I spoke with an old friend of mine today for over an hour while I was raking crisp, brown leaves into mounds in my itty back yard. I’ve only known this friend for a few years, but now that a year has passed since we lived in the same town, it feels as though she’s from a time before. With how quickly things change, knowing someone for more than a few years at this point grandfathers them in to the “old friend” status. She was telling me about her new job, her challenges and prospects, and then finally admitted that she’s been seeing someone- another mutual “old friend” whom I just adore. He’s sweet, funny, adventurous, an activist, handsome… just lovely, and it’s funny, because there was a time when something between he and I might have been possible. I entertained the notion, but more as just that- entertainment- than anything serious, much like I have treated almost every man I’ve dated in the last four years. Clearly I’ve done plenty of pontificating and wondering and wandering through my love life, but I still need to revisit the patterns to determine where I’ve been and what’s happening now and where I’m going. The point is, I still do not believe that ultimately this guy and I would have been compatible. But the woman I spoke today is deeply in love with him, which is wonderful, but confusing. How can she take him so seriously? But the truth is, I think it was me who was incapable of something serious, not him. I’m thrilled for both of them, and have no pangs of a missed opportunity or anything useless like that. It just has made me look myself over, again.

My friend and I also spoke of a man who is still in my life, one who has been any number of things to me over the past two years: friend, albatross, lover, confidante, boss (whoops!), annoyance, thorn in my side, heartbreaker, idiot, supporter, and back to friend, in no particular order. He really believes that the future holds something deep and meaningful between us; my friend asked if he had a chance. I’m pretty sure the answer is no. He obliterated the trust between us, not by betrayal, per say, but by being an ignoramus, and I find it next to impossible to rebuild bridges once they’ve been razed by indifference. The weird thing is, when we speak on the phone or over email, we have these incredible conversations filled with confidences and hard questions and honest answers and I feel so warmly towards him, so intimate and loving, but the few times he’s been physically in front of me in the last year, those feelings aren’t nearly as prevalent. This is familiar to me, actually- the ease of loving someone who isn’t there- but I’m not really thrilled with that disconnect.

It’s become so clear to me what I want, so specific and true and simple, really. Seems to me that the law of averages will ultimately work in my favor, if only I open the right doors.

It’s really strange to be here. Back in California, I mean, in my little cottage, in my little job. It was so incredibly surreal spending a week in Iowa with people I adore. Seriously? It made me want to move back. Everyone keeps asking me how my trip was, what was my favorite part, and I’m pretty sure my favorite part was a random hour sitting on a couch with my family or Anastasia. There was no best part, really. Well, except for maybe Kent’s pancakes. Also, I was looking at my nephew Sean Patrick’s photo albums, the ones his mom Melissa made for him, and was stunned at the loss of all pictures of my brothers and I as kids. We have some random pictures, and I’m sure Ian has a hoard of them at the farmhouse, but I don’t even know where my baby book is. One evening, though, Melissa handed me a stack of photos that were just devastating- pictures of all of us, at every awkward age, divorce pictures, London pictures, pictures even from two Christmasses ago. Pictures of my mom and dad when they were actually married. Now that’s strange to remember. It’s one thing to hold that thought in your brain, but another altogether to see them in the same frame. Bizzare.

The last couple of days at work, I’ve sat at my desk and slowly ticked off the things I had to accomplish, but after each one, I sort of looked around to try to remember what I do for a living. Nine days is a long time to be away, and what it has done is given me a whalloping slice of perspective. I don’t know what I can accomplish in this job. I don’t know what is possible, regardless of who I know, and who my dad knows, and the excitement surrounding it… there is only so much money in this valley, and that money has gone to so many other worthy causes, and I don’t know how much is left for my organization. I’m plowing ahead with programs and plans but I don’t know how many people I may disappoint. That’s hard. And I don’t want to disappoint myself.

I’ve officially lived in Napa Valley for a year, as of October 23rd. Un-forking-believeable. So much happens in a year, and I can’t believe the itch is already here. Maybe it’s because I travel so much, I spend so much time on planes and in other locales, that eventually I don’t feel satisfied wherever I call “home”. I have the sweetest abode ever, the best little cottage in the world, and still, I wonder what it would be like to move to downtown Napa so I wouldn’t have to burn so much gas every day when I drive to work. I wonder what it would be like to move back to New York. I know it’s just that I’ve been gone, and I’m haunted by every place I’ve been, but the feelings are still there. I have friends and family who root me all over the country, but that is the problem, really.

