By all rights, I should be in bed right now, but I'm at the point of "too awake to sleep and too tired to be properly awake". This is not a good state for coherency, but an excellent one for random thought-dumping.

A month on the road, almost exactly. Driving from south Florida to Minneapolis, and then to Denver -- alone, no less -- is not the sort of thing that I would recommend doing on a regular basis, but it gave me much-needed time to sort some things out in my head -- when I wasn't dodging 18-wheelers, that is. Trying to get used to the idea that Granddad's car is now my car, as he doesn't need it anymore. Granted, he hadn't driven it in about three years, but Mom offered him the option on a regular basis. Trying to get used to the idea that the heirloom vase that was always Granddaddy and Grandmama's is now mine as well; not so much a possession as a trust, and certainly worthy of its own entry. Trying to get used to a lot of things, in fact; some of which I will have help in adjusting to, and some of which I'll have to process on my own.

There is quite a lot that I want to say, some of which will have to wait.

I can say that the more I see of Minneapolis, the more I like the city. I have good friends there, and people who have potential to become good friends. There's a thriving arts scene, lots of interesting architecture, and beautiful scenery. I spent almost three weeks there this time, and I'll be there for almost a month on my next trip. I'm looking forward to it, even if it means my first taste of a Northern Plains winter.

My Dear One says that I still move like a dancer, and told me that one of the many things that he finds so attractive is my grace. Given that he knows that I had a reputation for being able to trip over the pattern in the linoleum when I was younger, this means more to me than almost any other compliment that he could have paid me.

Thinking about the future occupies a great deal of my time lately. The immediate future involves holiday shows which I need to firm up, and all of the work that I need to get done for them, as well as the hope that grinding myself to a nub will prove to be lucrative. Long-term plans are forming as well; some of them I can shape, but others depend on things which are out of my control. Oddly enough, it's the ones over which I have the most mastery that are causing me the most stress, because they're the ones into which I have to put the most effort. In that respect, the stress that these plans are causing isn't odd at all. Such is the way of these things.

Further typing is going to have to wait for another time, though. Sleep is calling my name, and while sleep may not completely knit the raveled sleeve of my cares, it will probably manage a solid basting stitch. Enough to go on with, at least.