home, sweet, home
i just sent an email to someone and included a line about being in that weird phase of post-vacation detox confusion. here it is, almost eleven on sunday night after this extra long american thanksgiving weekend, and i've been home about two hours and i'm still a tad out of focus. i made it to the shower, the toilet, and the internet, but still haven't reconvened with my beloved television. i had a long but very wonderful phone chat with my amazing editor at LAist. and here i am, procrastinating tackling a luxurious act of procrastination by writing. maybe i do know a thing or two after all.
i think it was thanksgiving night, after a few of us pillaged the poor unsuspecting pumpkin and pecan pies on the countertop of my hosts' lovely home, i turned to lqt's brother and said, with zero intention of dissatisfaction, that i felt like i'd been visiting at their parents' house for eight and a half weeks. really, we'd only been there two days, but two days of being completely removed from my comfort zone and home-space--and head space, i'll add thankfully--is mighty powerful. follow that up with a third day of mellow family fun and then a blast off eastward to the bay area for a very full day and night of adventuring and bickering and walking and the like, toss in an oh so very long drive home all day today, and it's no wonder i'm not feeling like myself.
all of this is actually a rather good thing; lately feeling like myself has been a strange condition. it seems, since i'm paying homage to single pete yorn song, that stories and cigarettes were conspiring to ruin the life of no lesser girl, but rather plain old me. here's where i put the back of my hand to my slightly damp forehead and say with a flutter and a drawl "who am i?"
on the ride home this afternoon we dialed up some podcasts of "this american life" and gave an old timey radio listen for a couple of hours. yesterday i poked my nose around the shelves and aisles of the legendary city lights bookstore in san francisco. i talked an awful lot about writing with some awfully great folks over days and countless glasses of wine. i heard some amazing stories about the city i call my home from someone who lived in it seventy some odd years ago. i put some words down in my own notebook. i hung out with a nine year old who wrote and directed two very brief plays over two very fun nights. i took a lot of pictures. over breakfast this morning in oakland i told someone about my thesis, and registered a look of "wow, that's cool" on their appreciative face, and for the first time in a long time thought "wow, that IS cool" too. i'm becoming less afraid of my own words.
i'm starting to remember who i am.
and it's so very nice to be home sweet home.
