I Was Tamed By Rock & Roll

I had this therapist once, who used to talk to me about things that were grounding. That was back when I was just starting to admit that I was kind of pissed off, simmering, beneath it all. She had a list of things, I imagine things like, say, jogging, maybe? Or, well... I don't know, actually. The only one I remember for sure is singing. That was the one that stuck with me.

I'm a lot more used to myself now. If I love you, you can still get me pissed off, but I don't simmer as much. I still get keyed up though, overwhelmed at times, and that can turn into something like simmering. Writing weeks are always one of those times. Too much good stuff, ironically. Hours and hours of talk, about things I care about in the most essential way. Lots of satisfying hard work, reading, commenting on manuscripts. This ranch is where I get the best food I get all year, it's the place I look forward to taking photos, and seeing some of my favorite people, and where I get to see the dogs I know best in the world, with their beautiful, haunting wolfhound howls. Even so, after four intense days, I get a little crabby. I had to admit that tonight, and I was sorry about it, but it's really better to get it right out there and deal with it.

Music is like cross-training for writers, is how I like to think about it, sometimes. Especially the way Jeff Tweedy does it. I think about something different every time I listen to him, every time I watch Sunken Treasure, or see Wilco in concert. Sometimes it's about how a concert can be like church, or how church should be, the way he talks about it in Sunken Treasure, the whole communal thing. Sometimes I think about the lyrics, about connection, talking to each other, things we mean to say, all that. Tonight, though, when we put Sunken Treasure on and sat around in Pam's living room, after the last workshop of the day, before our one day off (before the peach pie), when Jeff Tweedy starting singing the title song, I was thinking about singing.

Just singing. The grounding kind of singing. Singing that is breath leaving your body, your throat resonant with sound, your chest filled with it, your ears - all of you, really.

I didn't sing along with the movie. Pam turned it up loud and something about the way Jeff Tweedy's voice held those notes so imperfectly meant that I didn't have to. He was singing for me. It was more satisfying to sit there, do nothing, let myself be filled up with the sound in that other way. But it was so good it felt like that grounding kind of singing, like therapy, and I stopped simmering and was ready for some pie and more of what we came here for.

Something You Didn't Mean To Wear As a Shirt

It was altogether too hot in there. It was too crowded to make it back to where the water was, so the water jugs didn't help us play it cool. And last night, the bands were too good for it, every single one. It was really too hot to wear two flannels on stage, so the musicians could not possibly play it cool. And the beards didn't play it cool, and the ponytails may have kept a little heat off our necks, but they still swayed and felt happy and showed off our exuberance and therefore could not be said to play it cool. The new merch included the golden Zooch, so the merchandise didn't either, and the film crew never even seemed tempted to. It was their night off, after all.

The tallboys in their Tractor 15-year anniversary koozies did not play it cool for long. The dj told us about getting married on that very stage and the photographers smiled behind their cameras, and when the bands came on, they nodded their heads behind those cameras too. The guitars never play it cool, especially when there are four of them on stage at once, and this time the mandolin didn't either, and of course drums rarely do, and last night the drums in questions were Ryan's, gold and sparkly, and loud and good, messy in the best way, like Ryan's hair and Ryan's hair may try to play it cool, but the drums weren't going to. The horns didn't play it cool, neither did the girls with the flowers in their hair or the moms or the area backstage which was even more crowded all than front of stage, and the Tractor was sold out, so it was crowded everywhere, including the area next to the stage just behind the little plastic chain that served as a field sobriety test, which all the Malgals passed...

even though they were not at all, contrary to what this photo might suggest, playing it cool.

What Happened When I Tried To Make a Comment on the Orangette Blog

I didn't really intend to do a whole blog post on dinner at Delancey. The idea of that just sort-of sounded like taking owls to Athens, but then on Orangette today, Molly mentioned a Goethe quote. "Do not hurry, do not rest". I love that quote. It's right up there with E.M. Forster's "Only connect", for me. So I started writing a comment and guess what happened? The operative word ended up being "writing" rather than "comment". I blame it on the upcoming writing week. I don't know what's going to work out for that, but I can feel it brewing. I have hopes. In the mean time, here's what used to call itself a comment.

