Dream Journal - Suburban Houses of Mirrors

For the last 6 months or so, I have been having a ridiculous amount of dreams. Almost nightly I will have 3 or 4 separate dreams which, like most people, fritter away and disappear the moments after I wake up. Sometimes I piece together my oblique, highly detailed narratives for my girlfriend though, who marvels at the bizarre crap that comes out of my subconscious. My dreams are heavily populated by characters, locales, and incident, though little of it has any direct connection with my daily life.

Like last night, for instance.

I was at the edge of the street down the block from my house in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin (I grew up in a suburb of Milwaukee). A row of non-descript suburban houses that you'll find anywhere. Not unlike below.

I know exactly what block this is, and it looks exactly the same, and completely different. Because instead of the usual 10 feet between houses, they are all packed close together. What's more striking is that every house is pristine white. The sideboards, the roofs, everything. It's a giant line of medicinal blahness, and you wonder why on earth anyone on this block would agree to turn their street into an IRS hallway.

Until I move down it. Quickly. Maybe in a car, maybe a bike. Suddenly I'm hit by an explosion of light passing each house, a kaliedescope of colors. It turns out that all of the front doors are set into a recessed, exterior foyer about 10-15 feet back from the front of the house itself. Each door on the block is a different color - red, blue, purple, yellow, etc. And coming out from each door is a V-shaped structure leading to the house's edge, splaying outward, and the V's are entirely lined with glass. Which causes a house of mirrors effect with the front door, reflecting and radiating the light in all different directions. An absolute explosion of color that completely changes your perception of this drab, white, antiseptic street.

It's kind of a crazy carnival of colors, and not what one would consider "classy". However, it's so genuine and full of life that it can't help but be inspiring. It's just oozing life and energy, like a Tim Burton movie where you don't understand how these people live, but you respect their utter dedication to the process.

But why this particular suburban block, that I have no actual affinity or connection to? I haven't thought of it in years, and nothing notable ever happened to me on that stretch of pavement. Maybe my subconscious is just suffused with the Arcade Fire's remarkable album, "The Suburbs". Each day or week I seem to be alternatingly obsessed with a new track. Currently, I adore the near-closing track, "The Sprawl 1 Flatland lyrics, which reminds me of a Spielberg version of the suburbs, circa "E.T.". Visions of kids on their bikes late at night:

Cops showing their lights
On the reflectors of our bikes
Said, do you kids know what time it is?
Well sir, it's the first time I've felt like something is mine
Like I have something to give

The idea of finally having ownership of something... your life itself, as a kid is something that you typically think of as a college psychology. However, those lyrics perfectly capture what it feels like the first time you get out of your house, staying out past your bedtime. Doing nothing, but it's still the most important thing in the world to you, at that moment.

We will see what moments my next dreams bring.

Lucky to Be a Failed Screenwriter

I sit with my glass of wine (the charmingly labeled bottle, Pinot Evil), my 5 year old sleeping in the next room. Watching the documentary TALES FROM THE SCRIPT, I consider how unbelievably lucky I am to be a failed screenwriter.

It's gratifying to listen to successful, (sometimes) famous screenwriters, discuss their craft, and hear that they view the profession and the process in exactly the same way that I did. They managed to make it work. I, however, did not. "The price of getting into the film business... is figuring out your path... How are you going to get over that wall?". I guess I never had the wherewithal to build the right kind of ladder to get over the wall, though I scrambled and scrabbled to varying degrees of recognition and rejection. "Nobody wants your stuff", William Goldman says.

I never got over that wall, and I eventually had the good luck to get a copywriting job. The irony is that screenwriting is the economy of style - it's architecture and structure, rather than florid prose. It's not poetry. It's mechanics with style. I ended up writing online marketing ads that show up every day when you search for Google, which makes the notion of screenwriting as economy almost absurd. It's 70 characters, all in. No story. Little creativity.

