This starts out with a picture of my new haircolor and then gets serious because I'm in a serious mood

Ooh ooh -- check it! I have blondish hair! Cool huh? Not as blonde as I used to be, but I likey. And it looks different in different light, so sometimes it's kind of red, sometimes it's kind of ... not. ... I dunno. Anyway, I'm digging it.

Thanks, Johanna, for the inspiration and the help. ^_^ And happy early 30th birthday!

I like that pic. I think I'm going to stick it on MySpace later.

So it's T-minus six months until the move and I'm still trying to process exactly what that means. I broke my "in person only" rule and told a friend over the phone last weekend. We went out for a long talk Sunday and are planning to do the same this weekend.

I came across this quote today from tragic author Katherine Mansfield: "Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order."

Everything's not in order yet, and there's not much time to get to that point.

I think one problem is that I'm afraid I'm going to forget the way things are. You know when people die and you worry you're going to forget what they look like? It's like that, but instead of worrying about forgetting one person, I'm worrying about forgetting an entire city. I always want to remember the way the Wonder Bread factory smells Downtown when the wind is blowing west. And the sound of FedExForum erupting in cheers when the Tigers when a game. Nights of "Truth or Truth" with Johanna. The way I drive to work in the morning.

Anyone ever heard the song, "I Wish I Could Go Back to College" from Avenue Q? There's a line near the end in which Princeton wistfully says, "I wish I had taken more pictures." With that in mind, I grabbed my camera and headed out the office door an hour early today.

After snapping a few shots of The Lorraine Motel (where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot) and a couple of places in the arts district, I headed to the riverbluff. A cold wind was coming off the Mississippi, rendering my favorite black hoodie (FBH) nearly useless. I took pictures of the skyline, the barges, the two bridges that span the river between Tennessee and Arkansas. Feeling like I might be getting frostbite off the river -- actually, the second time that's happened in a week -- I hopped back in my car and drove around a while to clear my head.

Without paying attention, I made a wrong turn and ended up on Interstate 55 on my way into Arkansas. No joke. I zoned out for a minute and found myself in another state on a highway completely unfamiliar to me. Expletive. With a little help from my GPS, I found Interstate 40, which I know like the back of my hand, and made it back toward Tennessee.

And now you're going to think I'm making this up, but as I pulled onto the bridge over the Mississippi, Marc Cohn's "Walking in Memphis" came on XM '90s on 9. So I find myself passing under the "Welcome to Tennessee" sign heading toward Riverside Drive and listening to "Walking in Memphis." And maybe sniffling just a little.

People who don't believe in intelligent synchronicity are fools. Or they don't listen to enough Coast to Coast. Or both.

I'm not sure what it means. Does it mean that no matter how far I go, I'll always come home? Or that I'll leave the city but it'll never leave me? I'm still trying to figure that -- and everything else about moving -- out in my head.

And now that I've gotten the serious stuff out of my system, we all can go back to admiring my hair, right? Right?

P.S. To the poet who commented on my "Candy is Dandy, but fruit is ... tastier" post, thanks for making my day. I've narrowed you down to about four people but I think I prefer the mystery. Do I get another comment-type clue?