I've been ramblin' now for two weeks, sleeping on couches, futons and borrowed beds. I've done a lot of this over the past three years. I remember when we first got set to roll out on Vagabender, little Wiley asked us, "can I go on the run with you?" I think he meant "on the road," but it was more endearing that way. It's a good phrase.

All this ramblin' has had its ups and downs. I find myself wishing fairly often that I had a more built-up life, the kind of think you get when you invest serious time and energy into some locale. On the other hand, it's also good to be confident living by your wits.

For instance, today I left the office at around 10pm, rolling back on a borrowed fixed-hear bike to my partner Zack's place, but nobody was home. Luckily I know a bar around the corner that serves good food and has a back patio with a separate door where I could stash the bike (didn't have a lock). So I headed over, did that, and enjoyed a Tecate and a damn-fine burrito, picking up some wifi and getting another todo knocked off while I waited for someone to return so I could get into their place.

It's not a great feat of survival or anything, but afterwards I was kind of pleased that all this came naturally to me, that I didn't stress out about being stuck with a bike and nowhere to go at 10pm in the Mission, just flowed with it. These instincts are useful, I think. Adaptive. Proactive. So much of life is about attitude. It's a blessing to enjoy challenges.

I'm feeling it. Well, actually, I'm totally fucking exhausted to the point of being goofball jittery, but sitting here on a borrowed bed after spending a week dancing along the edge of what I can really do as a person, I'm all strung out, a little hung over, but sizzlingly alive. It's hard to articulate. Words fail, but General Tso's Tofu provides.

Earlier this week I visited with Bill, my Pa, my step-father, father of my sister, who was around the house from when I was about three until I left home and did me a world of good in-between. He and my mom had a really interesting relationship, one which reached a romantic coda when I was a teenager (and was ergo semi-oblivious to this, or perhaps just too self-absorbed to care) but they stayed together as a logical family unit until my sister left for college.

He's married now to a wonderful artist named Patti -- hence the domain name -- who's lives most of her life out in DC, and who he (and my mom) have been friends with since they were wild and young. Yeah. Life is strange that way. I remember meeting Patti when I was a kid in Iowa when we were out there one summer on the farm, her and her then-husband Skip -- who was part of the wild and young thing too -- come out to visit and break the news that Skip had cancer. Skip died. We all went to his funeral in DC. They played The Circle Game.

Patti is dying now too. Same cause. All things considered I was impressed by how well she's holding up, and Bill's doing a stellar job of taking care of her, but it's clear where things are going and it was bittersweet seeing her; made me feel sick to my stomach to say goodbye.

Looks like I'll miss out on JetBlue's in-air internet service rollout by a couple of days:

bq.. Starting next week and over the next few months, several American airlines will test Internet service on their planes.

On Tuesday, JetBlue Airways will begin offering a free e-mail and instant messaging service on one aircraft, while American Airlines, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines plan to offer a broader Web experience in the coming months, probably priced at about $10 a flight.

p. In a certain dream of techno-utopian fantasy, I can see the appeal of blasting off around the world -- business class, natch -- and never skipping a beat in terms of social participation. We'd be masters of the universe, each and every one.

Part of my DC meditation is trying to hone in on the distinctions between the old world and the new one, between a world based around corporations that are modeled after the WWII-era Pentagon, and a post-postmodern world modeled on networks. There was maybe something in-between these two -- there in the 80s and 90s -- some intermediary stage marked by first-wave globalization, a world modeled on TV commercials maybe.

Ok. Now I'm rambling. Back to work!

There's trouble on every corner
I need a place to hide
the bad things follow us down
I want you by my side

Do we ever really know why
why the bad things come our way?
Do we ever really know
this is where we're headed
this is were we're going?

So, this is a lot darker than I actually feel. It's good music though, and the "do we ever really know" question seems prescient.