But it turns out it was creative. Creative in the way that it causes you to work with people, learn new skills, and discover talents you didn't know you have. My career has since flourished, and while I do some writing in my job, here and there, I'm no longer a writer.

The energy that entertainment has is, of course, undeniable. I was getting gas today next to Sony studios, looking at the water tank, and remembering the naive enthusiasm I had the first time I walked on that lot for an internship... "Oh my god, I'm in Hollywood. This is where IT happens".

Or it's where it doesn't happen. And even if it does happen, it goes through so many twists and turns, and ups and downs, that it leaves you hollowed, not remembering where you began - or why you began - to begin with.

But, yeah, whatever, you fucking whiner. Go back to Iowa. That's the message of the guy who didn't get it done. The failure. The one who walked way.

Yeah. All very true. And I'm not crying in my soup, and I'm probably making more money now than if I actually did turn into a "working screenwriter" (unless you make that million dollar sale kind of thing, etc.). And I don't want anyone to whine for me, because I love not having that feeling like you're chasing it every day. Chasing down people to like you, to validate you, to invite you in the room. To make you feel like that phone call is the most important thing in your day, in your life.

And listening to old screenwriters in a documentary... successful, impressive writers, that story doesn't change. Granted, I'll have to worry about ageism (as in Hollywood), unemployment, companies failing, etc, etc, etc. But when I walked away, I realized that I didn't want to spend every day in my life begging for that one phone call each day that makes me feel like a validated human being. "You have to get a hit EVERY time you're up to bat".

I've validated that for myself just fine, thank you, and I don't regret it at all. In fact, I barely miss it. Barely.

I just wish I had a good movie idea to write...

Worth the Effort

You think should be easy, but they aren't. Even something as seemingly simple as a vacation can be exceptionally complicated. There's travel issues, like spending 180 minutes in a Days Inn in Dublin, Georgia, which was 179 minutes too long. There are family issues, such as an unneeded drama between siblings that drags in my wonderful girlfriend. There is the frequent social ineptness of family members, such as a mother who wants to talk about nothing but my ex to my girlfriend - not exactly a way to engender a feeling of togetherness or connectedness. Suddenly what is supposed to be relaxing becomes fraught with drama and emotion. Not exactly the way you envisioned things going.

But somehow life is always like that.

Life is hard. Challenges are waiting for you every day when you wake up, and they're still lurking under the bed when you drift off to sleep. But that doesn't mean life is like a box of chocolates. Rather, it's like this:

A mango.

One of the most time-consuming pieces of fruit to eat. The peeling process is a pain in the ass, and it usually takes at least a minute, if not two, to successfully strip it of its rubbery shell. When you do, it's often overly juicy, which makes it hard to hold onto during those final swipes of your peeler. I have had more than one mango squirt out of my grasp into the garbage can below. Nothing that a little water can't solve.

Then you have to cut the mango. It never cuts very easily. When you see the Mexican fruit vendors do it, you start to suspect they might be using lightsabers rather than knives - it's never been that easy for me. You usually get a decent amount of fruit from two sides, but then you hone in on the others, and the whole thing kind of collapses around you, juice dribbling off the cutting board, yielding few treasures. You start to wonder why you bother. A banana's sitting over there, and by now it would've been eaten.

Then the mango's cut, but you're a pulpy, juicy mess, and you still need to get it all into a bowl. Do you wash your hands before grabbing a bowl, knowing that you'll get the bowl sticky? Or do you take the time to wash your hands and then fill up the bowl with that orange-yellow goodness? You choose the latter, but then you're inevitably going to get messy again, swiping the fruit into the bowl with the knife that's covered in goo. Then, if you want the mango to be really perfect, you need to put the whole thing into the fridge for awhile - chilled is better than room temperature.

Goddamn, getting to eat a fucking mango is a giant pain in my ass.

