here is my problem. i haven't written in so long i'm having a hard time separating things.... it's all mush. so until i can remove thought from muck, i'll leave you all with a quote from Barbara Kingslover's Animal Dreams:

"What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive. You keep your eyes open, you see this damned-to-hell world you got born into, and you ask yourself, 'What life can I live that will let me breathe in and out and love somebody or something and not run off screaming into the woods?'"