Kent and Melissa have completely changed the way they eat. It’s incredible. I know I keep on using superlatives to describe everything but they are apt. Kent has always knocked my socks off when he steps into the kitchen, when he creates these amazing concoctions on his deliciously crowded electric stove, but this time, it was all about fresh vegetables and curries and wonderment. I mean, except for the pancakes. His wok is enormous and much-loved, his knives sharp and true, and both Kent and Melissa (and Anastasia) have inspired me to do something about the way I feel about my body right now. But really, I just want to be back around everyone. My dad is in the desert, my mom is in New York, my closest brother is two hours away. I mean, clearly it could be much worse, but I’m wishing that everyone would just come home for a little while. And then tell me where home is, so I could meet everyone there.

Finally, an hour to actually write about this week… it’s been really busy, actually, and I’ve had exactly no time to myself, which has been perfectly wonderful. But now I’m back at Kent and Melissa’s house, wrapped up in a quilt and debating between a blog and a nap. I can only hope there is time for both before we all go see John Edwards speak this afternoon.

But I’m too tired to write, so instead, please enjoy this wee photoblog…

My first day here we went to pick pumpkins at the local patch…

My pumpkins are the middle one and the one on the far right. It’s the first time, probably ever, that I didn’t hide the pumpkins I’d carved, or at the very least, I’d hoped that a child’s baseball bat might put it out of its misery…

I was lucky enough to spend Lucas’ birthday with him and fam at the Brown Bottle…

and then out for a little too much tequila with my life-long best friend Stacey.

Stace and I found guildebooks for next September’s trip to Peru…

and were witness to the incredible sight of as many assembled toy soldiers as real soldiers have died in Iraq:

We also saw our former house on Forest Dr. in Cedar Rapids, where the owners cut down the best tree, paved the green grass, and fenced in the yard (and are voting poorly)…

and then another old Williams house, warm and inviting, largely unchanged (and voting wisely)

There’s much more, but time to go to the rally.

It’s awfully good news that I’m too tired to hook up my camera for shots of tonight. All that really matters is that Stace and I woke up the dogs when we stumbled home at 2 AM reeking of tequila and pizza. Oops. Those darn dogs! Why they gotta carry on so?

Stace and I are going to Peru next September. That is very good news.

I ought sleep.

If I had to go home tomorrow, I’d say that I’d had one of the best vacations of my life. But I don’t go home tomorrow… I get a whole nother week.

I took a run today through Iowa City, through real fall, complete with colorful leaves to kick and dogs to pet and college kids in sweatshirts. I got the immense pleasure of hanging with the whole Iowa Williams clan, the day before Lucas’ sweet 16th birthday. Sean Patrick had to leave early to go do his work for the Democratic party, but Kent and I wandered the Co-op and bought veggies to make a curry. Melissa found me the best coat ever at her shop. It’s so peacefully wonderful.

I spent yesterday evening with the entire family of my life-long best friend, and it was extraordinary. Her father has not changed, not even the smallest bit, since I was a kid in a sleeping bag next to my best friend on the living room floor, or cajoling for a space in front of the box fan on unbearably hot summer nights. Her father was always there, telling us stories, making us laugh. Her mother was always there, too, and I blame my desperate love of boxed mac ‘n cheese on the comfort of her mother’s table- the very same table where last night I carved a pumpkin. My best friend’s house is the only one that recalls my childhood. We moved too often, and left behind too many friendships, to call any other former house a childhood home. But her house, and her siblings, and her parents, and all the cats, and the table, and the enormous fruit tree planted the year she was born all stand as reminders, as desperately needed proof that I indeed did have a childhood, no matter how short. Last night her mom asked if it was strange to be there; I told her truthfully that it was not. There was nothing strange about it. That house is still a home to me, and I’m stupid with thankfulness that it still exists, and that I will always be welcome there.

Usually I am a terrible pumpkin carver, but as soon as I get my hands on Stacey’s camera, I shall prove that just this once, I done good.

Harvest may be ending, but the fires and the heat are making the valley feel like the dead of summer in Los Angeles. For the first time in years, I drove home through a dirt yellow sunset, through horrible smoky air quality. It wasn’t like the riots of 1991 when the smoke was so thick I couldn’t see the other cars in the parking lot, but it was pretty darn ugly, stinky, and funky. The crap in the air was palpable, slimy. The fire burns still, and word is that it was intentionally set. What forking idiot would do such a thing.