Susan and I had pastries the other morning at Honore, the bakery next door to Delancey -cannele and macarons and cafe bom-bon, and there was Molly at Delancey! So early, red hair restrained in some cute messy pony-bun thing, trying to keep Jack away from whoever was at the door, while we were sitting just outside on the adirondack chairs, giggling to ourselves and thinking No NO! Let Jack come to the door! We love Jack! I felt the teeniest bit stalkerish and wondered if that well-worn media phrase "we ask that you respect our privacy at this time" ever crosses Molly's mind in those early hours when she is back at the restaurant after a 16-hour day, the tenth in, what, two weeks? In our defense, we were not at ALL the only people sneaking peaks, and at least we didn't actually cup our hands against the glass, right??

Not that we didn't want to.

Kate and I were supposed to have dinner later that night, before the new Mike Daisey show. She was going to make "Kate's Corn Buffet". I don't know exactly what that would have been, but Good would have surely been one word for it, since it was, after all, Kate cooking. Or would have been, if I hadn't suggested Delancey.

It was just that Kate was a little tired, not feeling that great, and we had to be at Hugo House early, and hadn't Delancey been open for like AN AGE, and we STILL hadn't been there yet?? So we each put on some little summer number, and arranged to meet in front at precisely 5 PM. Already, there was a little queue, but it was a cheerful queue, with all of us smiling secret smiles, thinking about love stories and chocolate chip cookies with grey salt and yes, pizza. There was a pretty pregnant woman in a yellow dress, with a big table's worth of handsome friends, and there was a cute girl with a grey dress and leggings, smiling at her date, and everyone else was also looking photogenic, in that particular way that friendly people who spend their time liking things do. Blog readers, Orangette lovers, fans. Lovers of love and pizza and ideas and things that seem impossible but aren't.

Kate said it felt like we were going to see a rock band, a really good one, one you've been waiting and waiting to see.

But the great thing was that it was like one of those concerts that is as satisfying as you think it will be - the live version of the tomato/corn/shallot vinaigrette salad IS better than the recorded version! And the framed photo of the italian man in his suit in the pink chair, and the delicate-looking waitresses in their grey t-shirts, and the tomato salad with the shallot vinaigrette and the kind of corn so sweet that I don't even know how one would find it, and the overall famousness feeling of it all! You can imagine.

I haven't even started on the pizza. We had the zucchini and anchovy and the Brooklyn. Of course, what else? I have to admit, I don't really want to go on and on about how fantastic it was. I just want to say that it was exactly what I expected, exactly what I hoped for and exactly what I was craving. Sometimes you want something to be simple, and just right. We didn't have to ask for the pizza scissors, and I wasn't tempted to use a knife and fork, and I didn't burn all the skin off the roof of my mouth, but nothing had congealed either. The sauce was exactly the way I like a pizza sauce, didn't taste like something you'd put on bruschetta or like spaghetti sauce, wasn't too sweet or overpowered by oregano, it was sort-of one with the crust, which should not for a moment be mistaken for "soggy", it was more that it felt inseparable in the best way, like a perfectly placed phrase in a poem or story, something said at the right moment in the right way, the not only well-worded but just what you wanted to hear, too.

But that was the start of Delancey being popular of course, the way Molly always pared it down to just the right details on her blog, in her book, recipes both made magic by her mythology and demystified by her willingness to share - I made this, she says, you can too.

But of course, even if we could, and really, at our table, only Kate gets put in that camp, the Camp of Could in the Kitchen, why would we want to? It was so nice to be welcomed in by Delancey, to sneak admiring peeks at neighbors, feel famous by proxy, energized and enthused, happy and summery and very very well-fed. And if reading this doesn't make you almost feel all those things yourself, then click on the love story link and get a little taste of Delancey for yourself.

