January 1^st.  First words of the new year: I really want to stay in Panama.  And if I had a quarter-million $ devotable in a bank account, I would.  Forever.  Except for vacations, mostly back to the U.S., now and then.  And an adventurous excursion or two in the outback of Australia and the Amazon basin.

As it is, today is the first overcast, rainy day of my Panama stay and it is also the last day.  So fittingly, the more dower portrayal of the sky is corresponding to my reluctance to leave most appropriately.  And the tears of the clouds surrogately supersede my own unpeeling emotions.

But the opportunity to secure employment here that would furnish me comfortable financial means isn’t patent yet.  And lacking a currentially convertible nest egg of sufficient diameter and circumference, back to the cuckoo’s nest of previous stateside employment I seem remanded.  For now—and until my wings are strapping enough to sail me away once again.  And, perhaps, for good.

Jan. 2^nd.  I’m back in the States and in an utter state of displaced shock.  Is there a drug available to make this terrain seem more hospitable?

Jan 3^rd.  Okay.  Now I’m up to snuff in real-time but still feeling somewhat bereft of the pulse of life I tapped into down upon the equator.  You know, our summer has already began there and is slowly migrating northward miles-by-hours.  I have already tasted and drunk bountifully of our summer of ’03 to-be and am utterly mourning the withdrawal, by virtue of geographical displacement, of that savorable sensation.  I am almost certain to remain seasonally-incomplete unto time resumes my summer interrruptus  sometime about May or June.  The immediate outlook:  Yay!!!  I have the dubious opportunity to run circles in the snow once again in a cemetery replete with a conundrum of vanished essences.  hahahahaha.