Live in the moment.

Twenty one years old and wishing you were home in your own bed with a beat up graying stuffed bunny named Puppy to cry into. Twenty one years old and choking in the throat with Adult Secrets sitting on instant messenger at 3 AM trying to start words, only to be asked, "Do you have brain crickets?" Maybe that's your problem, brain crickets migrating downwards to eat their way out, leaving behind them a trail of blood.

Live in the moment?

Adult responsibility isn't really all it's cracked up to be, and eventually the twitching throughout your body when someone comes too close might stop, maybe maybe maybe. You can be the perfect girl turned woman, doing everything before your peers--embracing that ever crucial maturity to bring you closer to what should be your goal. But eventually isn't now, and sometimes it can seem too far off, too far off to be attainable.

Live for another moment.

A night spent without the encrusting of tears on your cheek in a silent room that's not even your own. A night spent without contemplating your own absence of virtue while wondering to yourself if maybe you're not the person you were meant to be. A night not spent holding the hand of a man who sees you as that person and worrying about what would happen if he woke up and saw you now, in illuminating darkness.

Live for any moment.

Just not this one...

Complete confidence in my personal code of ethics is the key to fearlessness.

I've thought about it a lot over the years, and I can honestly say that the only thing I'm afraid of, is losing my freedom. I don't fear death, torture, sickness, or other very scary stituations in life. But being incarcerated in an institution where I'm not permitted to be myself, and locked into an area with no permission to go outside that area ever... that scares me, a lot.

By having 100% confidence in my personal ethics, I can be reasonably sure that I will never do an injustice to someone, or some entity, that the enforcers of law and justice believe I should be stripped of my freedom, and be institutionalized for weeks, months, or even years. I will make mistakes, and possibly harm others with my actions. This is near impossible to avoid for almost all of us. But none of this harm will be severe enough to deserve criminal charges resulting in the end of freedom for me.

Living without fear is a beautiful thing.

This realization made walking home from the other side of town in the blistering cold.

Today is my mother's birthday. She's away, down south. I think I'll call her and wish her the best.

The sailing one though was amazing. Thoughtlessly playing my guitar on the deck of the yacht in the calm still of night with the only sound being from small waves lapping the side of the little boat. I seem to recall the moon was at gibbous, so it lit the water nicely. Do remember to notice it's distorted reflections if you get the chance, intertwined with a dazzling light show dancing on the uneven, ever-changing surface. A sight for sore eyes indeed, only surpassed by the sight of her. Enough of that... I digress.

What I wanted to think about was my weird quirk of imagining myself with potential lovers in all sorts of future situations. I've met someone else that does it, and she says that she does it with me. I'm doing it with her too! It feels nice and I'm looking forward to experiencing some of these musings one day.

This will make you laugh. If you saw my father, you'd be surprised as all hell to think that he would be playing cricket with me on a Saturday. Considering he's been doing nothing but scoring for the past 5 years, and he hasn't pulled pads on for nearly 40, you'd think we'd have to rustle up someone else. But no.

Last week we fielded, and he did quite well for a 48-year-old. He nearly pulled off a catch, and he's got a great throwing arm. This week everything happened. We got a few overs to bat with last week, because the other team declared at 3/387 (a shocking score! We let one guy get 154 and another one get 196! Mainly because we only had 8 players, and not enough strike bowlers, to wipe them out, but also because they had all day and they used it). We slumped to 4/55 that day, but stayed in as long as we could the next day. Which turned out to take us to 162.

I batted 10th, and my father 11th. Typically, when my first partner went out he came in. Another brilliant father-son combination. I had taken him to the nets last Sunday, and he actually bats well. He hits them down, he's got a powerful stroke, and if he keeps those odd little ones down he's OK.

But he didn't. I smacked one over the bowler's head, and I called for two runs. I looked back and saw that there was only going to be one in it. He's not the best of runners. He hit the next one hard at midwicket, but unlike last week, the fielder caught it. We were all out, and I was on 1 not out.

Fielding after that was uneventful. Batting again after they'd declared again was disastrous. I went in earlier and made a duck. The other team have three really good bowlers: one fast, one medium but with a lethal swing, and one with a wrong'un that is pretty difficult to pick. And I went out to the swinger.

Now picture this: When I next look at the game after storming off the field (How could THAT have been LBW?) there's two guys batting, and neither of them have played for at least 20 years. I think. So they're out there, blocking, and I can't believe it. I watch them for a bit, and suddenly my father, in a valiant attempt to get off strike, smacks the ball. It goes all the way to the boundary. A four in debut. I didn't hit a four for a couple of YEARS!

They stay in and stay in, getting the odd few runs. The two strike bowlers are on, and trying to flummox the codgers two of them. The captain has a go later, and the spin bowler. And they just stay in. Eventually, though, the spinner bowls his wrong'un and bowls one of them out. (Not my father, thank goodness.) And that's the end of the match, with one over left. We've lost, but who gives a shit? We had fun.