I'm Not Gonna Talk About It

You have to be here to understand. Everything smells like it's on fire. Is that my engine? The elementary school? The pumps at the gas station? A brush fire on I-5, the fur of the animals at the zoo? It won't make sense unless you're here.

I've given up everything. Dishwashing first, always, then meals, then clothing, the need to sleep with something covering me. I abandon hair-drying, the longing for sunshine, the process of falling in love, the desire to leave work at the end of the day. I wonder which ex-boyfriend kept that fan, and everything starts to look the way everything looks in those movies where the camera lingers on someone alone, the scenery going by, a child's fingers on the car window.

There is no loneliness in heat this close, and misery is possible the first day, but after the second I've given that up too. The heat takes on another form, like time, when you're waiting. In a moment of relief, we watch the preview for a movie where someone says "Time heals, they say, but the years get heavier as they go. They don't tell you that," and that's what the heat is like. Oppressive like a grief whose root is the deepest joy, so that when these things are upon you, you cannot tell the difference between them, between heat and time and what is sad and made you happy, they are all the same, all more than you ever intended to bear, but no one cancels work and the coffee shop is still open, though silent from the heat, and you don't call the ex-boyfriend with the fan, and as hot as you are, there is always another bead of sweat for the small of your back, more heat rising off the nape of your neck. For now there is just this popsicle, this lime juice, this cold cold movie theater and tomorrow, again, the sanctuary of work.

Baby Aspirin

I am always getting terrible photos of him, though he is lovely in real life. One of my friends recently said that when she met him, she felt like he was looking through her soul. He does have an eye, that's for sure, but whenever I turn mine on him, I seem to catch him startled or unprepared, and always always disheveled. The one above is my favorite now, because it somehow it at least catches his stature.

It captures the kind of night it was too. We didn't know where we were going, and the nicest part of it was the walking, not the being there. Court and I did sit on his stoop and talk for a while, and that was good, and I took photos of the ladies' shoes and T Lily's long legs, and we were all happy with the banana split I think, though we were so busy talking about other things that we almost forgot to mention it as our spoons scooped up the bruled banana, the marshmallow cloud on top of the little ice cream discs, the praline nuts. Later I walked into a room of Scatergories and a brunette in a summer dress called out to me, with a big smile, "New Girl!! Play for me! I just realized.. I'm too drunk to play!" and then I couldn't think up an item of clothing that started with I and envied Tim when he revealed his - intimates. Of course.

Even later, D and I met in the parking lot of the drive-in and he bought me a chocolate shake that I drank two sips of and we sat in my car catching up on our days. I was still in my work clothes and he was wearing the shoes from dinner at Cafe Juanita the night before. We had been so many other places during the day, but I was glad it all ended up there.

One Tiny Cowboy

I bought a bird and a whale. We drove to LaConner and Edison, ate landjaeger and coconut cookies and salmon in the garden without even a wasp to trouble us. The drive from LaConner to Portland was long but went so fast there was barely time to listen to Abbey Road. The family barbecue lasted for hours and the street was filled with the gunpowdered confetti of spent fireworks and the ice cream man came by in a mini-van and we all thought the popsicles were cheap when you really think about what you're getting. Missed you lots.

As Ready As It's Going To Be

We never did find the lighthouse, though it should have been easy enough. We did find the roastery, and the farmer's market, and the old school pharmacy, the kind with toys and yarn and everything under the sun, and the book store and more. I filled two rolls of 120 with photos of Kate and green views, and patches of flowers next to old buildings with flaking yellow paint. Kate bought two sourdough starter jugs, two pie pans, and a side dish server for $5, and I bought 3/4 length gloves and a giant old dictionary and a nice hardcover copy of Simone de Beauvoir's "America Day By Day".

I could have stopped twenty-seven more times on our meander around the island. I kept seeing things I wanted to photograph, an old sign, or the way the road curved, more flowers, weathered wood. I do tend to be drawn to the same things over and over again. Photos of feet, people walking away. But I especially had a million more ideas for portraits I wanted to take, so that's what I'll start with, on the new blog, which you can visit here.

