Answers to all your burning questions

Let me just acknowledge that, yes, it's been a long time since I've written. After this it's back to once a week (at least for a while), I promise. I am a juggler who cannot keep more than two or three balls in the air at any one time, and with one foot, nudges the fallen balls under the rug she's standing on. "Hey! Look over there." La la la...

It's okay though... I'd rather have my half-assed juggling game than no game at all, just standing there waiting for something to happen. Been there already, and I'd have to say I prefer having my barely-controlled balls all over the place (as it were). Ahem.

I think also I'm a little bored with journalizing rather than the more anecdotal accounts I've written. But maybe it's too late to change; the throngs of visitors all wait on edge for the new installment: What other new epiphany will she rail on about? Where is Ashley living now? What amazing revelation has arisen about English culture? And most importantly, did she ever reconcile with feeling abandoned by her father, poor soul?

Yes... I'm sure these are the questions everyone's waiting to have answered. (The world of cyberspace stifles a massive group yawn.) For the record:

1) Epiphanies are ultimately of no use, because no matter what you've learned, enlightenment is pretty much defeated as soon as you think "aha, now I am enlightened!". Plus I hate to be self-righteous. (I do, really!)

2) Ashley just signed a 6-month lease on a loft in SoHo (NYC). That's where he'll be commuting to now instead of Cambridge; and that, praise allah, is where I shall be visiting him muchly. And there was much rejoicing!!

3) Not a one. I did promise a while back I would stop writing about that; and anyway I haven't been back to Cambridge (or the UK) since around last October.

4) Yes. I spent a weekend earler this month alone with my dad in Pismo Beach, where we took his 4x4 truck sand-duning (whee!) and we got to have a bunch of great conversations, including the one I've always wanted to have with him. I feel there is no longer a gaping hole in our relationship where there had been before, when I felt damaged by his sudden departure from my life and unimportant to him. All I had to do was share that with him, which I never had; and it all melted away as we shared our experiences and feelings from that time rather than glossing over history as we always had. I acknowledge gratefully that he was willing to do that with me; I suspect he hadn't thought it necessary but he certainly had the courage to play along when the situation arose. That's that, I have my father back. I only wish I hadn't waited so long to do it, and held on to so much resentment so agonizingly, uselessly, for so many years.

So, now what?

Do you watch BattleBots on Comedy Central? If you do, you have probably seen Ashley and me sitting together in the audience numerous times. They show us a lot. I'm the chick with the bleach-blonde dreadlocks (yes, we know) (and thanks, AnjiBee, for the photo), and Ashley has short dark hair and a trim goatee, and generally starts acting like he's had way too much coffee when the cameras come around.

Man. If I don't journalize, do I have anything to write about anymore?