RIP, John Hughes

"We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all." - The Breakfast Club

A big black woman

The guys often write goofy stuff in my critiques. Rob, on a Sheryl Crow reference from my Millay Colony manuscript:

Helluva voice -- Nate (his son) was in the car and this song came on, a duet with Steve Earle -- I told him it was Sheryl Crow and he said: "I thought it was a big black woman."

More than a feeling

I came home from writing group craving an apple fritter. Draw your own conclusions from that.

Now with half the fritter and some reheated meatloaf under my belt, I'm thinking about a feeling I had earlier tonight. I felt reckless -- in a good way.

"When was the last time you felt that way?" Adam asked.

"Before we got into a relationship," I said.

That doesn't at all mean I don't feel spontaneous with him, excited about life, thrilled to be alive. But before I had the grounding of the relationship and the impetus to take more caution in my life -- everything from health to finance to making sure I do justice to my marriage -- life took me places I never predicted. Not until I was there. Seamless and straightforward.

It's how all the major events in my life have gone down: deciding to buy my first car at 20, choosing to move to Nebraska and then to the Bay Area, trips to Europe when I could barely afford to pay rent.

Hell, it's even how I fell in love with Adam. It felt like a curtain was being pulled back day by day until the full fact of my feelings were revealed. Every time we went out together it was an exercise in recklessness, in can-I? Can-we?

I'm not interested in living like that any more -- the life on the edge, the not-knowing. But it sure was fun connecting to it again, and saying hi to that old intimate friend.

I feel lucky

I feel lucky today.

I feel lucky for everything: life and love. I feel lucky to have a husband who supports what I do when so many other people might be dismissive or worse. I feel lucky to have friends and family who are (reasonably) happy and healthy. I feel lucky to live in the time and place I do, and to be sitting right here, right now, in this spot.

Tonight a girl I recently met said to me about The Project: "You're brave. No one talks about that."

That's what I want to hear!

Yesterday we ran across the Oakland Municipal Band.

ME: Is that a timpani?
ADAM: No, that's the ice-cream man.

Chapter 17

"You're distancing." Heard over and over in the confines of Sean's studio.

Listen up, guys. I'm not anymore.