The words above are from Walt Whitman, who is my favorite poet, but that might change tomorrow.

I've thought about doing an online journal for a long time. Since I am basically an HTML idiot, I hesitated to even try.

It's sort of weird to think about a journal as anything but one of the many, many notebooks I've kept since I was little.

It's weird to be sitting here typing as I try to put together some thoughts about my life today instead of curled up in my bed or in a coffee shop with headphones on or not paying attention to my professor in some classroom, which I've done in all my life's yesterdays.

Right now my life is actually pretty good. I like my new job and I love my new dog.

Did I mention my new dog?

As a kid I would read Where the Red Fern Grows over and over, believing I was the only kid in the world who wanted a dog as badly as the kid in that book, who finally found Old Dan and Little Ann, and we all know how that turned out.

I never found my Dan or Ann as a kid, but now I'm all grown up, it seems, and this six-month-old stray has found me.

"Among the Multitude," which contains the lines above, is a poem about soulmates, which is a word that has been pervading my psyche to the point of obsession lately. Hopefully he is out there. I used to have no doubt that he was -- but lately I do. Maybe that's part of growing up. You stop believing that your stuffed animals can talk, that Peter Pan will find your window one of these nights, that if you practice long enough you'll be able to cross your arms, blink, and wreak all kinds of merry magical havoc. I let go of all of those things a long time ago.

I can let go of the idea that Peter Pan will find me one of these days, but I can't let go of the idea that my soulmate will. If I do, then I think I'll have abandoned my childhood's heart altogether, and that might just make me go crazy.

Good question.