the beginning...

I am not really sure how to start this blog. Not really sure where I'll go with it. I guess that's pretty appropriate, all things considered. I move to Dallas in roughly 2 weeks. I'm pretty excited, and ready to go. But I have no idea what's in store for me when I get there. Oh well, C'est la vie, right?

Actually, I do have somewhat of a better idea of what to expect in Dallas than I did in May or June, after having spent the last month training in New York. Now, should I have started this blog about a month ago, this blogsite would(could?) be full of entry after entry, recounting all the crazy, funny, meaningful, beautiful, random ... you get the idea ... moments from life in New York. But I'd get stuck in the past, trying to play catch up if I attempted to right about all of that now. So I'll leave all of that to history and personal memories. I want this blog to be about what I'm experiencing in the present moment. No recaps.

Once/if I can figure out how, maybe I'll post a link to the press release we (the 8 new US-2!s) all had to write. It does a pretty good job of explaining -- to the extent of knowledge I have right now -- what I'll be doing in Dallas for the next two years. And of course, once I get there, even more will hopefully start to make sense, for myself included! But for now, I'm just hanging out in Canton, Michigan, at my parents' new home (small but cute), trying to get things straightened out ...

Hence the title of my blogsite, a line from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot -- my favorite poem ...

"And indeed there will be time/ To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” / Time to turn back and descend the stair, / With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— / [They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”] /My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, /My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— /[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”] /Do I dare /Disturb the universe? / In a minute there is time /For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."

I think I have related more to this poem than any poem I've read before or since. Even though I'm not an aging man, (probably) won't ever go bald, and the like ... But those insecurites ... Am I doing the right thing? What will other people think of me? But I'm not turning back, I'm trying not to care, and maybe, if I'm lucky, I will even "disturb the universe."

So I dare. But those decisions and revisions ... yeah, I can definately still relate...