only in lighthouses

The Ten (or so) Most Annoying Questions Zack and I Could Ask Audrey Niffenegger When We Go See Her In January:

1. Is this book real?

2. Is that your real hair color? Are you Clare? Can I be Clare?

3. Is this the sequel to the Time Traveler’s Wife? Why not?

4.What does Fearful Symmetry mean?

5. Will you read my novel?

6. What’s it like to be married to Jonathan Safron Foer?

7. Did you have to time travel to research your last book?

8. Why is your last name so long? And why do I feel kind of dirty every time I say it?

9. When does the sequel to the Time Traveler’s Wife come out?

10. What’s your process?

You will never, ever guess what I’m going to be for Halloween this year.

(P.S. Click the photo for the origin of this astro-coffee-miracle drink)

I need more lighthouse in my life, man. Trolling for pictures on google image search just isn’t cutting it anymore.

(That is a real photo, and apparently if you click the picture it will take you to the original site, where there is a lovely explanation involving fog and kerosene lamps).

Um, I had other things to say, but I have to go to work now. More later, including grammar lessons from the New York Times and thoughts on my first ever Latte. Or maybe just some more iron & wine/ocean porn. Who knows.

So for a couple of months now I’ve been getting a lot of guff about my shoes. Guff like, “Hey, I can see your socks” or “God, how long have you had those?” or “what happens if you step on something wet?”

I’ll tell you what happens, jerk. My socks get wet. I don’t see how that’s any of your business, but whatever.

Anyway, I stopped in Santa Rosa on my way back from Vancouver, and while I was there I took my beloved five-year-old boots into a shoe repair shop to see if there was anything that could be done. The owner, a very nice man who once attached a red belt buckle emblazoned with the word “COCKY” to a belt for me without batting an eye, took one look at them and said simply, “they’re dead.”

So my mother bought me new boots, which was very kind of her. And they are quite spiffy and shiny and sturdy, and I like them a lot, but I can’t bring myself to get rid of my old boots just yet. They were loyal and good to me for five years, and carried me through four countries and five or six states and two schools and thousands of miles of sidewalks and trails and tidepools. I unabashedly love them. I will probably still wear them, but only on dry days.

It has been suggested I use them as planters. If I only had a garden.

Hey guys, remember how I was really excited a few months ago because it was almost September, but then I realized it wasn’t almost September because it was actually only May?

WELL GUESS WHAT?

(Ooh me, ride me high,
tomorrow’s the day that my bride’s gonna come down,
Oh how we’re gonna fly
down into the easy chair)

Sunday in Pt. Reyes. Saw, in the span of about four hours: a herd of elk blocking the road, a teensy tiny seal pup scooting around on the beach, and what I’m 90% sure was a mountain lion running across the trail twenty feet in front of me. Broke out into a cold sweat, had a moment of utter frozen panic, then kept walking, rattling my keys and ready to start swinging my bag over my head and screaming at the slightest movement from the bushes. An hour later I wound up standing on a rock on the beach with waves crashing onto my feet, and for the life of me I could not stop laughing.

“…he had an experience of the intrinsic perfection of life, of wholeness, giveness, already-there-ness, apart from any act of human will or effort. An experience so fulfilling that - even in its fleeting, ephemeral quality - it dissolves the ache of need, of wanting.” - Noelle Oxenhandler, the Wishing Year, pg 126.

I really don’t know how to say what I’m trying to say. But yes, exactly.

So lately I’ve been experiencing this thing where I wake up in the morning all groggy and feeling like my head is an anvil, which is pretty much average, but instead of going away it turns into a full-blown headache, and I claw at my face for an hour and wonder what’s wrong with me. Then I drink some coffee and presto! Totally fine. And I’d been going blithely about my business, not making the obvious connection, but then the other day it hit me: I’ve become one of those people. A coffee person.

I feel there should be an induction ceremony, or something. A bag of sacred coffee beans, perhaps.  It’s like the first time you have a glass of wine and realize you actually like it: there’s a moment. You’re grown up now, or something. Which I’m absolutely not, but you know, hey. I drink coffee every morning. That’s got to give me some cred, right?

House-sitting for a friend in her little studio-ski-lodge-cabin in the woods. Woke up last night to a chorus of coyotes, who were very high pitched and enthusiastic about something. Andrew Bird pairs well with this place. I might change the locks and live here forever. Just saying.

I just don’t even know where to start.

(It’s the fourth of July, my first in this little beach town. A year ago I bought an ice cream cone and lay flat in the middle of a baseball field in Santa Rosa, and there were no fireworks, but I did see six satellites. Right now there are fireworks going off in every direction, and my street is thick with smoke. Worked a closing shift, which amounted to drinking champagne out of coffee mugs and reading in the corner, and ducking outside occasionally to catch a glimpse of fireworks. Am about to venture upstairs to make chocolate chip cookies and read for awhile. Lately I have been feeling like my whole life is being tossed into the air by the handful, which is alternately exhilarating and terrifying. I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know, and that’s maybe okay. For the moment.)

My Wednesday, thus far: bumming around in Santa Rosa, drinking coffee, listening to old school U2 (but is there really any other kind of U2?) and contemplating my rather desperate need of a new hobby.