Monday, October 23, 2006

Wheels Down

Mile: Home

The brightness of the sun makes sunglasses mandatory, at least until these eyes get used to my home state again. The water and thickness of the air makes me feel like I am drowning, a feeling not aided by my deep chest congestion. Running is a sweatbath. Sometimes in Pennsylvania or NJ when I felt it was humid, I had totally forgotten what real humidity is. Sand drags at my steps, and for whatever reason, the first joint of my big toe has become stiff and swollen. It's the body's way of saying, "We're taking a break now, you bastard from hell".

Tomorrow I'll have been home for a whole week. The smells and sensations of home are coming back to me, and it doesn't seem quite so much like Venus anymore. The world around me seems almost unchanged, and I remember how short a time six months is in the land of the grown-ups. Six months used to go by without me hardly noticing. In my subjective world, though, six months can last a lifetime. People sometimes ask, "What was your trail name?"

"Mash," I reply, sort of embarrassed, then I am overwhelmed by a sense of dissonance, remembering the name I answered to for six months. It's no accident that the first thing a cult does is give its members new names. Our names are the root society has into us. Our names are the user id and password combination. When we change names, we change our user base. User John Mogilewsky has been reactivated, although I haven't revoked Mash's access to /home. Not yet.

This journal is no longer a trail journal, although I will probably still continue to update it with interesting tidbits from the worlds of history, science, and whatnot. Thanks for following along.

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