This Tornado Loves You*

The guys at the camera store have almost got my name right. Today the one who took my two rolls of film looked at me, pen poised above the order envelope, and said "Michelle? No..." knowing already that he wasn't quite getting it right. When I said "Close!" and told him my last name, he said, "Ah! That's where I was getting the M." The other dark-haired guy hovered near where we were talking, grinned and said "Still playing with that Diana?" and then called me the Diana Princess after I said yes.

I've said before that I've been thinking about photos, and writing. I've also been thinking about the blog. For a while now, my posts have been trickling off, and while I still like being here and am even still inspired by the format from time to time, I'm thinking it might be time to make some changes to how I do things here. I think those twins are excellent candidates to take over this space and be Shameless Self-Promoters, The Next Generation, with weekly updates from Auntie.

For myself, I'm thinking about starting a photo blog, a place to update more regularly without the pressure to write. I could write there or not. I realize that, technically, I could do that here, but I don't think it would feel right to me. I'd like to keep this a place where I can write once a week, more update-type posts, like it was originally meant to be when this blog was started so long ago as a place for us to keep in touch from coast to coast.

Still thinking about it all, and of course when I get it settled for myself, this will be the first place I come to report.

* If you haven't heard this song by Neko Case, you should! Gorgeous.

I Love My New Camera And She Loves Me

A scan of these photos just doesn't capture their charm. A big part of it is in the printing, little 4x squares, matte with a white border. If only there was an option to get the date printed on tiny letters on the side, just like the real vintage photos. Really though, everything about the Diana F+ makes me happy. I love the silly plastic lightness of it, the shutter that you pull down, the way you can hang it around your neck by it's plastic strap, the little rolls of 120 film that come wrapped in plastic like big candies. I like going to the little camera store in Kenmore to drop the rolls off, and the way all the guys there are completely intimidating in their knowledge of photography. They show me pretty $600 cameras that have the viewfinders you look down into, and talk about what might have caused most of one roll to come up totally blank. "It's really hard to underexpose with a Diana," they told me. Later, I realized it wasn't hard at all if you accidentally had the camera set to pinhole. Yeah.

Lately, I've been thinking that some of the excitement I felt about writing has been redirected to my little photo experiments. At night, I dream about taking photos, and driving to work I think of whole photo stories I want to play with. In the writing arena, it's been quiet. Trying to let that be okay for now.

There Was More Than Just Fidgeting

The drive on Friday night took longer than four hours. It was a warm night, and I drove mostly with windows rolled down, resorting only to air conditioning when I couldn't bear the sound of the windows any more. I stopped when I felt like it, for a burger, some bad pink lemonade, the kind that comes out of those square machines with the self-filling fountains inside. Sometimes I just stopped at an exit, to take a photo of the landscape, because the clouds had turned a nice color, or because I had come upon that bit by the gorge where the horse sculptures sit up high and invite you to take their photo. I was happy to be on the road.

When I got to the dorms at Gonzaga, Christopher and the others were all out. The girl at the desk was doing needlepoint, gave me a key, told me where I could park my car. She looked so young. I liked it, the dorm room. Not that it was a nice room, it was just the twin beds, with thin mattresses covered in plastic, armoires and other furniture in that blonde wood that looks like plastic. It was just nice to be there, felt silly and momentous at the same time, waiting for my roommate, just like those first hours at St. John's.

When Jessica and the others came in, we realized that it had been nearly twenty years since I had seen her last, maybe during her time away from St. John's, my freshman year, maybe? We talked late into the night to make up for it. Frances and I know each other three ways, have met through three different friends who have nothing to do with each other whatsoever, and though I doubt I had ever met her husband John, it felt as though I had.

That first year I met Chris, I also met his friends Evan and Jason, who I love all out of proportion, as though they had been my high school friends, and not just Chris'. Evan was there, and I got to meet his wife Megan, finally. This delighted me since I had been told that she was a knitter, and indeed she is, even more than I am, a sock in her hands from the moment I first met her. I loved her instantly too. It is easy to love the people who Chris loves. This is the way it has always been with him, as though it's an atmosphere he lives in, a weather system that surrounds him.

