It has now been nearly 4 days since I've ingested the beloved gluten and I'm really only writing this to take notes for myself. I feel like an addict off my drug of choice, having this little voice in the back of my mind: "It's been this long, don't break now, you'll just have to start over and these 4 days will have been for no benefit." This week has not been without it's challenges. I've successfully restrained myself from 4 gleaming desserts: 2 donuts, a slice of whiskey soaked chocolate cake, and a fruit crumble.

It recently occurred to me that some things are not always as they seem, and other things are exactly how they seem; and that most of my days are inadvertently overcome with deciphering which of these two categories things fall into. I've also realized that it is of less importance which category things fall into and more important that I can categorize them in the first place.

I was going to go to bed long ago. Then I started listening to a song I haven't heard in awhile. I know I can learn to play it on the piano, but the house doesn't stir enough to make playing music on the apparatus fair game. Today, or this week, or some hour around now marks 3 years of my beloved dog Lucky's death. I shared 17 years of my life with her and to this day I still open the door to my mother's home slowly, waiting for her to wag her little self around it's edge and paw my legs, squirming so. She doesn't.

Historically, I haven't approached change as well as I probably could. It probably started somewhere between ages 5 and 6, when going to school incurred some minor consequences like having to learn to tie my shoes by myself. School could certainly not be worth learning such things that only seemed to waste my time. I had playing to do, and the 80s welcomed velcro...an efficiency that seemed to fit well with my style. How could I waste time tying laces?

By the hour I find time to write, I'm completely exhausted and much too inarticulate to find the correct words to live up to the writer my mind has created myself to be.

I was thinking of the word "vociferous" yesterday; I had referenced my iPhone's note titled "words i like" and it was included of course. Moments later, Gary Eichten used it in his description of some political event. Had I not been me, the coincidence might have slipped by, but, I am me.

Today I sold a book called "Durations." When I first glanced at the list of sold books, I figured by the title that it was some sort of self-help book (my favorite) that would allude to the durations we spend with people, what they mean, how to embrace them, and be wholly framed by an overarching theme that everything has a beginning and an end: a duration in the middle.

The seasons are changing and April is almost over. Spring is windy, and I can't help but be reminded of New Mexico in the Spring, the dry wind sucking every last bit of moisture out of my skin, yet feeling so relieved for it's enforcement of lotion rather an alternative: the bitter cold winter snow drifts bring.

I played tennis today, with Asha, and it was just what we both needed. Sometimes I say "I don't like sports," and then I have moments like today when I backhand a ball with just enough top spin to make it sail just over the net and drop into the far back corner of the court...and I realize I don't dislike sports. Likewise, there were moments where I got that in return and totally missed it, which is also beautiful. Obviously I was cold and there weren't many of these satisfying "butter" shots, but there were enough for Asha and I to both want to play more; become a team.

I write sad stories again. Mom says that empathy comes only after going through something similar to whom you are empathizing with: that only when you've been to their depths, do you know the extent of someone's sadness. Maybe that was mom that said that, and maybe I'm not being completely articulate.

I just watched an episode of This American Life about a man who, after being attacked by 4 men and left for dead, makes his own fake world, 1/6th the size of real life. Composed of action figures, mostly army men, SS soldiers, and small buildings, he photographs them in different situations, telling a story of sorts with the photos.