Landscape

This last weekend was beautiful, the weather so warm and perfect. Even on the coast, it was warm in a way that it rarely is here in Northern California, a heat so perfect that even the cold of the water couldn't quench it. Driving to work, the hills are hazed in a mist gently glowing from the rising sun. What could be better than fall in California?

KIT

One of the bizarre things about Facebook is that suddenly everyone wants to be your friend. Even people I don't know from Adam have been trying to friend me. Usually I reject these friend requests. But lately they've been coming from people who claim to have gone to high school with me. Some of them I remember, some of them I don't. Some of them are people who I recognize but who I'm sure I've never spoken to in my life. Usually I feel bad about rejecting these requests - we did, after all, go to high school together. Why are all these people suddenly feeling so nostalgic? Is it because we're hurtling toward thirty?

One Year

It's been over a year since I left my old firm, over a year since I started seriously trying to write. It's been over a month since I started the new job at this new firm. And it's been almost three months since my niece was born. These are the benchmarks of my life. Where has the time gone? Sometimes it feels like I never left the practice of law, and then, other times, I look around me and wonder what I'm doing, in this office, and what happened to the days when life was lived inside my head.

I don't have much time to write these days. Well, that's not strictly true. I do have time, but creative is the last thing I feel when I get home from work. Most days I feel like my brain isn't functioning properly and I worry that I'm going senile or something, before the age of thirty. It's possible, isn't it?

It's been a weird month. We've got a lot of friends in SD and LA, and it's been worrying, with the fires and everything. Four years since the last bad fires, six years since 9/11, all the heartbreaks and nightmares.

Life of the Mind

It's a common saying that it isn't a good thing to live too much inside one's own head. But why? Are most people really that prone to depressive thinking, that to be inside their own heads too much is so bad? Aren't there any happy people out there, who will continue to be happy even if inside their own heads all the time?

It's another common saying that crazy people don't see reality the way other people do. Maybe this is why so many writers end up committing suicide or otherwise dying young. What is being a writer but creating reality, seeing things differently from other people? Is hearing and speaking and living with your characters day in and day out really any different from "hearing voices"? I guess in the former, you are aware that they're not real. But how distinct is the line?

I was reading an article in an issue of the New Yorker from a couple of weeks ago, about neuroscience and research into so-called vegetables. In one part of the article, it discussed people with a certain condition, who are not aware that they see or hear something, but react to the stimulus nevertheless. For example, they are shown two pictures, one of a burning house, and one of a nice, normal house. They are not aware of what they are seeing, don't know that they're seeing anything, because some wire in their brains got crossed somehow. But when asked which picture they preferred, they almost always pick the one with the normal house.

It made me wonder if there isn't some level of "vision" out there that "normal" people haven't achieved, that we are, all of us, deficient and missing a piece of the picture. And yet we feel its presence. Maybe God lives out there. We don't know we're seeing Him, but, for the most part, we choose to live in the house where He is.

And maybe it's like being a writer, an artist. Maybe there's something out there we don't see, but somehow, it makes its way into our subconscious. And it guides us.

Squeaky clean

Today I came home and the house was sparkly clean. There was no dust anywhere. The carpets had been vacuumed, the mirrors polished, the tub scrubbed. It was the best ninety dollars I've spent in a long time. I finally caved in to the arguments of my husband and in-laws, who kept telling me that it wasn't worth what little free time I have to be cleaning. And frankly, I could not have done as good a job as these gals did. It's funny what a difference it made to my mood. I haven't been well lately: still have the shingles, and a cough I can't shake, a difficult week at work, difficulties in my personal life. I've been really down, in fact. But the clean house put a smile on my face. The first one all week.

Pain Tolerance

I have a pretty high level of pain tolerance when it comes to physical pain. I started my job while suffering from shingles (which I've still got), I got my wisdom teeth pulled without any anesthesia, I routinely dislocate my shoulder and pop it back in on my own.

But I've got a very low pain tolerance when it comes to emotional pain. I get my feelings hurt pretty easily. When someone hurts me, sometimes it hurts so bad that I'm literally incapacitated. Sometimes it hurts so bad I would almost rather die, even though I know I don't really want to.

My tolerance for emotional pain is so low that there is nowhere I feel safe. Unconditional love...do I really believe in it, outside of the context of God's love? A friend of mine once got incredibly angry with me for saying that I didn't, but then, he didn't believe in God. Didn't believe in God, yet somehow believed that human beings were capable of unconditional love. Maybe it's the Chicago-trained economist in me: people act out of their own self-interest. People love you as long as you're useful. If you can't come to terms with that, it's only going to open up more vistas of pain in the end.

Old hand

Already halfway through my third week in the new job, the new life. Hard to believe it; it feels like just yesterday I was walking in those doors for the first time, wondering what I'd gotten myself into. But it hasn't been so bad, so far. I've been busy, the hours have been long, but I've been interested in what I've been doing. My brain feels like it's been getting a workout. It's not where I thought I'd be a year ago, six months ago, but I guess I'd have to say that I'm glad I'm here. At least for now, it feels like it's where I need to be.

The other side

Got a taste of how the other side lives last Friday. The husband's employer threw a party. Sent a town car to drive us around for the night so we didn't have to worry about drinking and driving. Limousine, Dom, the works.

Solidarity

Driving home last night, we saw a group of Asian men walking down a busy street. They were bespectacled and anxious-looking, older than me but not old. They were carrying backpacks, and were probably tourists or foreign graduate students. I had such a strong urge to get out of the car and help them. I don't think I would have felt this way had they been of any other race.

I feel the same way when I see little old Asian women crossing busy streets. It breaks my heart.

I'm still alive

I survived week 1 of being back at a law firm. Actually, it wasn't too bad. I've been busy, but not painfully so. Good busy. And the people are nice. It already seems like a more relaxed environment than at my old firm. The infrastructure isn't nearly as good, but what are you going to do.

It's a beautiful Saturday here, but I'm heading into the office for a little bit. Would've liked to have gone surfing this weekend and last, but I've developed, of all things, a case of shingles. Yes, shingles. It's caused by the chicken pox virus, which lives in your system forever once you've had a case of chicken pox. Usually, though, it only reactivates in old people or people with otherwise compromised immune systems. I think maybe I was more stressed about starting the new job than my conscious mind was aware.

Anyhow, it's not life-threatening or even particularly debilitating, although it is painful. Feels like I've ripped a bunch of muscles in my right side. But it's getting better. Today it feels more like someone kicked me hard a couple of times in the ribs. This by itself wouldn't stop me from surfing (I've had worse injuries), but the compromised immune system thing scares me - there are a lot of nasty bugs in the water, and if my immune system isn't up to the task right now, then I'm not going to push it. After all, I have a job to do.

Quenched

First rain of the fall. Thunder and lightning last night, too, which you don't usually get in California. I'm happy. The garden has really needed this.

Elder Brother

The parable of the elder brother never used to make sense to me. Trying to put myself in his shoes, I would try to imagine how I would feel if my younger brother or sister had returned after a long absence. I always thought I would feel more like the father - ecstatic, ready to kill the fatted calf and throw a big party. I'm very close to my brother and sister.

Of course, I was reading the parable far too literally and giving myself much too much credit for being a better person than I really am. I've realized lately just how much of the elder brother I can be.

I know a woman who has lived a rather immoral life. She's committed adultery, lied, cheated, stolen. And probably done some other questionable things. But now she goes to church, and, as far as I know, has repudiated her old ways. (At least, if not exactly remorseful, she no longer does those things.) She is remarried, has a baby, and is a stay-at-home mom.

I can't stand her and it's taken me the longest time to figure out why. She's pleasant enough. I see rather a lot of her, and, although we have very little in common, that has never prevented me from being friends with someone.

It's taken me a while to realize that what I feel towards her must be how the elder brother felt towards the younger brother when he returned. It feels something like jealousy, although it's not quite jealousy. I don't envy her peaceful life or anything in it - my own life is far too filled with blessings for me to ever envy anyone else's life. But I have to admit that I feel like it's unfair for someone who has sinned so much and so willingly to have arrived at a place so close to where I am.

Ugly, isn't it? Realizing that this is at the root of my dislike of her, I am so ashamed of myself. I haven't deserved the many blessings God has given me, either, and yet, there must be some part of me that feels like I somehow do. Like I have somehow earned what I have. But I know better than that, I do. I only hope that, now that I've gotten to the root of my own sinful thoughts towards this woman, God will help me to change.

Sea change

It was ninety-plus degrees when we left home, summer in full tilt. What a difference only a few weeks can make. We've come home to fall. A mild, beautiful, sunny, seventy-degree fall, but fall nevertheless. The maple leaves have begun to turn. Our garden is full of reds and browns and oranges. The tomato vines have begun their slow demise.

It's a change of seasons in our lives as well. I go back to work next week. Sometimes the thought scares me. Others, I just want to get it over with. How bad can it be? I've survived it once before.

Fall. It makes me nostalgic, and dreamy, and a little bit sad.

Home Sweet Home

I've been away for awhile, visiting friends, exploring new cities. It's been fun, particularly catching up with all the people we've been missing. Sometimes it's a nice surprise, getting together with an old friend after a long separation - you realize all over again all the reasons why you're friends with this person in the first place. I've been blessed to know some good people, good friends.

Still, I have to say that there's nothing like being home. Particularly now that we have a real home to come home to.