The fact that Megan liked me back so easily, and let me know she did, made it even nicer when we stood in church together, and she took my hand at a moment when I was uncertain, and smiled without reserve, and kept me from worrying about a thing. For me, it's easy to be worried in church. When to sit, when to stand. Not only that, but there's the eucharist to worry about, and why all the priests are men. There were, by Jim's count, 120 of them there in church on Saturday. One after one, they filed up to bless the six priests who were being ordained, each of the older priests a little different from the next, someone with box pleats in the back of his robe, someone with a stole embellished with green leaves and vines, one with two long thin braids. Some leaned in close and moved their lips softly, some stood a bit more distant, eyes closed for a moment. One elderly priest rested a hand gently on Chris' shoulder and smiled before moving on.

It was all gentle, the mass. Both that day, and the next. I don't know how to tell you about it, those things that happen when you sit there in a church that long, watching someone you love become something much bigger than himself, and thinking about your own little part in all of it. It's complicated and simple. I thought about things, and also, I let go of thinking. I watched Christopher and saw his sweet happy face tighten a bit around the eyes, with emotion, and was glad I had gone back for a bit of tissue before we left the dorms.

When it was time to take communion, those of us who would not, or could not, were invited to come up, arms folded across our chests, for a blessing from our new priests. I stayed back at first, but then Megan went, encouraging me as she did, and then I just thought, it's Chris, Christopher, how could I not go? Whatever else I believed or did not believe in that moment, I believed in his blessing, and wanted it, so I followed Megan up the aisle, sheltered behind Evan, still nervous, but glad to be there. The moment when I stepped forward, and Christopher looked into my eyes and said his blessing wasn't the only moment when I found myself with tears in my eyes, but for me, it might have been the sweetest.

It Was So Clear It Was Almost Invisible

I often know whose live show will be good. That was a gift from Elvis. And that's why Sunday night was Jenny Lewis at the Showbox, and tonight was Neko Case at the Paramount. Jenny wore those high-waisted jeans again and used every inch of herself to seduce us. Neko brought a giant owl, a flickering moon, irreverence and white vinyl records to sell. I bought one of course, and one of the guys who asked about it turned out to be a local guy, class of '89 like me, friends with my friends. He told me that Elvis was the kind of guy you could drop in on a mountaintop in a loin cloth, and he'd survive. And love it. He wasn't completely wrong about that.

Tomorrow, Spokane.

The Right Distance

After Amy's canoe tipped, she hung her Versace in a tree to dry and pulled on one of Lee's sweaters as pants. The Prada hat was beyond repair, and when I suggested that perhaps the thigh-high boots could be taken to a cobbler, the seam up the back re-fitted, she smiled serenely and said "They're just different boots now."

Things went neither against plan or with plan, since there wasn't one in the first place. We did think the bed in the office at Abe's was ours, but someone decided to fall in love back there instead. We went to Grayson's and stayed up until it was nearly sunrise, talking about what it was like to be in love with a wild animal trainer. In the morning, Grayson served coffee in mason jars, just like he promised, and I stood on the piano bench in my white pajamas and said "I rule your house!!" But I was a benevolent ruler, and short-lived.

Kristin put on all white and carried a parasol to the picnic, and I wore the flowered dress all day and into the night and the next day Lee described it as Oklahoma chic. I don't know what the madras bikini was, but I wore it and all my jewelry and sunglasses in his little pool next to the basketball court, and when he bent down to fasten the ankle strap on my heels, he said "I do love a well-turned ankle."

I didn't know how I could get any more satisfied than I was. I filled up the memory card again, and bought Its-Its for everyone and then some, and had two coffees at Ritual and an egg sandwich for breakfast, which is, without a doubt, my favorite vacation breakfast food.

