What is love?*

I need to write, I think. I have not been writing.

Sara's home. She and Brian came over tonight to provide moral support while I did my taxes. It was great. It was so great.

Earlier today Kelly came over to talk, and I ended up providing moral support while she talked to her boss and ended up almost certainly quitting her job. She'd planned to do that in person, but it didn't work out that way. It was so great. We went to Carytown to celebrate, had frozen yogurt, walked around. I saw some shoes I've been wanting in a shop window and ran in to try them on--they're so new that there aren't any reviews anywhere online--and they fit pretty well. I may go back for them.

It was great.

Sunday Jack and I came home from Camp, I jumped in the shower, and I ran over to Sara's parents' house so we could all take the "limo" to meet Sara and Brian at the airport. The limo turned out to be more of a party bus, and Ami and I got tipsy on pink sparkling sake on the way to the airport (I essentially never drink, so this took...one soda-sized bottle of the stuff). We hid in the bus to surprise Sara, and when she saw us, she screamed. Group hug. Utterly unflattering pictures. Slightly drunken shopping at Whole Foods. Dinner of sushi and burgers and grilled zucchini back at the house. It was great.


And Camp...Camp was wonderful. It almost always is, when I let it be so. I had a hard time with that "let it be" issue over the weekend--I had a really weird, initially extremely unsettling and upsetting experience with some crazy guy from POF last week, and when I got to Camp it still had me in a heavy, black mood. I had to remind myself a lot to just drop it, but though I needed a lot of reminding, that reminding helped. I had had plans to corner Victoria and vent about this guy, and she was interested in the story, but she'd brought friends with her and felt the need to play hostess, and I didn't know what to say anyway. I was exhausted on several levels, and I guess I sulked for a while, but eventually I let go of my plans (always a good option) and hung out with Liz in the kitchen, talked to Jim on the swings, took a nap and saved this note to myself in my phone:

Here is where I am. Drop everything else. Here is where I am: alone and peaceful
in a warm, dry bed
in a safe place
surrounded by friends
and love
listening to the soft rain and distant thunder
retreating for a nap before supper.
Alone and warm and beautifully sleepy, in a wholly beautiful place. 
That is all that matters.

That morning a group of us had gone caving. I had nearly backed out, but went anyway because another driver was needed. Jack went. The new people loved it. It was a very short trip, but it was good. That night we had a staff meeting to talk about programmatic changes, mainly to the patch and CiT voting systems. It was a really good meeting. And afterward, Charity and I talked to Beth about our roles as lead counselors. We talked about tithing to Camp and using the money to create a lead counselor slush fund. I'm really looking forward to it.

A game of pictionary was pulled together, using prompter cards from the 80's. A game of double Jenga was loudly taking place a few tables away, and later, an even louder game of mangy cat, which I and a few other pictionary players joined after our game wrapped up. It was really, really great.




























*(Baby don't hurt me...)

I need to stop buying myself stuff. REALLY. (Help.)

I have a sexy new candy-cane-stripe dress. (And by new, I mean vintage.) I'm definitely not a habitual vintage shopper, but a friend of ours was having a party/open house for her eyeglass shop in the space she's currently sharing with a woman who owns a coffee and tea shop, and we were there, and there were vintage clothes there as well. And jewelry. And chocolate-dipped strawberries.

Possibly that didn't make sense. These people that live behind us? River (daughter, Chloe's age), her brothers, Cynthia (mom) and Bruce (dad)? They are our friends. Cynthia owns an eyeglass store. It caught on fire. The coffee/tea shop next to hers also caught fire. Now they are sharing space a few doors down. They had a party. It was pretty great, because now I have a new dress. I'm having a little trouble figuring out what to wear with it though, as winter tends to be a little chilly for mid-thigh-length sleeveless dresses, and I don't know how to match things.



Christmas list update: I really want buckyballs (from thinkgeek.com). I also really want grey tights, white tights, and jeggings (don't judge me). I also REALLY want Spill & Spell (they still sell it! At Barnes and Noble!) and Set (also sold at B&N!). Really though I mostly only want Set because the last and only time I played it, I got beat repeatedly by a six year old, and that isn't really okay with me. I need to practice. To be fair, she beat everyone else too, and every single time (except her older sister--this is a genius family), and she'd start picking up sets before all the cards were even down, but still. She was SIX.

Also, the BAm Nonrequired Reading this year (2010, in case that was unclear: Best American Nonrequired Reading 2010) is edited by Dave Eggers. Want. Also wouldn't mind having the BAm short stories, essays, science writing. Or Bill Bryson's new book, At Home: A Short History of Private Life, because I love him. A lot. Or pretty much any Oliver Sacks book other than The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, as I believe I've mentioned before.

OR THE NEW WHEEL OF TIME BOOK. Please forgive me for yelling. It's difficult to contain myself. I mean, I know I should wait for the paperback, I know I don't want to own the hardback, but I want to read it NOW. It's called Towers of Midnight, if anyone was wondering. It's written by Brandon (?) (I always get his first name wrong) Sanderson.

Also: Anything by Neil Gaiman that isn't Coraline. Also, 1,000 Things To See Before You Die.

Update

Awesome:
Christmas
mentoring Christmas parties
because-a-friend-is-in-town Christmas parties
Hanukkah parties
Apples To Apples
cheese
hanging out with friends
new additions to facebook
blankets
boots

100% not awesome:
Surprise sinus infections. The entire left side of my head feels swollen and itchy on the inside.