While it's already a piss-poor analogy, life is similar to the the preparation of a mango - it's filled with all the preparation, all the mind-numbing details you don't want to deal with, challenges that you don't anticipate when you first start, and there's frequently a sense of delayed gratification.

But then you eat it. And holy shit, all of the effort that goes into it is forgotten. It's all worth it. Because that mango is filled with flavor, texture. It warms everything about you, and makes any meal that you're eating all the more enjoyable.

And when you share that mango with the person that you adore, who you love in ways you can't even describe, it's the difference between just eating the mango, and savoring it. The challenges that got through to reach that point still exist, and they're still there, but they seem negligible, and they don't detract from the pleasure of that mango. Because you're eating it together. You both understand what it means to have gotten to that point, and to be in that place. Even if some of the mango juice dribbles down your chin.

Sprains, Sickness and Death

Not the greatest of weeks, one has to say, looking back on it.

It started by a ridiculous ankle sprain playing soccer with my kid. He's not very experienced, and I still have to endlessly remind him not to try to step on the ball to stop it. You trap it with your foot. Yet, there we are, at the park, and what do I do? I step on the ball. So predictable you could set your watch to it, my ankle rolls, and voila, I'm groaning in pain on the ground. I could barely walk the next day, and thought it may have been broken. Amazingly, I made a remarkable turnaround the next day, and after some minor hobbling, have been ok.

Meanwhile, L has suffered from a horrible cold all week, and was sick much of the week. While she's kept a stiff upper lip, it's definitely hurt our typical rhythm, and we haven't been quite as in sync as we usually are. The general, low-grade but pervasive stress has taken a toll on the week.

Then yesterday, my uncle died. He was beloved to me when I was a little kid, but we had fallen out of touch, and I hadn't been in contact with him for some time. My dad's younger brother, and the closest of his siblings. He was also a gargantuan wall of flesh who you couldn't even remotely accuse of taking care of himself. So when he has a heart attack while driving to play golf with my dad, at the age of 54, you can't be surprised. The truck crashes into a tree, but he was likely already dead. Leaving behind 3 girls between the ages of 18 and 25. Heartbreaking. My dad adored his flawed, but eminently likable brother, and it leaves my grandfather without a caretaker. I don't know what they're going to do about that.

I fly to Dayton, OH for the funeral tomorrow morning, and I will miss L terribly. I was so looking forward to us getting back in our groove this weekend, but alas, it will have to wait. Instead, I must go comfort family members, both dear to me and those that I haven't communicated with in years. It's bound to be a surreal weekend, and I won't have my special someone beside me to go through it all.

Just because

Yes, it's been slow around here these days. Especially for my one follower.

I haven't had the time or energy to be writing about all my happy moments - of which there are many - because I am too busy having them. When not having said moments, I'm overwhelmed with work. It's been a time of transition in my professional world, all of which are good things - more responsibility and all of that - but it's been most of what I'm thinking about when I'm not with L.

So, I'm deeply, deeply sorry to be offending my meager audience out there - all those people who drop in from the Netherlands, Russia and Encino - but...

Yet, along those lines, it's worth considering whether or not my blog is played out. I never started it to be read, or to garner an audience; if I had, I would've chosen a subject more interesting - or at least scatalogical - than myself. I would've thought about things like "linkbait" and "top 5 posts" to garner all those backlinks and readers that blogs need to get. That was never an interest, and the people who dropped in were like niggling little thoughts in the back of my consciousness - you know they're there somewhere, but you're not quite fully aware of their presence. And the blog was started as a necessary therapeutic outlet more than anything else. The guy who has never kept a journal could only do so if he was typing. And isn't everyone doing everything in "the Cloud" these days anyway? We don't seem to think or speak if it's not "in the Cloud". So... there was that.

