I didn't start out to post the entire lyrics of a song. I was just going to quote the part that talked about tiger's milk and watermelons. But as I read the song over, I realized that you really need the whole thing to get the sense of what it's about, what it means.

My parents came down to Tucson last night, and we went out to dinner. Mom had come down to see a colleague of hers get an award from the U for lifetime achievement; Paul came to keep her company.

It was kind of funny, watching them argue about who was going to make the decision about wether he was going to attend the cerimony. He confided to me, while she was in the restroom, that he didn't really want to go, but he wouldn't tell her that.

So they went through this little, "I'll go if you want me to," "Well, I only want you to come if you want to" dance. It was amusing to me, because Traci and I used to do the same thing... each of us would decide that the decision was the other person's, and we'd hand it back and forth a dozen times before anything actually got decided.

We went over to the Bookstop after dinner, and mom found a bunch of children's books, and I found A Barefoot Doctor's Manual, published by CoEvolution Quarterly, in the days before they grew up to become the Whole Earth Catalog.

The manual is pretty darn cool. China has this program they call "Barefoot Doctors," which consists of people who aren't really either. A large percentage of the Chinese population is rural... peasants, farmers. They take bright young people from these villages, train them as something somewhere between paramedics and nurse practitioners, and send them back to their villages as "Barefoot Doctors."

It's a neat concept, and the manual... a sort of general reference work for these people... rocks. My edition, of course, is translated into English.

Anyway, we left, dropped mom off at the College of Education, and Paul and I went up to Gate's pass, where we talked about urban sprawl, how much better Tucson was in the _____
(For me, it's the 80's; for him, the 60's).

I went home, tired; called Jana. We talked for a little while... I don't really remember what about, so I guess it wasn't all that important, but it sure was nice to just talk to someone for a little while.

I talked to her online a little bit when I woke up this morning, and when I got in the shower, I found myself singing that Michelle Shocked song. Which brings the whole thing full circle, back to where I started.

childofsnow is leaving at 3am tomorrow. I'm a little sad about the whole thing... she's a very cool chick, and the chances are, I'll never see her again. So long, Toni. Take care of you.