I arrived at the Calgary airport yesterday morning, made a stop in the Life is Good store and headed over to pick up my rental car.   How excellent that felt. 

I totally forget how freeing it is to have a car.  We were sitting around last night and I'm kinda craving a Big Mac and then, suddenly I'm like, "Wait a minute!  I HAVE A CAR!"  So we went.  And I'm totally choked with myself because I had an Angus burger and it just doesn't have the same craving deadening power as a dirty Big Mac.

But, the car!

I've know Katerina for um, 6 years or so.  Blogging friend, lives in Calgary and I started following her blog while I was still living here. Wicked funny blogger and I'd send you there but she's toasted it.  In the five years since we've progressed to phone friend and she's my nemesis in the Wordscraper.  (bitch!)  Anyways, she's had a terrible unfair nasty time with the cancer this last year and I'm super happy to have gotten the chance to do the face to face thing with her finally.

Both of us are the kind of people who just are who they are.  There's no difference between the Jens you get in email, on the phone, on the internet or in real life.  And so, it's been good.  We sort of knew what to expect.

Before the whole internet explosion, as a society, I don't think there was much call to meet people you knew but had never met.  I'm not particularly articulate today but I think you get what I mean, right? 

And I find it super interesting to be in this position. 

In a large proportion I think bloggers tend to use their blogs as a diary of a type.  A way to externalize their internal struggles (or whatever) to an audience that they know they'll never have to come face-to-face with and that's freeing.  It's a nice way to get feedback or to feel 'heard', I think.  I know that during periods where I knew the people coming here, I've edited myself.  I lost some of the anonymity and so some of the benefit of this place when I allowed people from RL to come here because even though I am the same Jen, there are things I put out here that just weren't things I'd want those people to be privy to.  Not that I've come to regret it but the realization is there that I've muzzled myself.

In a few weeks, I'm jetting off to Sydney to stay with our Jeff and I'm really pumped about that.  In Jeff's case, from reading his blog I do get the feeling that the person I'll be presented with will be a different version of the real world Jeff and I'm looking forward to getting to know him.  Or, maybe he'll feel more able to be 'that' person with me.  Any road, it'll be an interesting journey.

Back to Calgary - Kat and I did some shopping today and ate at Gee Gong, which I have dearly missed (the best salt and pepper squid going, I tell ya) and now we're doing the duelling computer thing on the couch and taking it easy.  I'm off tomorrow to meet up with my friend Chingve (CJ) who used to be my video store guy and became a good friend as well.  Then to see Philly, spend a couple days with Sandy (who's just moved back to Canada from Canberra) and a couple days with Pam and Tony before heading home. 

I haven't posted for so long here that now it seems that everything I want to say has this enormous backstory that I just don't have the energy to get into.  Things that require an explanation to have a context and it's not that I don't want to talk about them, it's more that I'm just beyond the nastiness.  As I said to Kat, after 5 years of being kicked repeatedly in the hoo-hoo (and for a goodly amount of time, the world wouldn't even wait for me to get back UP before it wound up for another boot) 2010 has so far contained an almost daily dose of good news, forward movement, productive days and well, joy.

I'm saying this because I'm trying to get back to being here and that is a) one of the reasons I put it off and b) leaves me feeling like I've left this huge . gap . in here and c) I've kinda lost the 'knack' of telling my stories.  So, for the two of you that still check in on me, bear with me, will ya? 

I'm feeling my way back.