I was going to be so productive today, and then I got sucked in by The Napping Couch. I was doing pretty well combating it, but then Bug, the treacherous feline, tipped the balance by taking up a position on my lap. I was defeated.

I've also been hypnotized by my new electronics. God, TV is evil. Evil, I tell you! I got sucked in to watching a re-run of The Real World Chicago last night, which was, as per usual, like watching a car crash, except this time I knew the exact location of the bodies. They certainly seem to be a bunch of idiots. Even if people hadn't been protesting the potential boost in gentrification The Real World brought, they should be protesting general stupidity.

Still working on my redesign. We'll see what happens.

I've made a deal with a friend of mine to send out at least three articles by Thursday. I think it'll be the swimming in Australia, bests tours around Sydney, and sea kayaking. I've got other things percolating, and we'll see what comes of it.

Eric Chandler, if you're still reading the blog, give me a call/e-mail. I never seem to catch you on IM and I (stupidly) pitched your e-mail without saving the address in the last great "Your Hotmail Account Is Running Out Of Space" purge. Bastards.

Warning: Psycho-babble follows. Skip this if you want a light, funny, coherent read. Also, skip this if you're supposed to have any respect for me -- ok, Andy?

I got a message from Zeke that I haven't responded to, and I've been trying to figure out why. Well, partially, because he was asking me hard questions:

I've been wondering something ever since you came back from Australia all tan, fit, and rested: how happy are you really in Chicago? ... Since you've gotten back there's been an undercurrent of slight dissatisfaction in your blog. The job isn't exciting. The home is robbed. There's no super-duper vacation to look forward to. There's more, but I don't care to do the research through your blog right now. Suffice to say, I'm a bit worried that all may not be well in the house of the warrior-Quaker.

First of all: "Warrior-Quaker." Hee. That might have to go in the redesign as well.

But back to the questions at hand: I dunno, Zeke, a part of me wants to say "Duh." I've always been like this, it's just I spend less time pretending in the blog. But you know me pretty well -- hell, you think it's the mark of a perky, non-depressive personality to ask to borrow your VCR so I can watch Gallipoli and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid because "I need an excuse to cry"?

Granted, you address this: Yes, I know to whom I speak. I don't know if extreme personal happiness and a joyful, puppy-like excitement is ever going to come gushing from your pores any time soon.

Yeah, that.

But still there's something in your blog that's got me wondering... what's keeping you in Chicago? I know there's the house, but is that really enough? My personal bet is that it is the strong group of friends you've got surrounding you. You've kept your school friends by your side much better than I have over the last 10 or so years. But is it still enough for you? Do you ever have the urge to just rip up all the roots of your life and go someplace else - to be someone else? After all, a writer can write from anywhere. Have laptop, will travel.

I wonder about that too, sometimes. It's almost always overseas, though. I think "I could move to Sydney, I could move to Edinburgh, I could move to Tokyo, I could move to Singapore, I could move to ..." I could be exotic again. I could fall in with an instant group of people just by virtue of being a foreigner. I could have this distinguishing characteristic that people would know right off the bat, right when I opened my mouth -- I'm an expat, I'm an American, I'm adventurous, I'm different, I'm interesting. I wouldn't have to work to make myself interesting or attractive or different -- I'd stand out just by virtue of being born and growing up elsewhere.

That's what happened when I graduated college and went to Hong Kong for three years. And that was one of the best decisions I ever made, and I'm so glad I did it. But part of the thrill of it was from being exotic, from standing out with no effort. I have a generic midwestern-esque face and body, basic brown-blonde hair, I get mistaken for someone else all the time. That didn't happen in Hong Kong. When people stared at me -- and they did stare -- it didn't make me feel self-conscious, as it would here, because I knew it was because I was exotic. (or because my zipper was down or my boobs were hanging out. Whatever.)

When I was growing up, the most interesting thing about me -- the thing that made me different -- was that my sisters are twins. I'm not a twin, they are. So somehow I managed to figure that I just blended into the crowd -- there was nothing special about me. That's not something anyone ever consciously told me, it's just the way it was, I figured. Whenever I thought about how someone would remind someone else of who I was, I figured it was either "You know, the one with twin sisters." Otherwise, I only came up with negatives: "The fat one." "The awkward one." "That chick who cries all the time." So being "The American" was incredibly freeing, even though I don't think I was/am the typical American working overseas (I wasn't paid enough, for one thing.)

But all that meant I didn't really have to work to define myself, to figure out who or what I wanted to be. I had a few really good friends, who I still keep in touch with, but otherwise the cast of characters turned over so quickly that you never really had to go beneath the surface. You could sort of drift. you could be superficial, and before you had to get deep with anyone, one of you would leave the country. They never had to see the boring stuff, the nasty stuff, the depressing stuff, because you never really had to get that far.

All of which is a long way of saying, I think that moving overseas again would just be a way of delaying again. Of putting off figuring out the hard questions. No, I'm not happy in my job. Would freelancing be better? Would I be able to pay the mortgage? Or would it turn into another boring job? And why don't I have the confidence to sit down and write, to send stuff out, to be a writer? Why do I find it so much easier to believe the negative about myself? Why do I still think so poorly of myself when there are so many incredible people who seem to think I'm worth knowing? Those are questions I have to answer, and they suck -- questions that I've avoided thinking about for a very long time, and now I'm finally confronting them out loud, head on. It involves all sorts of delving into why I'm so fricking insecure, when I put on such a Warrior-Quaker front (Did anyone ever buy it, out of curiosity?) And I guess I'm just no longer pretending they don't exist.

Obligatory disclaimer: I'm ok. I really am. I don't need an intervention and I don't need a Sally Field type "You like me! You really like me!" moment. I don't want to worry anyone. I know there's a bunch of people out there who care about me, and one of these days I might even believe I deserve it (Kidding! Sort of. Sigh.) Remember that I am from depressive Scandinavian/Northern European stock, and this sort of blathering is normal from my people. Really. And I'll be funny again (?) soon.