2008

The highlights:

January: Performed at the FronteraFest in Austin, Tex. Spent late nights laughing with Tracy and Mahmoud. Marveled at ice on the windshield.

February/March: Europe for a pre-honeymoon. Prague, Pardubice, Vienna, and Budapest. Spent two days in Vienna croaking because I'd lost my voice. Ate a lot of goulash. Stayed in successively sweeter hotels. Heard piano music streaming from a concert hall in Budapest.

April: Justly and thrillingly married.

May: Sang to a lot of YouTube videos.

June: Cooked good meals and welcomed nine o'clock sunsets. Also began the revise of my memoir. I'm now at 64,000 words.

July: Spent two days at Green Gulch Zen Center. Marin never looked so sweet.

August: 100-degree days in Portland, then drove up to Washington on a whim. It was raining. Who knew?

September: Minneapolis. If it wasn't the tundra, I'd want to live there.

October: Walked the lake. Thought a lot. Watched the days grow shorter.

November: Played with my brother's dog and watched him fix his hoopty. Drove too fast. Laughed some and cried some. Ate some chicken parmesan. It was good.

December: Got to spend more time with Adam than in the past three months. Wonderful. Watched a woman with not one, but two parrots on her shoulder walking outside of MoJoe Cafe. Celebrated a year of working out. Got all excited about Santa Barbara for New Year's. Happy to be alive.