32 had a greater-than-usual amount of travel and self-discovery. A recent realization I had was that, parallel to not being invited to things, I have found lots of things to do by myself that I deeply enjoy but don't invite others to (I guess I figured that if they were interested, they would go themselves, but also I do have a knack for finding interesting local things to do). So going forward I'm trying to tell others about the fun stuff before  I go rather than after, in case they want to join in - to share the wonder and delight that I'm always finding. CS Lewis (with whom I have disagreements, but not on this particular point) said that joy isn't complete until it's shared, and I definitely feel that. Watching someone else enjoy something increases my enjoyment of it - and that's definitely something I'd like to have more of in the coming year! I think for 33 I'll continue building community and embracing my weirdness/queerness - expecting delight a...

Three years ago, I took my oldest on a combined birthday girls trip to Dallas. It required a lot of planning and coordinating, since she had some tricky allergies and my youngest was still nursing, but we brought Mimi along as adult backup and had fun staying in a hotel, riding the DART to downtown and going to the aquarium. Now she's outgrown her allergies and I'm no longer a food source, so this year she and I went to St Louis while the boys went to visit grandparents (so no one felt left out). We had originally planned on going to the zoo, but ended up arriving in the depths of a heat wave, so we opted for air conditioned activities and went to the aquarium instead. I have been to a lot of aquariums and this was not my favorite, but it was the most interactive one I've been to and she had a delightful time letting doctor fish nibble her hands and feeding a sting ray. We finished out our time at Union Station by riding the Ferris wheel (a concession on her part, because t...

I went to a bookclub meeting this past week. Our read for the month was a memoir about how the author had lived in the same place her whole life, and then in her 40s she moved away to a different place, and all the things that were hard (and all the things that were good) about it. I was somewhat underwhelmed by how overwhelmed she was, as someone who has moved around enough to always be the transplant, but some of the other bookclub members have lived here their whole lives and had more empathy. Something that came up in the meeting was how, just as we collect stuff the longer we live in the same home, we can also collect people from school, work, place of worship, etc. And those people may not, at this point, be actively contributing to our lives nor we to theirs, but we've got them now so then what. It was an illuminating discussion for me, because it clarified something. When we first moved here nine years ago, I was told (and found) the locals to be cliquish and unfriendly. Bu...

  One of my favorite things about myself is my curiosity. To get astrological about it, my Sun, Mercury, Jupiter, and eleventh house (of friends and social structures) are all in Gemini. Gemini is curious and adaptable, and that very much describes my approach to friendship, and to life in general. I love to explore, and to ask questions, to learn new things, and to talk about what I've learned and what I thought about it. This month has a few fun things planned, and I'm hopeful for spontaneous adventures, as well.