I luv NY

After only three days, we've basically covered the entire island of Manhattan. On foot, no less. (I have the blisters to prove it.) And we're having a phenomenal time. We just got back from Spamalot, which was hysterical. The husband had five hot dogs today, from Gray's Papaya and Papaya Dog, so he's a happy camper. Me, too. (Meaning, I'm also a happy camper, not that I ate five hot dogs. Please.) Both Fashion Week and the U.S. Open are taking place here right now. Fashion and tennis, two of my favorite things in the world.

Having done so much already, it's hard to believe there's more left to come. Opera and jazz and Peter Luger's and hopefully Rent.... We spent a day at the Met, and there are still the Whitney and the Guggenheim and MOMA...and on and on and on. Diehard Californians though we are, I have to admit we've been looking at each other a lot the last three days and saying, "I could live here." Not forever, of course. Probably not even for very long, since there's no real surfing out here. But for a little while. Much as I love California, I have to admit that none of its cities match this one. I'd go so far as to say that there isn't a city in the world that matches this one.

The lies we tell ourselves

I've recently realized that one of the things I prize in a friend is introspection, a sort of self-honesty. It's a trait that my best friends all share. As for myself, I aspire to be honest with and about myself - that is in large part the purpose of this blog. Not to expose things that should appropriately be private, but to force myself to be candid with the few friends I've entrusted with this url.

I have to think about why this is so important to me. I mean, the easy answer is that I think there is an inherent value to honesty, but that is too glib a statement to be the whole answer.

I think a lot of it goes to 2 Corinthians 12:9. "And He has said to me, 'My grace is suffcient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me."

I made a comment about my cynicism to my lunch companion of the day before yesterday and she laughed. She said that I look way too nice and sweet to be a cynical person; that someone with my angelic demeanor could stab someone in the back and the person stabbed would never believe that it had happened, would rather deny that there was a knife in his back at all. And this, I think, is why I feel like it is so important for me to be honest. Because I know that I can pass myself off as a better person than I am, at least to other people. But I am a sinner and I sin against God in so many ways, every single day of my life. I can be jealous, and covetous, and petty. I harbor grudges and withhold forgiveness. I am impatient and prideful, sometimes to the point of arrogance. I can be a bully.

And yet He loves me. He has filled my life with blessings beyond anything I could ever deserve on my own merit. What He has done for me is not good things done for a good person, but the overwhelming and incredible love of a perfect God for His deeply flawed creation. Love so deep and incomprehensible that He died - a hideous, slow death - in order to save me from my sins. Denying those sins is denying the depth and awesomeness of His love. And that, I think, is why honesty matters.

Isn't she the cutest?

Recommended

Allison Pearson's book, I Don't Know How She Does It, is absolutely fantastic. Practically every word I read makes me go, "That's it, that's it exactly." It feels like relief, this sense that someone out there understands.

Surf Report

Sign of a NorCal surfer: hands, face, and neck are several shades darker than any other part of the body. It's a weird look.

Today's surf was not good, although the water was warmer than usual and the sun was shining, which is oftentimes a rarity on Northern California shores. I kept getting tangled up in kelp. Also, kelp in the murky water would tickle my legs and feet, which freaked me out. And then I was nearly divebombed by a pelican. On the plus side, there were some sea otters in the water.

Of maybe twenty surfers in the water today, I was the only woman, except for this fifty-plus-year-old who was ultra aggressive. I find that male surfers, relative to female surfers, fall in two categories: (1) the nice ones, who either treat you the same as they treat anyone else (i.e., other male surfers) or are gentlemanly and let you have the wave if you haven't gotten one in a while; and (2) the assholes, who think that because you're a woman, they can get away with stealing waves from you. I have to say that I don't run into that many Category 2's, but I did today. It is not unknown for male surfers to get into fistfights over drop-ins, but was I really going to punch someone for stealing my wave? Yes, yes, I suppose one could always employ one's "feminine wiles" in lieu of brute force, but honestly, the Category 2's are the guys who would think that because you're pretty, you must not know what you're doing, which in turn justifies their stealing waves from you.

This is sometimes true in life as well as in surfing: I once went with a paralegal to visit a German client, whom I had never met before. When we were introduced, he looked surprised and said, "You're the lawyer? You're too..." And then he turned red and cut himself off. When he excused himself to take a phone call, the paralegal burst out laughing. She said, "He was totally going to say that you're too pretty to be a lawyer, but you could see him wondering whether he's allowed to say that in the U.S." I have also had people advise me that, if I'm not getting what I want out of a witness, I should try flirting. But I would rather do things the way a man would do them. Maybe this is my own limited perspective, that I think the "male" way of doing things is the only correct way? I guess I don't think of it as male, but as androgynous. I would like, at least where work is concerned, to be considered androgynous.

Sometimes I think that the only way to really be respected is to be so big that you at least look like you can pound anyone who gets in your way.

Reflections

I saw my reflection in a store window today. My hair is so sun-damaged that parts of it look almost blond in the sun. This is unacceptable. You can put sunblock on your skin; what can you put on your hair to keep this from happening? I always envy the Asian girls I see whose hair is so dark and black and shiny. It's a pride thing, I guess; an identity thing, although even I don't really understand what I mean by that. Twenty-first Century already, globalization, yada yada yada, and yet it's still so hard to put my finger on what it means to be both Asian and American. Honestly? I feel more American than Asian. I love this country as much as any gun-toting, red-state-dwelling, Budweiser-chugging white man (or woman). Probably even more than some, because I know what the alternatives might have been for me. I don't take it for granted. But I don't want to forget where I come from either.

Not, I suppose, that there is any real danger of that, because people will always react to how you look, not how you feel. And I look pretty Asian. (Blond hairs aside.)

It's worth stopping to think how much of your identity is premised on your appearance. We watched Alejandro Amenábar's Open Your Eyes last night, about a man whose life falls apart after a disfiguring car accident. My husband couldn't get over how sympathetic I felt toward the main character (who pre-car accident did a lot of unsympathetic things that I would normally have been outraged by). But I guess there was part of me that really knew where he was coming from.

Transforming

Listening (aptly?) to Iron & Wine's 16, Maybe Less.

I thought we'd gotten rid of our boxes but it turns out my husband had a few more, which my mother-in-law sent over the other day. It was amusing to read through what was in them: he was apparently quite the Casanova in his day, judging from the quantity of girls writing to him and the content of their writings. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised: at our high school reunion, a girl that neither of us remembered came up to him and confessed that she'd had a crush on him all four years. And I know that several of my friends had had such crushes on him as well.

I say that it was amusing to read through these boxes, but it was also kind of sad, the longing and pain that came through those notes, juvenile as they seem now: strangely, I well remember the pathos and all-out desperation of those high school years. For me, at least, it was a time when my sensitivities and emotions were heightening, after the slumber of childhood, but my maturity had not yet grown to match. I can't remember much of high school now, but I seem to remember that I spent most of that time very miserable. I had a parents'-worst-nightmare boyfriend (drugs, gangs, the works), my beloved dog developed stomach cancer and had to be put to sleep, one of my best friends deserted me over issues so petty it's embarrassing to remember - all in all, high school was not a good time for me.

But even though I don't remember it well, it doesn't always feel like that long ago. Maybe it was because I was reading through my husband's yearbooks, and those brought back some of the memories. We are, both of us, so different now. I have a hard time recognizing myself from back then. I think law school was really a transformative experience. Or maybe it's just the changes that come with age. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it helps, when you're afraid of where you're heading, to look back and see how far you've come.

Breathe

Why does sadness blur into the desperation of the hunted, and both translate into difficulty breathing?

Love actually

I love lots of people - my husband, family, certain friends - but loving people is like having lots of nerve endings exposed to the world. When someone hurts someone I love, it hurts me so much I sometimes think I'll go crazy - I can't sleep, staying up plotting vengeance or crying with rage and frustration and pain. Wrong me and I may forgive you some day. Wrong someone I love and you've earned my undying enmity and a voodoo doll with your name on it. My husband, taking a line from Toni Morrison, often tells me my "love is too thick." It is, to the point of sinfulness. It may be my greatest sin: my inability to forgive and love my enemies. "But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. . . . And if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them." Luke 6:27, 32.

There's hate and bitterness and vengeance in my heart, even though I know it hurts God more than I am hurt to see me reacting this way.

Jesus has asked one thing only of me: that I feed His sheep. And I can't do it. Not if that sheep is someone who has wronged someone I love. I love Jesus. I want to obey Him in the one thing He's asked of me. And I just can't do it.

Autumn coming

School's in session again, at least in the school district in which my mother-in-law works. I can't believe that summer is nearly over. And 2007 draws to a close. Why do I lose track of time the way that I do? Seems like just yesterday that I was shivering in my under-insulated apartment, waiting for warm days, tank-top weather, and now here it is fall again. Good thing I love fall. Pumpkins and colored leaves and jacket weather, long walks with just a nip in the air. Hot cider, cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves, all those pungent spices. Sitting in front of the fireplace, watching the flames. It's not quite the same in California as it was in the Midwest, although it's not true that we don't have seasons. The leaves change color here, too. I think the difference is that people here don't appreciate it as much. In the Midwest, fall is a reprieve, a welcome transition between summer and the harshness of winter. Here, fall and winter blur together a little more; at least, we don't dread winter as much.

I woke up literally shaking in the middle of the night last night, after a particularly vivid and horrible nightmare. Transitions have always been hard on me, I think. I live too much inside my own head. Slowly learning to put one foot in front of the other again. Things always seem more poignant after a bout of depression; everything just a little more beautiful, in the terrible sense of "nothing gold can stay."

