Greetings from Potsdam... it's been a halfway-decent weekend so far, and all signs point to a likelihood that I'll get through the remaining 10-12 hours without major trauma. Who'd've thunk it?

A few random observations, because, while not trashed, I have had considerably more alcohol than my brain and typing muscles are used to, and random is the best I can do:

• Chocolate martinis are a really, really good idea.


• Bravery comes in lots of forms. Like showing up at your fraternity's alumni reunion openly gay, but quiet and dignified about the nature of that openness.


• It's really, really hard to watch two people you care about struggle so deeply over a problem with no good answer. To know that I found my own answers in a similar situation, but that my answers might not work for them, and the only way they'll find their answers is to hurt and fumble through it.


• I married a really great guy.


• I miss my kids. But not so much that I either regret depositing them with my mother for the weekend or wish to hurry and pick them up earlier than planned tomorrow. I miss them because we've had time and distance apart, to allow for a little perspective.


• It just took me five tries to successfully type out the word "because."


• I'm back at the hotel room alone now, while Willem plans to close out the bar. He just looked at me and said, with a big, sweet, lopsided grin, "I just went from buzzed to trashed!" I think I'll be doing some driving tomorrow, while he whimpers and wonders why I'm choosing to take the 270-degree on-ramp to the highway when there's a perfectly good 90-degree one right there.


• My haircut really is a good one. Low-maintenance. And there was much rejoicing.


• It takes about 3 1/2 days for me to get used to new glasses and stop noticing the frames all the time.


• We've had some fun discoveries, beginning with the word "vurp." It's a verb. Know what it means? Yeah. From there we coined the verb "piggle" - for the pee/giggle combination that has never happened to anyone we know, but we've heard about a friend of a friend who did it once.


• I can't remember what I was about to type. So it's time for bed.

With a little luck, we'll be home at a reasonable time tomorrow and I'll be able to post something a tad more coherent. I have a few thoughts, profound and otherwise, just begging to be expanded - but not right now. Thoughts about memory, and shopping, and public displays of affection. So, stay tuned... as the Great and Powerful Ahhnuld once said, "I'll be back."