the title to the last post. Let's see if you literature geeks get this one. And of course it's cheating if you google it, but I won't know either way, will I?

go west + go east