Summer days running by

Dinner with a bunch of friends last night, many of whom I haven't seen in a year or more. It was really nice. I'm starting to feel more at peace, with the job, with life in general. I'm so used to thinking of myself as a misanthrope that I underestimate how important it is to have people around you who care about you. I came away from dinner feeling encouraged.

Plus, the weather is just so beautiful, the days still long and lazy, it's hard to be depressed. I do have bad days, bad nights, but I'm getting them under control. It's easier to get out of bed in the mornings; I no longer feel the need to sleep away my days. I've been more productive: took care of paperwork for the new job, put in a drip system for the garden, spent time shopping for friends and friends' babies. Mercenary as it sounds, the best thing about the job is anticipating the paycheck: I love giving gifts, and it's nice to be able to do it without worrying about the bills. Although maybe I'm anticipating the paycheck a little too much, seeing as how I won't actually receive one for another month yet.

My Niece

Baby baby baby

I was the first one at the hospital to visit my sister-in-law yesterday, by like two hours. The tired parents, recognizing that they have many, many days ahead in which to hold their baby, were happy enough to relinquish her for a time. So I got to hold her until everyone else showed up. She is such a darling baby. Eight pounds, five ounces, 21 and 1/2 inches. The cutest hands and feet. Light brown hair, blue eyes (although both may change as she gets older). I already love being an aunt. My parents-in-law, who have been anxiously awaiting a grandchild for practically the last decade, looked so happy yesterday, it was heartwarming. We all took turns having our picture taken with her. I would be afraid that she was going to be spoiled if it weren't clear that she is a little angel.

New Life

On repeat today: Kanye West's Can't Tell Me Nothin'. The man is gifted.

In other, happier news: my sister-in-law finally had her baby! We were at the hospital until late last night; she was in labor for fifteen hours, but both she and her baby girl are doing well! It was really something to stand at the nursery window and watch the newborns. We're so excited to welcome the newest addition to the family.

Nervous Nelly

Now that I've actually accepted an offer and turned down another one, I feel locked in and way too nervous. I've been running around trying to take care of everything before I start working again. It's like getting your affairs in order before dying, and it feels the same way. I don't expect to see much of my family or friends, or my home, in coming days.

At the same time, my body is reacting strangely, like it's shutting itself down - it's harder and harder for me to get out of bed in the mornings, and often, I go all day without eating or drinking and feel no hunger or thirst. Maybe it's not that my body is shutting down, but that my mind has become disconnected from my body.

I went to get a haircut yesterday - I figured it was less sick than other forms of cutting, and might be similarly therapeutic. Unfortunately, the stylist was nervous, as many of them usually are when confronted with a request for drastic change. My hair has grown quite long since I cut and donated it last year. I asked her to cut it short again, but she wouldn't. So now it's layered, but otherwise looks the same. Disappointing. She also admired my highlights and asked who had done the coloring. I had to tell her that it was my natural mutt-colored hair, a remnant from long-forgotten Portuguese or Dutch ancestors, enhanced by UV radiation, salt water, and chlorine.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

You lose yourself quickly in trying to be all things to all people, or even many things to many people. You start to forget what matters to you, trying to keep the people around you happy, even if they're not people who you particularly like. Or maybe you actively dislike them, but still, something in you compels you to accommodate, to twist yourself into shapes unrecognizable to you yourself, so that they will like you. And eventually, the contours of your personality are gone. You can no longer ask yourself what you want, because it's like speaking into a void. You don't know what you want, or even how to want, beyond a desperate grasping at transient affection. Life goes on, but what kind of life?

My junior year of college, my roommate starred in a play and I went to see her perform. It was a fairly forgettable production, but there was one scene I often recall. She was stretched out on her stomach on the ground, head up, arm out, reaching. "Love me," she wailed. "Love me."

Love me. And yet, when people do, often it makes me resent them. I feel like they love the me they want me to be, the me they think I am, when really they know nothing about me at all. How could they, when I know so little about myself? I feel like their love has cost me too much. What I need is not love, but someone to show me myself.

Long Days Coming

I'm "going back" to work. For a whole lot of reasons, it makes sense for me to do it right now. I recently met with a fairly successful published writer, who encouraged me not to think of the world in bipolar terms: it's not about writing versus selling out, but working a "day" job to fund your writing. Most novelists, even good ones, cannot make a living writing, or so he says. All of this makes sense to me, and my practical side accepts that this is the right thing to do, but there's a part of me that can't help feeling like I am selling out again, like I am giving up on myself somehow. There's a part of me that can't help feeling like the worst kind of failure - the kind that fails because they haven't the courage to do what it takes. I look at the people I know who have been successful doing what they love, and I wonder if my lack of success is a result of lack of talent, or lack of discipline, or lack of willingness to sacrifice.

I wish I was a simpler person. Meaning that I had one love, one goal, and less introspection. I think I would be a happier person, or at least, that I would feel less torn and tormented all the time.

Well. There's nothing for it but to cry my cry, dry my tears, grit my teeth and go forward.

Uprising

To break someone, you administer sharp and unexpected punishment over an extended period of time, so that he never knows when the next blow will fall, or why. Cruelty comes in many forms, only some of them physical.

But sometimes, people don't react the way you expect. Sometimes, they break, but not the way you wanted them to: they snap. They rise up. They find their pride again, and their voice. I am human. Whatever you may say, whatever you may do to me, I know I don't deserve this. I will be free.

Beat down

Flipping through a magazine at the dentist's office, I saw pictures of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck trying (and seemingly failing) to learn to surf in whatever vacation spot it was that they were in. Only, I'm not sure what it was they were trying to learn to surf. A ripple? It was a tiny, barely discernible swell in the water. Whatever it was, it wasn't a wave. A wave is a wall of water that comes at you at 15-40 mph. Waves are what we have here in NorCal.

Going out today, at first the waves looked all right and not too menacing. Trying to get outside, though, I found that the shorebreak was nothing to sneeze at. The waves weren't big, but they were breaking with a surprising amount of force.

Part of the problem was that I was just afraid (albeit without good reason today), and you can't surf scared. When you're scared, you'll pull back just as you should be pushing forward and miss the wave. Or you won't be paddling hard enough to get out before the wave crushes you. Or you'll stand in the worst possible position, letting the shorebreak hit you again and again, wondering if today is the day you're going to get concussed again.

In round 2053 of ocean vs. me, the ocean wins, yet again.

Lapse

People who are frozen in your memory never seem the same when you see them again. The lapse in time makes the changes obvious; often, they are changes for the worse.

Sisterhood

Cleaning around the house today in preparation for houseguests arriving tomorrow, I found an amulet, made out of clay and painted green, strung on black yarn. It's a strange-looking thing. For luck, he had said when he gave it to me. It surprised and saddened me that I have forgotten him for this long.

The eldest child, I always wanted an older brother or sister. Someone to whom I could abdicate responsibility. Someone who would hold my hand during tough times, take my side, get my back, defend and advise me.

We met through a mutual friend, an artist, because he was an artist too. One of the first things he did for me was paint me a watercolor. A girl, crying in a dark room. I don't know where it's gone.

He was the person I called when my drugged-out boyfriend (at the time) didn't recognize me, was hospitalized, was abusive. The person I called when I was too embarrassed or ashamed to call anyone else. The person who got angry on my behalf, who cared about little things no one else wanted to hear about, who drove four hours to see me for five minutes, to give me a little green amulet, for luck.

Like many little sisters, I suppose, I took all of this for granted. And I went away to school, and got busy, and lost touch. Lost the watercolor, and even many of the memories. But I still have the amulet.

Partying like a rock star

Vegas was great. It took me two days to recover. I must be getting old. I think I got more sleep last night than I did the entire weekend. We stayed at the Venetian; they'd done a nice job re-creating a little bit of Venice. I think our favorites were the Venetian, Bellagio, Caesar's Palace, and the Wynn. Saw some pro-basketball players at the Wynn. They were both taller and skinnier than I'd expected. There were also a lot of model-types, many women with abs I can only dream of. Oh well.

In other news, we're really excited that some of our friends will be moving from Chicago to the Bay Area. They're coming to stay with us tomorrow, and bringing their new baby!

No rain

1.

It's cloudy, gloomy, and that feels strange. After months of sunshine and perfect weather, I'd forgotten what an overcast day looks like. I wish it would rain, but nobody's calling for it.

I remember you coming into my room, hesitantly, to tell me what you had heard. Telling it as a story, rather than asking me, because you knew you had no right to ask. No right to be upset, but I could tell that you were.

What I don't remember is what I said, how I responded. Did I laugh? Get angry? Deny everything? The end of this story is a blank, the look on your face is a blank; what I remember is the hesitancy in your voice, because that was what calmed me. That you knew that you had no right.

2.

You had cut your hair and I didn't recognize you at first. Even your smile looked different. We went to a restaurant and I told you I was getting married. Both of us smiled widely, wildly, my cheekbones aching with the strain.

3.

I'm sorry I never showed up. I'm sorry I lied to you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

First Step

Mondays, Wednesdays, Saturdays are lap swim days. Tuesdays and Thursdays are Pilates. Weekends will be for surfing. Ah, the life of a writer. Especially one who's FINISHED A DRAFT OF HER NOVEL. People have been congratulating me, and I've been saying it's too early for that, but I have to admit that it does feel like an accomplishment.