Sometimes Someone Else Is Talking To You

I didn't know what kind of shape I was in when I landed at SFO at 8:40 this morning. The sleepless night prior was a clue, I knew that. But it wasn't until after the two trips to La Boulange, the four-mile walk to Sutro baths, a coke with lime at the Cliff House, manicure/pedicure at Lavande, hours of napping, unusual dreams and then grapefruit juice and thai shrimp potstickers that I really got it.

I just needed to catch up with myself. This is what naps are for, and dreams that wake you with a perfect understanding of what you needed to hear about the world. It turns out I've spent the last few weeks doing the right things finally - apologizing in the right way, standing my ground about the right things, the right letting go, the right holding on. Not right with a capital R, just right in my way. The way that lets me feel settled in myself and quiet for a change.

There are a lot of things I don't tell you about myself. The meanings in my dreams this afternoon swirled around all that, they were about pilgrimages, leaving the house, coming back to find a note there, saying that someone had prayed for me. "I never understood the significance of that before," I told the person in the dream, taking the hand-written card from the doorsill, holding it like a gift. Some of the days I spend in this world, I am its lover, some days, its beloved. Too few find me the beloved, but today was different. I was too tired to be anything but loved. Sometimes that's a good thing.

There's Always Something

There are a lot of things to talk about with Kate. Summer things. Adventures, dresses, food. Small towns and getaways and soul searching and what to do with this one life, and of course boys and pie. But my favorite thing to talk about with her is probably writing. It's not the easiest topic to get started on, such an amorphous yet unwieldy thing. We manage though. There are nuts and bolts there, her blog and our blog. Conversations that have come up about what our writing processes reveal about our thought processes. Things like that. We get into it, and when we do, it's good.

Last night at Hazlewood, I was telling her that I haven't posted here in ages - "What are you talking about? You just posted last week!" she said. But of course, as I told her, the standard is something else for me, I want it daily, I want to keep track and record and remember. When I told her that I wrote on the blog every day when I was at the ranch, she said "Wow. What did you write about?" and truth be told, that's the exact same question I've been asking myself lately.

What is there to say, really? So many stories just don't go here - like mistakes made that hurt people, or moments of risk or vulnerability that belong to someone I love rather than to me. Those things occupy my mind a lot, how we sort through those things, or don't. I wait for a phone call, or try to make an apology, or struggle with the way something I've said has been misinterpreted, taken the wrong way, bristled at. At work, too, nearly everything belongs behind closed doors, is proprietary or confidential or personal. Those are the kinds of pursuits I'm involved in.

I think what made the daily writing at the ranch possible was that it was just me. It was all blue skies, and books, and knitting and the dogs, whose every last secret I could tell. Back here, everything is more tangled and gritty. There are disappointments, expectations. There are things to long for and things that need to get done. At the ranch, it's just the day. The long day, punctuated by a few small tasks - carrying water for the horses, feeding the dogs, myself, going to sleep late or not.

Still, as much as I struggle with how to say any of what my mind lingers on these days, there's always a way. A way into the conversation with Kate about writing, a way to sit down and actually do it. Get something out, lines on the screen, questions about things, a warm-up. A start.

What's Old Is New Again

"You're so fly you got wings!" Susan's text said, first thing in the morning. The week started well and the world supported me with more things like this every time I needed them.

At Sambar I told Kevin about the blog, how uncomfortable I get when I think about it being something for other people to read, with the way it seems a bit narcissistic in that light, same with the stories. The process of writing, I get. That makes sense to me every day, is always something I want to do. It's the getting to the end part that's hard, the idea that it's not just process but product, something to be looked at and valued, both in good ways and in bad. On what authority does it all stand? What right do I have to say something turns out this way or that, to resolve or conclude or end anything? I'm most comfortable in my stories that are almost all voice, not so much about what's happening, no decisions to make about how a character would decide this or that. How can I make up someone else's mind?

"I have to get over that" I told him, and he smiled and said "You do!"

Jane Hirshfield wrote a series of poems I love that she called "assays". The word pleased me when I first saw it in one of the titles, since I hear it nearly every day. It's used constantly in science. Here's what Merriam-Webster says assay means:

1archaic : trial , attempt2: examination and determination as to characteristics (as weight, measure, or quality)3: analysis (as of an ore or drug) to determine the presence, absence, or quantity of one or more components ; also : a test used in this analysis

Could that help? What if all the writing is just to assay? Test things out, examine, describe presence, or absence. I might be able to do that much.

