That's the man, back in 2005, about to get told by the Texas law that if he wants to hang out at the Alamo he'll have to put on a shirt. For the past year, he has been under the philosophically heavy thumb of the Germans -- slaving away over a hot data-set at the Max Plank Institute for Quantitative Social Research -- and only just last week returned to the welcoming arms of Lady Liberty. We had the pleasure of hosting a few nights of his re-entry tour this weekend.

Luke and Mark and I have a kind of special relationship, one that we've all made the choice to maintain and deepen over the years. At this point, getting well into the meat of adulthood, it's quite something to have someone who went through your teenage fire and blackness years still be a part of your life. There's a kind of perspective there that just can't be matched. I mean, who else will bro down with you about various international health care administration tactics, and shift seamlessly to baby fever?

Over and above it being really great to see him again and spend real-time together, visiting with Luke got me thinking about the future in a way that I haven't done much of lately. I used to have these outlanishly outsized dreams. We like to joke that "part of becoming a man is watching your dreams die," but it's not so funny when you wake up and realize it's happening.

I wrote before about my trip to Mexico, how it got me thinking about life's possibilities again. This is basically the same thing. The idea of moving to yet another new city, starting yet another new chapter, etc, or even just opening up new avenues in my existing life. Who knows what the next few years may hold, let alone the next decade.

There are a lot of big shapeless things out there on the horizon. I feel a bit chrysalis-like, and not just because I'm re-growing part of my arm. With all the things in my life where I feel tension, I also feel that sharp depression in the membrane, the part that's just about ready to give way and break through. I feel more than a little itchy for action.

Soon it will be time to cast of the cocoon, but for now it was a good rainy weekend clustered up around the fireplace making hot spicy drinks and reconnecting across big gaps in space and time.