We laid there for an hour watching the sky. Yellowcard in my head, and on my lips too because you know how I am about singing. She played Mae on her iPhone. We watched the sky.

What should have been the north star (it was the brightest) was actually Jupiter, she said.

Oh, I said. I faked my way through astronomy at boy scout camp.

The clouds moved in to stay. We packed up the blankets and walked away along the river.

***

It's time to condense and focus. I'm stopping my ikebana classes at the end of this month. I'm going to a couple of kendo matches so I can get a feel for how they're run—the plan is that I'll compete in the city tournament next July. The plan is that I'll join in with my schools' practices once I understand enough Japanese. The plan is that I'll make my teacher smile again like he did last Saturday when I pulled off the rapid head strike six times in a row.

Boxing will continue. I should have picked that up earlier in life but if I had I probably wouldn't have liked it much because, whether you believe it or not, I was timid. Haha, not now. No, not now.

Two more months of loan payments. A few months of credit card bills. Then freedom and wealth beyond my wildest dreams, if I had a dream transplant with a child from Mongolia.

Look, it's not that I don't like you. It's just . . . this is what I'm doing now. There are hopes and dreams but they don't feel right now. This feels right now.

We're hang gliders. Life is wind.

Blog hug. Email hug. Skype hug.