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there are certain days that stop you in your tracks, and when that happens, i find that you begin to count your life not in terms of total days lived, but total days since that particular track-stopping day. maybe not, for you. but i know
that it has been one week since my friends and i danced in the street with two Pakistani men outside of Skybar, from 2-3 in the morning. Bollywood-style, until a white-haired man in a black car drove by to tell us that the cops were coming and that we should go, and go i did. though, come to think of it now, he most likely lived down that street and just didn't want us dancing there. fascist.
I know it has been 7 months and 2 weeks since i started teaching,
1 year since i arrived home from Taiwan,
1.5 years since skinny-dipping in Utah,
2 years since i saw China last and 3 years since i saw China first,
4 years since my short stint of studio dance classes,
about 5 years away from that night at the clock tower (previous blog),
and i am exactly 5 years older than a high school graduate.

not to bore you with a laundry list of random events, which this is.

it's just that i had to drive a friend to school this morning because her car wouldn't start, this, 6 hours after she discovered her friend (and ex-boyfriend) had died the previous day for reasons unknown, and so i'm thinking in terms of internal laundry lists. "24 hours since i discovered eric died." it's just that one thinks time should stand still at such an occurrence, and no matter how often it is proved untrue, we tend to believe--life after this should not be possible.
i used to count how many years had passed since my father died. i stopped years back. now, i just know. it has been 18 years, give or take a few months, an entire person.