Writing group on April 10th, time to turn something in and commit to working on it. Hard for me these days, but working on it.

Then It Was All Okay Again. Better Than Okay.

I wanted to call this entry "The Heartbreak of Macarons" but really, the weekend was too good for that. We made a batch of macarons that would have been heartbreaking, had it not been so funny. "Self-filling", Kathleen called them, because the tops puffed up like lumpy four-leaf clovers, and then some of the batter oozed out in a puddle around the lump, looking like ganache gone terribly wrong. We made stacks of them and Lisa photographed them for a joke, but they didn't taste nearly as bad as they looked. Her canele, on the other hand - gorgeous, and delicious. Not a thing wrong with them. For the second batch of macarons, we stuck with vanilla and maybe the egg whites were a little overbeaten, but they were still surprisingly good, and each of us left Lisa's carefully cradling the two macarons that were our share of the tiny batch. I had one for breakfast this morning, maybe the other with hot tea for dessert tonight.

I didn't mean to stay out til one both nights this weekend, but I was having too much fun not too. I was in love all weekend, satisfied with all the people I was with, then today so happy on my own for a few hours. There was nothing bad except having forgotten my camera at work, and so much good, so many things to laugh about, so much good food to eat, all the right kinds of love and attention and happiness.

It Was All a Dream

I had never filled up the memory in my camera before, never needed to edit as I went. If it had been just one night, I might not have needed to, but two nights, two days, required it. I culled photos in the middle of the party the second night, saved some memory for the vineyards the next day and was rewarded with gorgeous teary photos of green Napa in the pouring rain. Even so, I cam home with over 400 photos and still can't decide which hundred I love most, still wouldn't delete many of the final lot. That's what happens when you have a whole set you like - what makes them lovely is the way they look together - the juxtapositions forgive the lack of focus, poor light, the way someone is mid-chew, someone else is moving or blinking.

I went into the weekend thinking there should be pranks, mischief, art projects! But in the end, everything was too spectacular to need anything additional, it would have been gilding the lily. It all WAS gilding the lily - the rare bottles of wine, the lines of caviar, the pizzeria out back, the long winding driveway through the estate, the larger-than-life portrait of someone's mother, painted by Diego Rivera, the two Milton Avery pieces, the long banquet table, danced on, of course, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Prince on repeat, the way everyone's clothing had bones on it, skeletons, as though each person had made his or herself an element in a vanitas painting.

For my part, I put off the recording of it here, thinking every day that there should be something on the blog, some record beyond the photos that were lying dormant in my computer. I should tell you about the white blouse Amy wore under her leather bustier, with the high boots and the white tights adorned with leg bones all up the back, or Renee's necklace, long and elaborate, made up of charms she had collected over the years. Or I should talk about the food, the piles of cheese, the radishes with butter and salt, the plates of sashimi and baskets of tiny tangerines fresh from the orchard. And the champagne, the champagne, the champagne.

But sometimes some things are all too much to record. I knew when I went that I needed to get away, that the skeletons were emblematic, as they are in tarot, of change, and of some things passing out of my life, and something else coming in. The whole thing was too big to see at once, like the gorge you come across near Taos, invisible until you are right on it, standing at the edge trying to see the whole thing, heart stopped, with a view you could not possibly have anticipated.

What Was Not Boring Today

Some people come with gifts, like, um, hair-braiding skills, or a really good sense of direction, or the ability to make pies. Some people bring gifts, like mix CDs, or good books, or actual pieces of pie. Kate both has gifts and brings gifts. Pie-making and pies. Mail! Which is a precious gift - postcards, little thank you notes. I love mail. She also has a talent for having her photo taken, by moi, as evidenced by the photo above. I don't know how to explain why that photo is one of my favorite photos ever, but it is. I love it. I come back to it, have it as one of the rotating desktops on my computer, and am happy when it comes up.

