2,160 miles at the equator

Where to start?  I'm not in the best of moods these past few days, and since I haven't been posting about things of major personal significance, I might have to start at the beginning, wherever that is.

Of secondary importance is this: the cold which I complained of in my last post is still here, though finally being subdued.  A visit to the doctor last Monday and subsequent blood work revealed that this is, in fact, no mere cold, but the dreaded mononucleosis.  I had gone to the doctor hoping to discover I had strep throat, as I have had many times in the past, and which can be killed with antibiotics.  But there is nothing to do about mono except treat the sore throat (which is finally going away) and stick it out.  Also, to my chagrin, I need to take still more time off from jujutsu, lest I risk rupturing my spleen.  So I am told.  It is a small risk of a big problem.  But at any rate the mono itself has provided an interesting undertone to what's actually been going on.

What's actually been going on is that Girlfriend, who I love, has moved to Washington D.C. to pursue a teaching position.  This happened relatively suddenly; the offer came about a month ago, and while we had both understood that she would move if that sort of opportunity came up, it still left only a month to actually get used to the idea.  Really, I didn't get used to the idea, either--that's what I'm doing now.  So as of Friday evening, my girlfriend and I are separated by a distance roughly equal to the diameter of the moon.

This is probably the beginning of the end of my time in Seattle.  It is probably the homestretch before that future period that I have been thinking of as actual adulthood.  At 26, I might be overdue.

The past few days have not been productive.  I figured I'd give myself a couple of those.  But now it's time to get things together, at least on some axes.  Over the next few days I want to produce a final draft of another short story, tentatively titled "Nenle and Death," which should come in 50 to 100% longer than "Burned at the Stake."  This story has actually been percolating as long as four years--I wrote the earliest draft on a plane in what I believe was 2007.

It's about loss and separation.  I'll put that out there to preempt psychoanalysis when people actually see the story.  So, no, it's not really a coincidence that I'm deciding to finish it now (in preference of a shorter story I am at a similar stage with, about dragonslaying).