I just finished watching the debate, and I’m afraid for my gastrointestinal health (and not because of the Taco Bell 7-layer burrito that was dinner). I almost can’t bear it any longer. I have this gut-wrenching fear in more than one facet of my life, and it’s getting to be a bit much. I have about the same chances of success in my job that Kerry has in being elected and it’s almost too much faith to keep right now. My job is much less important than the Presidency, but still, it’s my job, and it keeps me in knots. My boss sat me down today to take a hard look at what is possible in our current project. Can my organization afford to pay me what I’m worth? Not bloody likely. Are our chances of success extremely high? Absolutely not. Do I want to do it anyway? Well… yes. I believe I can do great things in this position. I don’t know if the community or the environment will allow for success, but by god, I could be the one to make it all happen. I could CHANGE something, I could actually have a positive effect on something larger than myself. And I love going to work every day. Give me another six months and I think I could truly make a difference. But… but… how do I balance that with my constant struggle for financial security? When will I have to stop begging and borrowing just to keep my car out of the shop? When does the balance become unreasonable? Will I ever love a job like this again? And the thing is, I’m good at it. I could work the rest of my life in this field. I found it, the thing that eluded me for my entire adulthood, and now I have to decide between continuing this work and being paid a living wage? It’s not entirely fair. But if I could stick with this, at least for another six months, maybe a year, it would position me to do even more, further me in this particular world. Ugh.

Did I mention that the post office lost one of my grant requests? Can I tell you how much that sucks?

Sometimes I think back to coming home to my studio apartment in Brooklyn, and what it felt like to be me in that last year. How incredibly alone I felt. I feel different in this life, and I think my job has a lot to do with that. Well, and the extra pounds of chub keep me warm at night, but I can’t really count that as a positive.

I’m not usually one to get out of bed at 8:30 AM on a Sunday, but you wouldn’t believe the day. We were promised cool weather, even showers, but instead it is perfect. I can’t really describe it beyond that. My writing studio has windows on two walls, one open to a wall of honeysuckle, the other to the trees of my driveway, and as I sit and read the news the cyclist of the valley occasionally parade by on the road about a hundred feet away. Mornings like this absolutely fill me with longing but also sort of with hope. Particularly when the coffee is ready…

Ahh. I’m thinking that my love of fall is really just a love of mornings. During fall, the cool of the morning, the sparseness of the light, is around all day. The colors of the slanted morning sun are translated, in autumn, to enduring reds and golds and yellows. And maybe that is what is so spectacular about the beginning of fall- cool mornings and the hint of what the days will be in just a few weeks. I can’t say I’m ready for the winter rains, but days like this, I’ll take. And maybe, just maybe, if I didn’t have a regular job, I wouldn’t treasure this moment so deeply. Maybe if there wasn’t somewhere I’m supposed to be for many hours of the week, I would have just stayed in bed and slept until the morning was gone. Instead, the from the windows is blowing gently on my coffee. This morning makes me think of the house upstate a mile or two from Ian and Tessa’s farmhouse, the white house with black shutters and a sun room and big, plush chairs visible from the street. I want to buy that house someday. I want to live in it and send my rug rats to go play with their cousins at the farmhouse.

I wish that the sun would stop climbing, just for a few hours.

I dreamt last night of my trip to Iowa. I leave this coming Friday, and I’ll be in Iowa and then Chicago for nine days. Nine glorious days. When I told my co-workers about this vacation, they stared at me blankly. One said, “Uh, is Iowa really the best use of your vacation time?” Oh, yes. But in my dream, I was doing something wrong. I can’t place it now, and I know that it was another case of dream transference- I often take safe events and people and then transfer ugly events and people into those situations rather than directly dreaming about the ugly stuff. But I was doing something shameful or disrespectful, and even though I can’t remember what, the feeling lingers. I’ve done plenty of stupid stuff over the last couple of years (hell, my whole life, but I can only count backwards so far), but probably the ugliest thing I’ve done lately is a series of blogs just over a year ago now. I couldn’t really see it at the time; actually, I couldn’t see anything. I was just in pain and the only thing that made me feel better was pouring poison onto the internet. Honestly, though, it didn’t make me feel better. I think it perpetuated the pain rather than assuaging it. The shitty thing is, it was a relatively sustained outpouring, for like a month or so, and I can’t take it back. I can’t believe some of the things I felt, and I hate that I made them public. Ian and I were talking the other day, and I made some comment about being thankful that I wasn’t big on being vindictive, and he made an immediate reference to these blogs, and it socked me in the stomach. It’s been a year, and yet, in the immortal words of Harry’s Sally, “It’s out there”. Nothing to be done about it, except for to do better next time. Small consolation, though. I’m not ashamed of the pain I felt, not even ashamed of the anger; I just wish I hadn’t acted in a way that was ugly enough to still come back to haunt me.

