I'm leaving for Vienna tonight, to spend some time interning at the international AIDS conference. I will try and write a note or two while I'm there, but I might just be busy working. I had a moment yesterday though, that I've been mulling over since and wanted to try and articulate.
At the mall, a lady asked me if I wanted to sign up for some mailing letter, or something, so that I could continue to receive the company's excellent product. I said no thanks because I was just visiting, and she asked me where my home town was -- where was I going back to? And I realized that that was actually kind of a tricky question at the moment. Its not Baltimore anymore, its not Mbabane yet, it may or may not eventually be DC. I told the lady it was complicated and laughed, and moved on. Then I got to thinking, its not like this is the first or the last time in my life that that question has thrown me a little bit. Where do you live? Good question. When I was travelling and would have to mark my hometown on a border crossing form of some sort, it always seemed odd to write down a place where I hadn't lived in seven years. And then I thought some more -- of course it will always be Ventura.
The point is, the fact that it doesn't bother me for that question to occasionally be a bit confusing, but that I also have the security of knowing there will always be answer, well...thanks mom and dad. I'm going to head off and start doing ridiculous things for ridiculous stories again, but I could never do all this wandering if I didn't know for sure that there was something so strong right behind me.
