i'm feeling contemplative, i usually feel this way at some point in tulsa. i've just watched my nightly felicity and i've reread the last half of that great solaris review, because i wanted to recreate that feeling i got when i first read it. it worked a little, just thinking about people and how we live together. i'm about a quarter of the way through the book. there is a great deal of description, which i'm not used to and i have to fight to stay concentrating on the words and not trail off into this damn haunting line of that song: "it's the most wonderful time.. it's the most wonderful time... it's the most wonderful time... of the year". i'll forget about it and then later remember that i've forgotten something and conjure it up again to remind myself what i've forgotten.. it's maddening.

i feel so normal. i'm comfortable, in life. i feel like i don't have a great thing looming over me. i'm comfortable here, in tulsa, with these people, only a fraction of my family that i've been spending all of this time with basically because they have money and we've been going shopping and eating and movieing, and that's all comfortable. i know that i'll go home on tuesday and, after hopefully an amazing night of new years, resume normal work and school. i look forward to school, to my classes, i know i'll change my major soon and start along a career path, i know that i'll graduate in two and a half years and then get a real job and move out and maybe away and life will start all over again. and right now this all is not stressful. everything feels very matter-of-fact.

i shoveled the driveway with dad today. without heavy coat or gloves or hat or scarf, because although there was so much left over snow, it was still only about 45 in the shade and we were working hard and our blood was being heated. it felt great to be doing something with my hands. i feel i could tend a farm, i could live that life, work hard and rise early and take care of things, especially if it meant my livelihood and the livelihood of the animals i had. i don't understand the mood of this piece, it's not dry so much as grown-up. i feel grown-up. these people here toasted me the other night after dinner for being so great and taking care of everything while dad was gone. i paid bills and bought groceries and cooked and cleaned and called relatives and jail facilities and gave jordan rides and kept the devil at bay on the doorstep and talked to police and convinced them we were alright - but none of this feels like any grand thing to do. it's what you do. somewhere back there i stopped feeling like a child caught up in an adult's world. that's a strange revelation. i sat with dad at the soccer game last saturday, feeling like another soccer mom, and i told him i was suddenly fine with him dating again, i never was before, and that i knew most women wouldn't be interested because he doesn't have money to offer, and that most guys aren't interested because i don't have all of this physical attraction to offer, but that just means that whenever we find these people they'll be extraordinary, we just have to wait - and we talked about old souls and i laid out my anger about patti not giving us the $5000 but how i knew i had to let it go because there's no sense in harboring these resentments and i'm trying to keep gandhi in mind and not get bogged down and i have no idea where her mind's been this whole time and i will never know, that i am so biased and i have to keep this in mind.. i keep running into these things that are meant to show him i'm this very well-rounded adult, that he should be so proud, feel so comforted that i turned out the way i did, am still turning out, and i know he does. i sat on this couch a few feet away from me and he sat here and talked briefly about his dad and how he's never been supportive of my dad and he's just scared of being around him and being around all the financial problems, he doesn't want to face it, he's so let down that my dad didn't somehow make something of himself. and i sat and looked at him and saw how he was just somebody's kid, he has parent issues too, he never told me about them, that all he wants is to be a better father than his father was, and he has been. and i talked when i needed to, and didn't talk when i needed to, and i gave him advice, and he was nonjudgmental and just took it.
this is so strange, this new world. it's very quiet here, but you can still feel everything the same - like yesterday and sitting at the bar copying down recipes and hearing my grandmother talk to my aunt and cousin and seeing those three generations and hearing Miami Rhapsody on the tv above being carefree and funny and people cooking and people washing dishes and a dog sleeping at your feet, you just remember these little moments. and although i have so little in common with these people, and sometimes their political or religious views or the fact that they're in all-white sororities or love these banal little movies or do not appreciate interesting questions or morbid curiosity - makes you want to scream, i still feel that i can always come back here, that i will always come back here. and i'll change and they'll change, but i'll always be back here. like for so long i was waiting for some suicidal fling to come sweep me up and for life to end, and now i feel like i'll probably just settle down and live out my life, grow old, take all these things in stride. a lifetime is a long time, they say "you only live once", which may be true, but there is so much time in there for growth and mistakes and happiness and sadness, there's more than enough time. you see, tulsa always does something drastic to me.