Kate also has a talent for getting me in the kitchen, which is, of course, a weird thing. Since I don't cook at all. Though I'm considering starting. Considering. Last week Kate and I went to U bookstore (which is a whole other blog post, how much I love that place!) for a reading by this extremely charming blogger, who wrote one of those books that I like, which sort-of defies categories, it's got recipes and little vignettes, you know? Someone's life in food.

Mostly Kate gets me into the kitchen by cooking for me, and I'm thinking about that, about the people who feed me, like Kate, and Dad (mmm pork chops!) and Mom and various lovely ladies associated with my writing group. Katherine and her excellent chicken soup, dinners at Peggy's, even Tami, who claims not to cook, has fed me sweet things made by her own hand. Rice Krispy Treats totally count! Not to mention Pam, and her roast chicken and ceviche and thai shrimp and more. I'm just thinking, I'd like more of that home cooking thing, even if it means I have to do it myself.

Subterranean Mojo

Susan and I hated the Sex & the City movie. HAAAAAAATED it!! We went to a matinee, and even though the reviews had been bad, we thought, hey, high production values, crazy outfits, NYC, how bad could it be? Pretty bad, it turns out. So don't even get me started on the idea that they are going to make a sequel.

The sad part about it was that there really was something to Sex & the City, the tv show. It wasn't the stupid columns that Carrie wrote, her observations on love, or the parade of semi-cute actors who played her love interests over the years. I was kind-of over Samantha and the whole idea that there was something revolutionary in her free-wheeling sexuality, and the whole Miranda career juggling was a little cardboard cut-out for me. But I remember towards the end of the show, either the show itself, or some review I read of it, probably both, talked about how it was really a love story between the four women, and that was truly the part of it that I liked. I liked their little brunches together, and the way they cracked each other up, and sometimes they made up too easily after a spat or trouble, but still, I liked the way the four of them were always together, and the way we were with them, deep in the intimacy of their friendships.

When people see me again after a long time apart, they don't usually think to ask me how my girlfriends are. That's understandable, but too bad in a way, because few things influence my state of mind and happiness more than my girlfriends. Susan has a level of commitment to me and our friendship that no boyfriend has ever had, a willingness to hash it out and muddle through and fight if necessary and just always be there. Kristin is like this for me too, though Susan will always have seniority over every one. She's like the Senior Fellow of Friendship. I love her like a sister, and that's a lot.

So if you asked me now how I am, and you thought to ask also about my girlfriends, I'd have to tell you it's been a hard winter. I know you know this about my winter already, but a few of us have been having a rough time simultaneously, and wow, do I feel that. I haven't been the friend I'd like to be, though I'm trying. Kristin is back in the states, and that's been good, and ANTM is back on soon, so Susan and I (I hope) will get back to that silly habit we have, Tivo, good snacks, yelling at the TV and laughing at Tyra. That should be just about enough to get us through these last weeks of winter.

The End

This morning, I came across this phrase that I love - ben trovato. It means "well found" in Italian, and might be used as praise for a story. One of the things that keeps me writing is the idea that stories are not made, but found. Takes the pressure off, and makes the act of writing a sort of vehicle for faith, I think. Have I said this before?

Today was the last day of the photo project with Jason. I loved his final photo, ben trovato, don't you think? So much to look at here, the mailboxes, the idea of a message sent to a person, picking up your mail, receiving something... a letter or, more strangely, a balloon. I liked the juxtaposition of this balloon and the mail, like the balloon was a package that was delivered too late, or a package that was never picked up. Messages sent, but not received.

On Friday, we wrapped a co-workers entire desk in wedding-themed gift wrap. He had quietly taken two weeks off to get married in Hawaii, one of those guys who just isn't going to make a big deal about it, but of course we couldn't let him get away with that. I sort-of credit the photo project here though, it has added something prankish to my mood, has me looking around to see what else can be done, what other things need to be looked at differently, what projects I can take on. And of course, I'm taking recommendations.