But the day calls. If you, dear reader, have not visited this glorious part of the country, this Northern California coastal/wine country world, I suggest you do so immediately. It will cure all that ails. And… better yet… it’s almost Halloween. I’d like to dress up as a thin person. Does anyone have a thin person suit?

I just had the unique experience of checking my work email after 7 PM and having no new messages. Huzzah!

I am featured on the home page of my employing company this month. I loathe the picture, but I loathe the mirror these days so there is little to be done about it. When I was little, I used to keep my mouth closed when I smiled because my teeth were so crooked, and because my brothers teased me mercilessly about the little flap of gum between my two crookedest teeth. My enormously large mouth and ridiculous teeth have had full revenge on me as an adult, however, brandishing their terror on unsuspecting digital images everywhere. Basically, I look, well, “special”.

Anyhoodle. Life rolls on. My recent affair, so quickly begun, is less appealing to me as I get to know New Guy. He’s totally sweet, and not too crazy, but we are in very different places in our lives. I had more in common with the 23-year-old baker than I do with this 28-year-old, even though he is a truly upstanding guy. I think we’re on the same page on this, which is good, because we will run into each other constantly in our lines of work. He’s been yet another reminder of what I want in my life, without being the end-all be-all himself. It’s good stuff, this practice of being a normal person in an potentially normal relationship.

I really miss my brothers. Ian and Tessa weren’t here nearly long enough, and Steve only arrives randomly, and Sean and Jordi are so far away. The good news is I get to see Kent et family very, very soon, but I don’t know when all of us are going to be in the same room again and that makes me sad.

It is a morning so glorious I’m not sure what to do with myself. Ian and Tessa are sleeping about five miles away, I’ve got a new lover in my life, my cat is healing, I got the furniture I’ve been waiting for for months, it is sunny and cool, Kerry made me proud on Thursday, and I’ve relegated job stress to Monday through Friday. Got to go refill my coffee.

Ahh, better. Tessa just called from the coffee shop where I spent all of last fall working on a novel that promptly died a peaceful death. I guess I should have known that she would have been up long ago, but at least Ian is still sleeping.

So, yes. I’ve started seeing another younger man, but this one is at least a little closer to my age, and a musician, and a truly sweet guy. Jon asked, “How is he crazy? Do you know yet?” because that is our experience here in the dating world: you meet someone with potential and quite soon find out that they are a conspiracy theorist or think all crimes should be punishable by the death penalty or some other weirdness that makes them unacceptable to friends and family. My new guy is certainly a little strange, but in a lovely way. I’m wondering how it will develop. When I first started seeing the baker, I was determined that it was only fun and silly and that love of any kind was not in the future. Strong feelings developed without me even realizing it, but clearly not strong enough to withstand differences and distance. Right now, I’m not sure that strong feelings are the direction I’m going with this new guy, but that is rather good, really. Where once I pounced on hope and created entire life fantasies if I had a great weekend with someone, I now understand how unsure these things really are. I really enjoy my time with New Guy- he is so incredibly sweet and fun and he swing-dances like a madman. It’s all-around good news.

Speaking of good news, last weekend I hosted a birthday party for my dear friend Elizabeth. Not unlike summer as birthday season for my siblings, fall is when all but one of my friends was born. It’s been one after another. I’ve never had a tighter group of friends, who I love so dearly, in my life, and I’m so thankful that I get the opportunity to celebrate them.

But to get a true idea of the grace and wonderment of my friend Elizabeth, let’s take a little trip back to Jon’s party a few weeks ago.

Isis in all her glory…

Medusa looking awfully friendly…

Isis in a tribal circle with the other goddesses…

Let’s be honest. I am simply ridiculous.

And now, the beginning of Elizabeth’s party, guest starring my brother Steve!!!

And finally, why Jon and Matt will never be able to run for public office