Vegas, baby, Vegas

It's a big birthday for the husband this year, so we're partying in Vegas! Can't wait.

A rose

My middle name is the one that friends and family use, but my first name appears on all legal and formal documents. It gets confusing, fast. And, since I've been married, there's also the confusion as to which last name I'm going to use. Officially, it's my maiden name. But I use my husband's name when making reservations for the two of us, or, occasionally, in social situations, to simplify the identification of who-goes-with-who that people do at parties. (I also use my husband's name with my in-laws, who have never gotten used to the idea that a woman could keep her own name after marriage.) Mail from old-fashioned friends or from my husband's friends continues to get addressed in his last name, whereas from my friends or coworkers it comes in my maiden name. It's gotten so that even I am confused as to what my "real" name is.

In law school one of my recently-married friends said that she changed her name so that she and her husband would feel more like a family. This comment has stayed with me all of these years. Lately, I've been thinking more and more about changing my name. My husband is indifferent - when we were first married, he wanted me to, but he's become very sympathetic to the notion that all of my accomplishments were done under my maiden name. In addition, he is white and I am not, and we both think that it might be strange for people to meet a "Jane Smith" who looks like me. I'd like to keep my maiden name as a middle name, but then I would have to drop my unused first name, or else have four separate parts to my name, both of which are unacceptable options. Even though I don't use my first name, and have never used it, it's such a part of me that I can't let it go.

So - if I have no name, do I still exist?

Urban Dwellers

Living in the suburbs has a lot of advantages (e.g., space for a garden, streets that don't smell of urine, etc.), but sometimes I really miss being in a city. I've been spending a lot of time in the city lately, and a considerable amount of that time walking around. Today I was stopped twice by French tourists, looking for directions. I love tourists, maybe because I spend so much time traveling and being a tourist myself. They struggled to ask for what they needed in English. I considered talking to them in French (my French, sadly, was probably better than their English). One of my good friends is from France and she's always trying to get me to practice. Given the poorness of my French accent, however, coupled with the sensitivity of French ears, I decided it would be less painful for all of us if we stuck to English. But - it was fun just running into them. You never run into tourists in the suburbs.

I also really miss public transportation. Today I got from the Mission to the Marina for $1.50 on the bus. Cheaper than the gas it would take to go that distance. I didn't have to worry about traffic or parking or anything, just hopped on and hopped off. Easy-peasy.

And people are a lot more interesting to look at in the city. More different kinds of people, more different kinds of clothes, etc. At the risk of sounding frivolous, I have to admit that I'm very much into clothes (although you may not be able to tell by looking at the way I dress). I love fashion magazines and fabric stores and all that sort of thing. When I was younger, I used to draw clothes constantly. So it's fun to see what people are wearing when they're not all buying their clothes at J. Crew.

That said, I realize that I'm probably the worst offender in this respect. As I was getting dressed today, I noticed that I was head-to-foot J. Crew. Some days, it's all BR, or the Gap. It's all about comfort, man.

Standing Still

It's a funny feeling, watching people you've witnessed worrying over who to ask to the prom, or whether they should re-take the SAT, or what to tell their parents about the wrecked car, suddenly become parents themselves. I get so many baby announcements these days - as many as, or maybe even more than, wedding invitations. Pictures of boys and girls I used to know suddenly transformed into fathers and mothers. It freaks me out. All these pictures of these now-strangers, holding these babies, these miniature people that didn't even used to exist and now suddenly do.

I spent several hours today shopping for baby things. Of course, every time I went to check out, the salesperson ringing me up would have to ask if I was expecting. I like to think of myself as perpetually young, but I, like seemingly everyone around me, am at the age where this is a not-so-improbable supposition. It does seem, however, that the world has a singularly one-track mind when it comes to the subject of babies. I can't escape it. At a party the other day, I found myself sitting next to two anesthesiologists. The talk inevitably turned to epidurals. I asked a lot of questions (being afraid of needles, and even more afraid of incompetent doctors, since so many of my classmates went on to medical school). Eventually, one of the anesthesiologists turned to me and asked if I was expecting. Sigh. Do I really look old enough to be someone's mother?

Untitled

"I've found I'm scared to know I'm always on your mind." - Howie Day

Life, London, this day in June...

It's odd to wake up one day and realize that your happiness or lack thereof has little to do with your circumstances. I was dreaming about a house, with a little garden, and peace, and freedom to do whatever I wanted . . . a long-time dream for me. And then I realized - I already have all these things, and more. Much, much more.

Off the Hook

For the sake of my sanity and because it is a constant interruption, I no longer answer the phone unless it is someone I know. I suppose you could call this screening. The screening process is complicated by the fact that some people will not leave messages. For instance, today the phone has been ringing off the hook all day. Four times, it was a recorded message (from banks, utilities, etc.). Screening spared me from having to interrupt my work to answer these calls. BUT - three or four other times, the phone rang until the answering machine picked up, and then whoever it was hung up without saying anything. Friend? Headhunter? Telemarketer? Now I'll never know. If you are my friend, I DO want to talk to you, so please please please say something to the answering machine so I know it's you!*

* As I was writing this, the phone rang twice more. Same thing - no message. The last time, I was so frustrated I went to go answer it, but didn't get to it in time. Who is it that wants to talk to me badly enough to call six times, but not badly enough to leave a message????

On Weddings

I was one of the many, many people around the world who attended a wedding on Saturday, 7/7/7. And it was a beautiful wedding. Both my husband and I choked up, as we almost always do at weddings, particularly when the bride and groom are both such good friends of ours. The bride is an organizational genius with a great deal of style and an eye for detail, and all of these powers were brought to bear in their wedding. We've attended far more lavish and expensive weddings, but few more elegant or beautiful. Heartfelt congratulations again.

My favorite weddings are the ones where you can tell how happy the bride and groom are to be getting married. At one wedding I was at, the bride leaned, briefly, against the groom during the minister's sermon, and he briefly put his arm around her. Immediate tears. At another wedding, the groom, normally an impassive military man, had the biggest smile on his face the whole time, particularly as he watched his bride coming down the aisle. At yet another wedding, it was the way he looked at her while the pastor prayed for them.

It's also touching when the family gets in on it. At one wedding, the groom's older brother - a tough-looking guy with a crew cut and scowl - suddenly started sobbing. This happened at my own wedding, too: I have no recollection of what the pastor said, but I vividly recall how loudly my brother-in-law was crying.

Also, there's something about hearing the vows again, for us old married people, that kind of gets you choked up too. Not only does it take you back to your own wedding, but it makes you think about the days, months, years of your marriage - the joys and hurts and all of it - and how you measure up against the solemn vows you took: "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish 'till death do us part."

Do The Right Thing

Why do people say this like it should be so easy, the right thing apparent in any given situation? I want to do the right thing - I want to do what God wants - but I just don't know what it is anymore. Do the "responsible" thing and go back to work so that my family doesn't have to worry about money, so we can give more to church and charities? Do the "self-fulfilling" thing and stay here, stay home, keep writing and hoping and praying for someone to buy my book? Do the "practical" thing and keep looking for a middle ground, for a job that won't take my life and my soul, that will leave me time to write on the side? Which one of these is the "right" thing?

I have been so depressed and discouraged lately. It's hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other when you don't know if the journey is leading anywhere. I need a pick-me-up, but I don't even know what that would be, I'm so play-challenged.

Languages

The Academic Bookstore stands on the Esplanade in Helsinki. During the summer, the Esplanade is a beautiful place to walk. A park runs through the center. Street musicians perform on the sidewalk. Everyone looks happy.

I sat inside the Academic reading a book on Finns. A blond man walked up to me and, in perfect Mandarin, asked me if I was Chinese. His accent was flawless - at least, as far as a non-speaker like me could tell. (Although, to bolster the credibility of my claim, I should add that I grew up hearing Chinese, even if I can't speak it myself.) "From China?" he asked. "No," I said, in English. "American."

"Ahh." He smiled nervously and hurried away. Was I more threatening as an American than as a Chinese tourist? Was he embarrassed at his mistake? Nonplussed at my appearance and seemingly contradictory claim? And where had he learned to speak Chinese like that?

I've been to many cities around the world, but Helsinki holds a special place in my heart. It's comfortable, and peaceful, and clean. I could see myself living there, at least during the summers. Maybe I should learn to speak Chinese.

Crossroads

Why do we idolize our choices? Agonize over every decision, make much ado over the act of deciding? Crossroads, forks, unmarked doors, candy shops, all the metaphors for choice and choosing. So many movies about choice and consequence, about what happens when you make one choice versus what happens when you make another. Do we really think it's so simple, our lives so linear, that one can trace different paths so neatly from their trailheads? "Choosing not to choose is still a choice." How many times have I heard that, passed off as wisdom?

Our obsession with choice is nothing more than our need to exert our will, to demonstrate in the act of choosing the fact that we were born and blessed with free will. I don't downplay the importance of the gift. God gave us free will so that we could choose to love Him, or choose to turn away from Him. Souls turn on the choice. But nevertheless, free will does not make us God, and our choices are not the fabric of our lives. Our choices are not the meaning. Love is more than a decision, even if it starts there.

