Over the years, I've asked myself many, many times why I do this. Why I feel this need. Why, at random times, it galvanizes me into packing a bag, calling up a few friends, and bartering cooking experience for crashspace.

Other people call it "wanderlust." That's probably as accurate a term as I'm ever going to find.It's best described as a quiet ache—of looking at the same four walls and knowing that you've looked at them before. Knowing that you've explored them from top to bottom, inside to out, and that there's not much left to discover.

Kat finally found her roll of film from our trip to New Orleans earlier this year. It contains some pictures that I referenced in a previous entry, The Jester of Jackson Square. They’re linked in that entry now, if you’re curious to see photos of the balloon artist (Checkers) I was describing.

There are also a few other pictures from that trip which don’t fit in with the theme of that entry. Full photoset here.

This is my birthday present to myself.

I spent the night playing with friends and laughing and pouring the occasional drink or two. We played cards and sent everyone except John (who is staying with us) home. We talked, he and I, until five a.m.—about Kenya, parents, siblings, past dates, love, life, and everything in between.

It is 5:20 on the day of my birthday. A year ago today, right about now, I was with Andy and Jen in New Jersey, preparing to take a train into New York. For my first taste of Manhattan.Through a typo while posting last year's NYC pictures, I marked a set of pictures as being from the Empire State Building when they were, in fact, from the top of World Trade Center 1. I made a comment to a netfriend about a picture of him at the same place; he said, "No, Amy, that's not ESB."

Vancouver. Two words: good food. Cheap sushi and fabulous Ethiopian food.

You might recall that we took a nice short holiday in Canada a couple of months ago. Now that Jess has made available the last of her pictures from Vancouver, I've got the full set. What I'm posting tonight are the pictures from out on the island (i.e., all pictures taken in Victoria). There are quite a bit more from Vancouver, back on the mainland, but I think I'm going to save those for tomorrow. These are plenty enough for now.

If you looked closely, one could see the echoes of stubble tracing a faint shadow of pattern-baldness that meandered from ear, to crown, to ear. His eyes didn't always match the laughter in his voice, but when they did, the lines radiated, like spokes, from their corners.

When he told stories the words came out razor-sharp. Carnival patois, to match the oversized, indifferently polished black clown shoes he wore. I didn't know how much of his story to believe; after all, he was a balloon artist hustling tourists next to Café du Monde.