Narcissus Toppled

it was a cruel deception of us both, but of you especially. "what would i do without you?" "you know me so well." but i didn't, or, at least, i didn't care. what i was in love with, if you can call it that, was how you, too, were fully enthralled by the Legend of Me. you could rattle off lists of my likes and dislikes quicker than i could. all the cities and towns where my nomadic family had once lived. petty hopes and cynical dreams, the nightmares from which i would awake screaming. all of these things you collected like bits of broken shells from the shore, and you would bring them out like trophies, as though they established possession.

maybe that would have been enough, and we could have continued that way, happily, both of us basking in the glow of Me. but then i met someone, and i became enthralled by his legend, and suddenly, i was not enough.

Walls

He dreamed he was drowning in the Pacific blue with peace on his mind and the sun in his eyes. He wanted to feel the sand beneath his feet and the cool salt in his lungs, but the ocean tasted like blood and he opened his eyes in the dark to feel her tears on his face. She was leaning over him with the moon on her back and for a moment he couldn’t tell who was who. The man in the moon is screaming where no one can help him and he reaches out for her but she disappears like shadows in the dark.

He doesn’t want to know that the words are a promise she can’t keep, a forever she won’t live through. He wants to hear her say them and pin her down like a butterfly whose wings have torn. He thought he heard them once, like a dream he never quite awoke from, but they tasted bitter and red, red as sacrifice. “I love you,” he called out, and thought he was dreaming.

He lay there with his eyes open and the Pacific far away and he felt his lungs squeezed tight and he couldn’t breathe and he was very, very afraid, but he would not move. If she was there, she would feel the sensation of his aching body move and fly away and then he would have nothing. He was used to her silence but he was not used to the taste of her tears.

In the cold white light of torturous moonlight he realizes suddenly that the room is no longer dark and there are no shadows. The emptiness pulls him from bed to window screaming her name. As he turns to search the room, for just a moment the cold white light has him trapped and the moon is on his back; the screaming is deafening in the house reverberating with silence.

*

She is listening to the ocean call her promising freedom but she knows it is a lie and she will never be free. The spray is on her face like tears like tears and the waves are hungry. Her footsteps are disappearing; she is floating like a ghost leaving no trace and she knows it is a lie and she will never be free. She can’t cry because of the gap inside between where she is and who she dreamed of being with gilded wings light as summer thoughts.

She has invisible burns from his touch and she knows that she will never be free. No matter how high she could hope to fly, she would always see his eyes, and the hurting in her heart was a millstone.

*

When she got back, he was sitting staring straight ahead. The gray of the sky was tinged almost blue and they both felt the threatening presence hovering near.

He looked at her in the dim glow of the in-between-times and though he longed to clutch her to him and hold her with nets or pins or cages, he knew that it wasn’t fair or right.

She didn’t come near him; they stood with all the distance between them and neither of them moved. She wanted to sleep, to sleep and never dream. And she is not afraid no she is not afraid but she hurts. He is watching her and watching her hurt and he wonders what went wrong and why they are sitting with all the distance between them and why he dreams of drowning when he kisses her.

*

They are lying side by side, not touching. He feels empty and his face is a mask because he is. Empty. Except for the feeling of all-aloneness that creeps around the bed like hungry fire. Consuming.

She is lying there, feeling his arms tight around her the way she always feels his arms tight around her no matter how alone she is, protectingly, comfortingly, like a childhood she could never grow away from, prison-like. The screaming in her mind is louder now and her head throbs to the hoofbeats of Apollo’s horses coming on so fast. The gray fades, her self fades, and the pale pale blue stings her eyes and she wants to sleep.

Idealist Dreamer

A while back (pre-quitting job), a friend told me that I was the most rational person he knew. (He was also a lawyer; I suppose it takes one to think of this as a compliment.)

Sometimes I see myself as a rational person, too; certainly appealing to logic is more effective than making an emotional appeal, as far as I am concerned. (This may be a post-law school change; I can't remember what I was like before, but I think I was more emotional then.) But the way I truly see myself, the me that I see, is a dreamer. Only, the world has no time for dreamers.

Doldrums

The sun is shining and life is good, but the "mean reds" are back again...

Anger Management

When is anger justified? When someone hurts you unknowingly? What if they hurt you, not purposefully, but recklessly, knowing that it was likely that you would be hurt by their action but doing it anyway?

I have a reckless friend, who has hurt me over and over again. Not because she wanted to see me hurt, but because she wanted what she wanted, and it didn't matter to her that I might be hurt. Or rather, maybe it mattered, but it mattered less than that she get what she want. Am I selfish to begrudge her? It's not a rhetorical question; I honestly don't know.

It's funny how the world makes room for this kind of person. They are more likely to get what they want than the rest of us, because they're out there pushing for themselves while the rest of us are hanging back. I want things, the way anybody does, but I always have doubts about whether I deserve the thing it is that I want. It must be nice to have no doubts.

Gardening Woes

Sadly, I've been over-watering my plumeria, having fallen prey to the common misconception that the plumeria is a tropical plant. It is not, in fact, a tropical plant, and, as it turns out, one of the worst things that you can do to it is over-water. Sigh. I will cease watering immediately, but it may already be too late.

In other news, having long been annoyed by the monstrous size of the Italian oregano growing in our planter boxes (where, at some point during the late winter/early spring, it oozed this weird foamy white stuff resembling soap suds), we moved the shrubs to a spot "outside the fence": our phrase for the small portion of our land that lies - you guessed it - outside of the fenced-in portion of the back yard. "Outside the fence" is a rather desolate zone with loose, gravelly soil that has yet to host much life. It is our flora Siberia. We've been trying, however, with some small success, to convert it to a more flourishing region. So far the Lilies of the Nile and tiger orchids that we've planted are still alive, if not exactly vibrant. The bougainvilla* has gone from looking like a dead branch to sporting leaves. And the oregano, despite our none-to-gentle handling, seems to be settling into its new home. So maybe we will transform Siberia yet.

* Have just learned that bougainvilla, although also looking deceptively tropical, should not be over-watered. Damn.

Hermitage

As a writer, I don't interact with many people on a day-to-day basis. Some days, I don't leave the house at all and I don't see anyone other than my husband. Friends often ask me if I get lonely, or if I miss having other people around. Sometimes I do miss having coworkers and going out to lunch with people and all that. (Although you have to keep in mind that, at a big law firm, you don't have much time for socializing with your coworkers anyway; most of the time when I was working, I'd be locked up in my office trying desperately to put out all the fires that had sprung up that day. And who ever had time for lunch?)

Mostly, though, I am quite content with things the way they are now. I guess I've just proven to myself how much of a misanthrope I really am: the less I see other people, the less I want to see them. (Friends and family excepted, of course.) It does worry me a little; I don't want to become one of those weirdos that can't talk to other people at all and just sit in a corner at parties and stare. I guess I should force myself to get out more, join some organizations or something and force myself to socialize.

Eden

The surf was unrideable again this weekend, but we went to the beach anyway. And it was actually kind of nice to be there, sans board - it's been a while since we walked along the shore and paid attention to the ocean's many other attractions besides its waves. The stretch of beach that we were on was deserted, possibly because it was cold and misty on the coast (although sunny back home). I should clarify: the beach was deserted by people, but more than amply populated by avian and marine life. We encountered numerous starfish along the shore, washed up by the tides, which we threw back into the water. Crab shells littered the beach, but we saw only one live crab. My husband put a stick near it, which the crab clung to for dear life, and we threw it, too, back into the ocean and away from the marauding birds.

I've said before, and I say again, I hate birds. Nature red in tooth and claw was definitely present on our walk: we found a dead bird, with a bloody hole in its chest. "Could it have been cannibalized by the other birds?" I no sooner asked the question than a crow flew over and began tearing flesh from the carcass with its beak. No different, perhaps, than humans and their consumption of the flesh of animals, but it disgusted us nevertheless.

On a happier note, we spent the remainder of the weekend gardening. We purchased and planted: yellow pear tomatoes, two different kinds of pumpkin, two different kinds of basil, and a peach tree. We also moved some of the plants around, digging up two wildly overgrown oregano shrubs and re-planting them away from the more delicate cilantro and basil plants. Unfortunately, some asparagus was damaged in the melee.

Product Placement

I have to make a plug for Amazon.com. I ordered a baby shower gift on Monday. By Tuesday it had shipped, and by Wednesday it was at my door. Amazing. I may never leave the house again.

Empty Spaces

We are finally returning the hospitality of all the people who had us over repeatedly during our apartment-dwelling years, and so have been having little dinners every couple of weeks with various folk. Unfortunately, we still have no dining room furniture. We do have a comfortable-enough table and chairs in the eating area next to the kitchen, which is where we've been doing our entertaining, although this sort of dining lacks a certain ambiance.

It doesn't look like we're going to be getting dining furniture any time soon, either. I think we've more or less made up our minds that we're going to use the space to hold a baby grand piano, once we can afford one. (This will probably be many years into the future.) It was my idea, but now I'm not sure how I feel about it.

I started playing the piano when I was three or four years old. In junior high and high school I used to compete. And I hated it. The competitions, that is, not the actual playing of music, which I enjoyed. One day, one competition, I completely forgot the entire final movement of the sonata I was playing. So I played the first movement over again and retreated from the stage in great embarrassment. After that I quit, and I haven't really played (except for messing around when I go to my parents' house) or even owned a piano since then. Over the last few years, I started to miss it a lot. Thus was born my great desire for a piano of my own. But I guess I'm not sure how it's going to feel once I have one again. I don't think it's like riding a bike; you lose a lot of the skills when you haven't touched a keyboard in years and years and years. I'm sort of afraid of it, having to start over, re-learning stuff before I can get to the part that I actually enjoy. Maybe it's better to just get a dining room set after all?

Drifting

Last night's menu: goat cheese souffle with spinach and feta sausage and asparagus spears.

We've had strawberries from our own berry patch every morning.

Sometimes life feels idyllic. This house has definitely been a blessing.

Letting Go

I've been so, so blessed in the friends that I have, who have supported and encouraged me in this new writing endeavor, as in all my other endeavors. I can't tell you how much it means to me, when I'm doubting myself, doubting what I'm doing, to hear you say you think I'm doing the right thing, that I have to keep going, see this thing through. I am grateful for the way you believe in me even when I have trouble believing in myself.

One of my good friends recently sent me an article about how to get past the hurdle of your own negativity while striving to reach a goal. One of the things the article said to do was to avoid people who are negative about you. When you take a risk like this, you find out who are the people who really believe in you. There are people in my life who try to avoid ever asking about what I'm doing or talking to me about it, as though my giving up my salaried job was equivalent to contracting a loathsome disease that I should be grateful to them for overlooking. Maybe part of the reason they treat me differently now is that I'm no longer the resource that I used to be for them? After all, how much good is an "unemployed" writer to anyone? Some are people I've known for a long time, and it feels strange to see them this way, now. But I have too many good friends to keep devoting time and energy to people who don't care about me or care about what I'm doing. Maybe it's finally time to let go.

Summertime

By eight o'clock in the morning, it's nearing eighty degrees outside. During the day, it gets over ninety. Temperatures have been this way for the last week. Summer weather - it makes me forget where I am, think I'm somewhere I'm not. Grass swaying too tall, wishes floating overhead, the sun bleaching everything pale, burning colors. People I loved, now, too, bleached out memories. Just kids talking dreams - everything seemed so serious then, big decisions to be made, whole futures. I think I'm more pragmatic now, although I guess my life belies the statement, because here I am, wasting a legal education, making the kinds of decisions I was afraid to make back then. Where are they now? We cried at parting; that, too, seemed so serious. We weren't old enough yet to know that parting is a way of life. Over and over again we let go of the people we thought we could hold onto. Promises to write, but what was there to say? Once separated, we had already given away the best parts of ourselves, the parts that synthesized into understanding. Most of us felt very misunderstood. Maybe we were, too serious, too filled with angst and a drive toward something we ourselves didn't understand. Still don't understand. And here I am, changed and indifferent, but somehow still chasing the same dreams.

Nightmares

When I was younger, I frequently had vivid, terrifying nightmares. In college, they were so bad at times that concerned friends would sleep on my floor, or, if they had to stay up studying, would do so in my room, just so they could be there, be a comforting presence, when I woke up in a chilled sweat. Sometimes I would be too frightened to fall back asleep.

I still had incredibly vivid dreams, but, for the most part, the nightmares stopped after I got married. Until now. For the last week or so, nightmares have once again woken me from sound sleep. Upon waking, I find myself contorted into the same strange position each time: both arms bent and thrown up over my head, as though to protect me from some blow. It's an uncomfortable position; my shoulders ache and feel stiff, like they do when they've popped out of joint and I've had to pop them back in.

I don't know what it means. I'm not under a lot of stress, and certainly not as much stress as I've been under in other, nightmare-free days. I haven't been eating funny things before I go to bed (supposing this actually makes a difference to your dreams; I've never spotted a pattern). I wish I knew what was causing them, and how to make them stop.

I'm too young for this

Two of my friends from law school separately are on baby #3 each. Three kids apiece. Six kids total. And we are barely four years out of law school! This isn't even counting all the first babies that have come along in recent years. I receive baby notices as often as wedding invitations these days. Baby after baby after baby. What's going on, people??? To top it all off, I'm throwing a baby shower in a couple of weeks! Both my sisters-in-law are pregnant, one with a girl, the other with a boy. Craziness.

Laughing at the rain

Songs I used to listen to on repeat:

• In high school, Soul Asylum's Runaway Train and Guns 'n' Roses' November Rain and Counting Crows' Round Here and Chris de Burgh's Lady in Red, for my ladies in red;
• Freshman year of college, The Cure's Pictures of You and REM's Everybody Hurts and Tori Amos's Silent All These Years;
• Sophomore year, Little Texas's Say What You Want and songs sung by a might-have-been;
• Junior year, The Outfield's (I don't want to lose) Your Love;
• Since then: Sade's By Your Side, Beyonce's Upgrade U, Nine Inch Nails' Hurt, Jurassic 5's Contribution, Notorious BIG's Going back to Cali, Cat Power's Good Woman...

Not great music, but listening to these songs is like meditating, for me; my mind drifts away, away, away, and I'm hearing them but not listening, I couldn't tell you what they said, what the lyrics are, I couldn't hum them for you, but they make me feel peaceful.

Hanging up the saddle

I don't like to have people touch my face. It feels too personal: if I don't know you that well, there's no reason for you to be going there. It's funny, the gestures that different people find intimate. I knew one girl who liked to pat people's faces, touch their hair; to her, this wasn't a big deal, and she didn't think it was a big deal if you did it to her. The intricacies of putting your arm around someone of the opposite sex, or of having someone of the opposite sex put their arm around you: not a big deal if the arm goes around your shoulders, but suddenly a much more uncomfortable situation if it goes around your waist. At least for me. And even the arm around the shoulders can be a big deal if it stays too long. Arm around the waist, hand on my lower back, or holding my hand while I'm standing next to you: to me these things feel like you're trying to say I belong to you, and unless you're my husband, I don't.

Two or three things I know for sure

Few writers can grab your heart and wring it the way Dorothy Allison does. I read her books years ago, but every now and then a line or two that she's written will play in my head. The title of her memoir especially.

What do I know for sure? I repeat them to myself - my central tenets - over and over again to ward off the anxieties that besiege me. Anxiety is a terrible thing; being struck by lightning is one thing, quick and easy. Anxiety is like being chewed to death by little mice. The constant pounding of your heart, the difficulty breathing, day in and day out, like drowning slowly with the sun in your eyes, knowing the surface clear air is near but unreachable.

So what do I know for sure? "Cast all your anxiety upon Him because He cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7.
The love of God. My husband. My family. Certain friends.
This, too, shall pass.

It's more than most people have, more than most people know.

Birds and Bees

On today's to-do list: build a small cage around our strawberry patch to keep away marauding birds. I hate birds, even pretty ones (hummingbirds excepted), and the blue-jays and magpies that surround our house are at the top of my list. They've been picking off the strawberries as they ripen. This is unacceptable.

Other things on the to-do list: clean out old letters/cards. I have to admit, I'm something of a packrat. My husband, too, although less so. Between the two of us, we have quite an archive of correspondence. I have cards I received twenty years ago, from people I no longer remember. I have really personal cards from people I can't remember having been that close to (admittedly, my memory for such things is not long). I think I've kept every scrap of paper that anyone has ever written me, no matter how insignificant the message or the relationship. While it seems sad to toss away a fifteen-year-old message asking me if I want to go shopping, I think it's time to put these in the recycling bin. Of course, I'm going to continue to keep some of them, the ones from people who still matter to me, the ones with really meaningful messages.

A subset of the old letters/cards category is the memorabilia of past relationships. Both my husband and I had a "box" for each former flame. Going through these boxes was amusing - we've been together for so long that it felt like rifling through someone else's life, like gossip, rather than anything we had personally gone through. It did, however, make me feel old. Were we ever really as young as we sounded in these notes? I can't remember having been so young that it seemed important to keep things like receipts, showing where I'd been and when. And yet, they were there, in the Boxes. I do remember cutting paper snowflakes, which, when unfolded, said "I love u." Embarrassing to think of now. Hopefully, somewhere out there, my exes have already destroyed any Box they may have kept.

My husband, being a boy, had fewer such embarrassments. The same can't be said for his ex-girlfriends, who should be very relieved to know that these Boxes have now, finally, all been laid to rest in our shredder/recycling bin. The stuffed animals and other assorted gifts have been packed off to various charities. Ah, de-cluttering. Makes me feel like a new woman.

Back to Reality

Went surfing here in California yesterday. It's hard to believe it's the same ocean as the one I swam/surfed in, in Hawaii. The water is about forty degrees colder here. The waves are bigger and meaner. Whereas the water in Hawaii was crystal clear, the water here is murky and seaweed-filled. It was one of those days where it felt like I couldn't do anything right in the water. Huge clumps of seaweed kept getting tangled up in my leash, impeding movement. The currents were strong, and I felt like I spent most of my energy just trying to stay in the same spot, so I didn't have much left for paddling for waves. And the waves were closing out. I stupidly paddled into a couple of bad closeouts. That's one of the worst feelings, being washing-machined. The waves tumble you. If you're lucky, you're just disoriented when you come back up. If you're unlucky, the force of the wave throws you toward the bottom of the ocean, where you can hit your head on a rock (which has happened to me), or get your leash tangled on a rock and get trapped. If you're lucky, when you come back up the coast is clear. If you're unlucky, you might come back up to see a surfboard (your own or someone else's) hurtling at you. Or, as happened to me yesterday, you come back up just in time to see the next wave - a wall of water - coming at you and you have to dive back under before you have time to really even catch your breath.

Back!

Just got back this morning, on a red-eye so I'm a little fuzzy-headed. Hawaii was awesome (as is to be expected). Temps in the eighties, perfect waves, water a beautiful aquamarine. Didn't have my own board so had to rent one, which was the only not-so-great thing. The rental boards kind of sucked. I had one that was like a boat. Not sure what happened, but that board definitely got the best of me. Came out of the water bruised all over, and I hadn't even fallen! It was like I got bruised just touching it. Still, it was incredible to be in the water without a wetsuit and to not be at all cold! And sitting out there, I saw these tropical fish swimming around in the water near my feet. The water was unbelievably clear. We hiked Diamondhead, and even from the top, we could see the bottom of the ocean below us. Thanks to my sister for the trip, which was such a great bday gift, it more than made up for a not-so-great birthday.

Reve

- ...Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?
- A man may do both.

- The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

Counting Blessings

One of the unexpected benefits to not working - at least, not working a regular job, or maybe just a law firm job - is a renewed appreciation of what a beautiful place this is. Seasons had always escaped me before: no matter what month it was, what the weather outside, my office always looked the same, and my office was all I saw. Now I actually get to go outside during daylight hours, and it's pretty amazing. I'd forgotten how blue the sky is here. It's full-on spring now, and the trees are budding, plants are flowering everywhere. Even just driving down the street to the grocery store is a pleasure.

On an unrelated note (although this could still fall under the category of blessings), I am so happy that we didn't get rid of our stove. It's one of those electric, ceramic ones. When we first bought the house, I was adamant that it had to go (as I've mentioned before, I'm something of a Luddite in the kitchen). I wanted to replace it with one of those hulking gas Viking stoves with the roaring flames. In the final event, though, there was too much else to do, we didn't have a gas line running to the stove and would have had to have someone out to put one in (and I have no success with contractors), so we just left it. I'm glad we did. It is SO easy to clean, it heats up much more quickly, and, I think for that reason, cooks just as well as a gas stove.

Temper

What's the inverse of schadenfreude? Pettiness, maliciousness - not exact enough. A lack of gratitude for what you have, constantly believing that the grass is greener elsewhere, that someone else's life is (undeservedly) better than yours. These feelings plague me. The only thing I can say for myself is that I am ashamed of them, and, with my rational mind, I know that there is no one I would trade places with for even a day. I have been incredibly blessed, far more than I could ever deserve. I think at the root of all my negativity is my anxiety. It's like an evil mushroom sending toxic sprays out into the ground all around it. I've always been an anxious person, always been a worrier, but it's been worse lately and I don't know why. So many people out there have real problems: where their next meal is coming from, illnesses, etc. I only have neuroses. Isn't this what will power is for?

Getting a Grip

I was stood up by yet another contractor yesterday. Lovely.

I feel this low-grade anxiety humming in the back of my head like a motor. I've spent a lot of time lately trying to pinpoint its source, but not much luck so far. Instead, I've been acting like a mal-adjusted sprinkler head, spewing discontent in random directions. Well, not so random. It's more like a heightening of frustrations I already had. Thankfully, I'm going on vacation next week. (Can I call it a vacation, even though I have no "real" job from which to vacate?) Unfortunately sans husband, but it'll give me time to hang out with my sister. Who knows, maybe Hawaii will help me unwind. Looking forward to the surf.

The Ark, Reprised

When you get married, one of the things you have to get used to is how all your friends suddenly become "couple friends." Nearly all of our friends (at least, the ones we've made since we've been married, and not counting the ones who were our friends pre-wedding) come in packages of two. It makes sense, I suppose: everyone works hard, you don't have much time to spend with your spouse/significant other, so when you go out you want to go out together. I know I don't enjoy going out without my husband.

We went out with such a pair of our couple friends a few nights ago, and the couple phenomenon was duly noted amongst the four of us. Our friends then shared that one of the things they often discuss is, should a pair of their couple friends break up and they could no longer keep both of them in their lives, which one they would choose to keep. (It was a little awkward; my husband and I glanced at each other, both of us wondering which one of us they had decided on.) But normally, I don't think it's a tough decision. Even with couple friends, there's almost always one you feel closer to, the one who is the reason for the four of you hanging out together at all, usually the one you met first.

Becoming Handy

Rule number one of home ownership: things will break. Corresponding rules: plumbers charge > $150/hour (clearly I entered the wrong profession); contractors charge a gazillion dollars an hour, and, moreover, will not return your phone calls or keep appointments;
and, finally, your average, run-of-the-mill, non-bankruptcy-causing handyman has gone extinct.

Corollary to the above rules: you must learn to do many things yourself. Unless, of course, you have a lot of money and don't mind spending it all on routine house maintenance.

So, here are the things I have learned to do since purchasing the house:

• diagnose common plumbing issues;
  
• replace toilet fill valves and other toilet anatomy miscellanea;
• install drapery rods and other window treatments;
• engage in minor sprinkler repairs;
• dig holes and plant stuff;
• caulk many, many things (it's amazing how many problems can be solved by a tube of caulk);
  
• find studs;
• drill holes and attach stuff.

I've gotten to know my local Home Depot very well.

And I've gotten to spend much quality time with my sewing machine, making drapes, matching pillows, etc.

In addition, I now have a yard (both front and back) full of living things whose lives depend largely on my vigilance. Many, many hours a day are spent watering, weeding, digging, spraying, etc., etc. Someone suggested using a gardening service, but, being descended from my father, a master gardener, I feel like that would be a blow to the pride and honor of my family, not to mention cheating.

With all of this, who has time to work?

Tennis

To me, the best songs are the ones that remind me of something. I heard Alanis Morissette on the radio today. While I was in New Zealand, my cousin played her first CD non-stop. It was in New Zealand, skin cancer capitol of the world, that I first played on an indoor tennis court. Actually, it was the only time I've ever played on an indoor tennis court.

Tennis saved me during high school. Only in my hours on the court could I forget about the body of which I was so ashamed (believing myself to be fat and ugly). Only on the court did I feel in control. During the summers, I would sometimes play seven hours a day; sometimes with a friend, sometimes with one or another of my coaches, sometimes by myself, practicing my serve over and over and over again, till my eyes were bloodshot from staring into the sun. There were nights when I couldn't fall asleep, replaying certain points in my head, seeing the tennis ball in vivid color behind my closed eyelids, a zahir. I played till my hands blistered and bled, till my muscles would no longer support me. I wrote my college essays about tennis.

And tennis extracted a price from me. The pains I have now - my knees, my wrists, the shoulder I dislocate time and again - are all from those hours I spent. Moreover, tennis cost me one of my best friends at the time. I was voted Most Valuable Player our senior year, and she never forgave me for it. We both knew she was the better player, but I won more matches and our coach and teammates loved me for it.

I wonder sometimes what she's doing now, if she's happy. I wonder how well we ever knew each other, and if she would recognize me if she saw me now. I don't often play anymore. I've long since lost the trophies, misplaced the pictures. I wonder if I've really changed all that much, or if tennis could somehow save me again.

Phasing Out

above these walls of concrete and glass, these cars, these people, and me, the sky is a cotton-candy blue pulling apart in wisps of white cloud, close enough to reach it is tasteless. i sit in the car in the cold with the engine off and behind the strip mall i see hills green from winter rain, peaked with radio towers like the spindles of a magic loom to put me into a deep, deep sleep from which i can only be awakened by magic. safe in here and people's voices only come at me muffled, their faces through the glass like animals in a cage at the zoo with me safe on the other side. bright morning california morning but it all feels the same.

Procrastination

Last night's dinner: baked mahimahi breaded in a mixture of ground macadamia nuts, coconut milk, flour, and bread crumbs, and an artichoke risotto. I used rice vinegar in the risotto, which added an interesting flavor - I kind of liked it. I'd had an artichoke risotto in Rome, and was trying to re-create it. Ditto with the mahimahi, although that was not in Rome but somewhere in the U.S. I was winging it and a little nervous about how everything was going to turn out, but it worked.

These are the things I think about while I should be writing.

Awesome Love

Benny Hester sings a song called "When God Ran." It starts off with a list of some of God's characteristics: "Almighty God, the great I am, immovable rock, omnipotent, powerful, awesome Lord, victorious warrior, commanding king of kings, mighty conqueror." Then it goes on: "And the only time, the only time I ever saw Him run, was when He ran to me, took me in His arms, held my head to his chest, said 'My son's come home again.' Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes, with forgiveness in His voice He said, 'Son, do you know I still love you?'"

I think I manage to avoid some of the obvious sins, but I've left God, hurt Him, many, many times with my not-so-obvious (to the world anyway) sins. Like my lack of faith. Despite the countless number of times that He's shown me how much He loves me, whenever I get into a rut or things stop going my way, I feel like He's abandoned me, or that He's let me down. I stop believing in His plan. Especially when it comes to my career-life, I've spent the last few months wondering if He has a plan for me at all.

I've been struggling to deal with the after-effects of giving up my career as a lawyer: the loss of salary, the loss of prestige, and of concomitant self-respect. My husband ran into a partner that I used to work for, who told him that I was one of the best associates he'd had. Immodest as it sounds, I knew it already. I was a good lawyer, a very good lawyer. But that just makes it harder for me to feel like I've done the right thing, dropping my job when I was doing so well.

What makes it worse is that my mental struggles over the rightness of what I've done have made it harder for me to write. And that, in turn, makes me feel even worse about giving up my legal career. All of this sends me whining back to God: "Why, Lord? Why are You silent? Why aren't You leading me/telling me what to do?"

I've been looking for signs, even though I know God is more subtle than that. I had to leave the house today to run an errand. I was wearing my college sweatshirt. Driving over to the store, I was, as usual, thinking about my job-less state and wondering whether I should just give up on the writing thing, feeling bad about being "unemployed." It was the middle of the afternoon, the time of day when those gainfully employed are not free to run around to the stores. An old man in line ahead of me looked at my sweatshirt. "I went to that college," he said. "Are you in school there?" "Graduated," I said. He looked at me, "Graduated and not employed?" I muttered something and left to go wait in another line. I can't stand nosy strangers. But the same thing happened in the other line! Another old man, another conversation about my sweatshirt, another remark about how I'm not working.

Coincidence? Some sort of sign? And if so, of what? Is He trying to tell me through these various old men that I should get a real job? I feel like I'm having a panic attack, my anxiety rising up through my throat and choking me. Lord, I do believe. Help me in mine unbelief.

Weight

These are the things that make it hard to get out of bed in the morning, that weigh down on you like a craggy boulder crushing you with sharp edges.

We used to live in a poor neighborhood of a big city. Not poor as in working-class or blue-collar, but poor as in food stamps, prostitution, drugs, and drive-bys. People were killed in the gas station two blocks from our apartment. A bullet from the street came in through a wall and hit our downstairs neighbor in the hip. On the corner of our block, a girl was killed when she stumbled into crossfire between two drug dealers.

In this neighborhood, there was a fortress of an apartment building. In this apartment building (not ours) lived people who were only in the neighborhood temporarily, usually students or professors, and who were all white. A big fence surrounded the yard behind the apartment building, but it was a fence made of wrought iron and you could see through the pillars to what was inside. In the yard was a big playground structure. Nobody from the apartment building used it. Probably too afraid to let their children outside. I was walking past it one day, and saw two little neighborhood boys standing on the outside of the fence, staring in at the playground. They were probably five or six years old. Just stood there staring. I watched them for awhile, heart breaking, and then I kept walking, knowing there was nothing I could do. When I turned around farther down the street and looked back at them, they were still there, still staring.

There were no other playgrounds in this neighborhood that I ever saw. Driving by an abandoned lot one day, bordered on one side by an abandoned brick building and on the other by a gas station frequented by toughs driving old American cars, falling apart but still equipped with rims, I saw children bouncing a ball off the old brick wall. This was where they played and how they played, bouncing a fifty-cent rubber ball off a wall adorned with a huge Miller Lite ad.

But they were playing, not running with gangs, not dealing drugs. You take hope where you can get it. What gets me down is the helplessness I feel - even if I had Bill Gates' money, could I ever begin to make a dent in even just my little city, much less all the cities in all the countries in the world where children suffer?

Heavy Bass

We listen to hip hop while changing into our wetsuits, the car radio blaring, the doors open. It's almost time for a new wetsuit, but I'm reluctant to give it up just when it's gotten stretched out enough to make it easier to put it on and take it off. I've learned how to change faster, to keep up, even though I was never good at deck changes. Once the wetsuits are on, we pull on our booties, pick up our boards, and head down to the ocean. If we surf on the south side of our usual spot, the walk down to the ocean is covered with rocks. They prick our feet through the booties; walking without the booties would be miserable. If the waves are good, we're excited, practically running.

We've seen a lot of things while surfing. Dolphins, sometimes. Seals pretty frequently. Once a large crab, Dungeoness maybe, trying to dig a hole in the sand by doing the twist. We were heading down to the water one day when we saw a starfish, big and orange, lying on the beach. It had been washed in by the waves, and it had been lucky - we had found it before any predatory birds had, or a curious dog. My husband put it on the deck of his surfboard, by the nose. He paddled out with it past the waves, only letting it drop into the water once we were outside the break. Why paddle it out? I asked. Why not just toss it back into the water? I wanted to make sure it dropped into the water somewhere deep enough so the birds wouldn't get it, he said.

In an aquarium in the Bahamas I watched a starfish lose an arm to a crab. In Norway I watched a crab lose a leg to another crab; the losing crab skulked to a corner of the tank. The winner proceeded to eat the leg. Animals are cruel by nature. But then, cruelty is subjective. Maybe it's a term that only has meaning when survival is not at stake. When I was younger, I had a fish tank, fairly large and full of fish. But one day I woke up and all the fish were on the floor. They had jumped out somehow, my father said. I was only six and this haunted me for years, that my fish had committed suicide.

Although maybe it was foul play. Around that time we'd had a cat. A fat, fat cat who was meaner than mean. I had long scratches up and down my arms. We named the cat Doughnuts, because he liked to eat them. He would steal them from our plates, scratching his way to his prize. My parents were disturbed by his bad nature and gave him away. Years later, on an island in Greece, I would be scratched by yet another cat, this one black, that I had been feeding bits of fish off my plate. And I still wouldn't understand, why something I loved and was trying to care for would want to hurt me.

Cats, starfish, dogs, birds. And the world keeps turning round.

Getting Older

After the sun sets, but before the light has faded from the sky, even the most familiar places seem new and exciting. Driving down a street I've driven down a million times, the traffic lights look brighter, the neon signs pop out from the shadows. Maybe it's because, in my memories, this is the time of day that I would usually arrive in a new city when traveling. I used to love airports and the sensation of heading off somewhere unknown. It's different now that I'm older. Now, airports project stress rather than promise. It's a little like losing Disneyland - the last time I was there, I felt too old for it; it wasn't the happiest place on earth for me anymore. Is there anything left of my childhood in me?

Setting Myself Straight

I've had a rough few months, trying to deal with the psychological fall-out from giving up my high-salaried, high-status job to staying at home and making zero money. When we were buying the house, insurers, lenders, etc., would put my occupation down as "homemaker." And that has never been the woman I thought I would be.

It hasn't just been psychologically difficult. I've also been extra worried about money, lately, with the recent acquisition of a frighteningly large mortgage. To top it off, my husband is in the process of changing jobs and taking a pay cut. I'm exceedingly happy for him - it's an opportunity he's really excited about and should be better hours-wise than his current job - but still worried.

And so, many, many times, I've wanted to give up and go back to work. Work was hard, but in many ways, it was the easier route. I'm good at climbing ladders, at working hard, but in an already-existing framework. Law was easy that way: go to law school, graduate, go to a firm, work your way up the ranks. The format was there and all I had to do was fill in the blanks.

But yesterday, driving around in the hills and thinking about how to go about finding another legal job, one that wouldn't drive me crazy, it occurred to me that life is bigger than our frameworks. Life isn't a pre-printed form where you fill in the blanks. It's a blank page, where you create whatever it is you want. So I need to start creating, and focus on creating, and not keep trying to run back into the hole it is from which I emerged. I've been like Plato's cave people, only too eager to settle for the shadows. I don't want to be that anymore. I want to be enlightened. And screw other people's opinions. It's not their life.

Yeah, the money thing is more difficult, but it'll work out somehow. Sure, I made good money as a lawyer, but is that the dollar amount I would put on my life? Surely my life is worth more than that.

Making a Place

Especially when we first moved in, it was hard to think of this house as ours. I kept thinking about the person who used to live here, what he used each room for, how he lived, what he thought about as he looked at and touched and used the same things that we do now. People, or maybe me in particular, spend so much energy keeping other people at a distance. We put such a premium on privacy, on personal space. It's strange to think that no matter what you do, though, your life will be touched by someone else's, sometimes a stranger's, in fundamentally intimate ways. The house or apartment where someone lived the dramas of his life, where someone breathed his last breath, is the house or apartment you inhabit and fill with the flotsam and jetsam of your own life. It seems strange to have what feels like a strong bond with someone you will probably never know.

When I think about this, I think that maybe I should be more open to meeting strangers. Who knows what kinds of bonds we might share? I've always been the kind of person who does what I call "circling the wagons": only certain people, my family and close friends, are in the circle, and everyone else is on the outside, being guarded against. I am cynical and suspicious of people unknown to me. I do not easily let people in. It's self-protection, but how effective is it really? There will always be people whose lives will touch mine in ways that I cannot guard against.

Learning New Things

I have only been a homeowner for a few weeks now, and I have already learned so much. All about retaining walls and sump pumps and grout - phrases whose meanings were unknown to me until very recently. I have also developed new attitudes, about rain, for example. We were hit by an unexpected shower this morning (although it is now sunny and cloudless outside). And, upon waking to find rain outside my window, I didn't feel nostalgic or depressed. Instead, I thought, Great! Now my plants will get watered and I can put off figuring out the sprinkler system for another day!

Foodwise

We've become highly domesticated. Since purchasing the house, we spend almost all of our free time doing things to it. (LOVE the house, but I have to admit that I'm aching to surf.) First was the moving, then the furnishing and fixing up (still ongoing processes). Stores which I have gotten to know very, very, very well: Home Depot, Costco, Target, and Ikea (a great place to buy mirrors). Especially Home Depot, which I visit every day. During yesterday's visit, we bought a lawnmower and the husband mowed our lawn for the first time! We've spent time planing doors, installing shelves and towel rods, tending to the garden, etc., but the lawnmowing was what made the house really feel like ours.

Moreover, today we had our first dinner guests. I made pork chops with a soy-honey glaze, accompanied by baby carrots sauteed in the same, and mashed golden potatoes with pan-roasted garlic. And a banana-nut concoction for dessert. Simple but satisfying.

Home sweet home.