But I haven't really needed a therapeutic outlet as of late. I haven't been to see my therapist in at least 9 months, which I somehow feel guilty about, because I feel like the only reason to go see her is so she knows I'm in a good, happy place. This blog has always been my online therapist - listening, taking it in, and not judging me in any way. There's a woman who also doesn't judge me, and when I need the outlet, she is there for me.

Saves my fingers the effort, which can then be used for other things...

Endings and Continuations

I'm not one for end of the year ruminations, recriminations or reclamations. Libations, yes. Those other 'ations', not so much. Generally a navel-gazing waste of time, in my view.

That being said, it's 11 pm on New Year's Eve, and I'm all alone. Not in a sad, woe is me way, but L has gone out to a fancy Beverly Hills party with a friend, and I'm here as the little one sleeps. Earlier in the evening we had my best friend and his family over for sumptuous steaks, and stage-diving by two four-year old boys into a mound of pillows. A nice, low-key way to end the year for the parenting set. Granted, L isn't officially part of that set, but she was game nonetheless. That's exactly why I wanted her to go out though; so she could get some enjoyment of the social set, while I wile away at home, thinking of her.

And thinking of her just leads to my end of the year thoughts. Which, as I said, tend not to be verbose or self-involved. Needless to say, it's been an amazing year in so many respects, and the experiences and milestones are indelibly imprinted in my mind, and elsewhere. But simply...

I'm grateful and hopeful, and believe that life is good.

Happy New Year.

Wine in the Mexican Countryside

There's a rooster crowing in the Mexican countryside. Centered atop a hill within a nearly barren valley, twenty miles from the coast, rests La Villa Del Valle, a romantic retreat opened 5 years ago by two charming British ex-pats. The husband, Phil, is a conassuieur of social behavior and wine, so it would only have made sense that he discover a way to disappear from the regular world and start a winery, which serves as the backbone for this exquisite bed & breakfast.

L had heard of Del Valle from a Daily Candy email, probably 4 years ago, and kept it tucked away in her email box, a hovering dream waiting to come to life. It's not an inexpensive place to go, so it remained a semi-distant wish, until some money dropped into our laps in the form of a movie-gambling game run by my best friend and I, which I happened to win for the first time in 14 years. When I won in September, it was the easiest decision in the world to use the ill-gotten spoils to come here.

With my son on a vacation of his own, the perfect opportunity presented itself in the days before Christmas. Family is coming for the holiday, which meant no hectic airport travel, and the right time for such an escape. As for the escape itself, La Villa del Valle is just north of Escanada, which is itself about 70 minutes south of Tijuana. American fears of murder and death south of the border are greatly exaggerated, as long as you don't come down here as a cocaine trafficking mule. And, tempting though it was to make some pick-ups for some dudes on Hollywood and Vine, we're just a normal young couple. Who got our car searched by the Mexican military anyway. The 19 year old soldiers were friendly and unthreatening, however.

Turning off the 1 just before Escanada, you drive up Hwy 3, turning off onto a jagged dirt road amidst a long stretch of highway construction (good to see that Mexico has the funds for major roadwork). The car bounces along past a few modest homes, farms and dried wineries (December is not prime wine season), and you start to wonder where this place is. The beautiful scripted signs keep you pointed in the right direction, however, at each and every fork. An elegant invitation beckoning you further into the countryside.

Then it appears: a yellow stone home of significant size perched atop a small peak in the valley, ringed by semi-distant, verdant mountains. Turning past the gate, you drive up to the house, which looks like something out of Italy, with its huge stone archways and a giant wooden front door that is never locked. Friendly family dogs welcome you, quietly eager to show you the way. They quickly become your friends and guides to the exteriors of the property.

Inside, Alejandro, the home's manager, warmly welcomes you and gives you a tour of this sumptuous yet eternally tasteful country paradise. What most strikes you is how every detail was so carefully considered, from the tiles on the stairway to the fact that there are no locks on the bedroom doors. It is just that type of place - you are welcomed into the Gregory's home, and you treat it as such. L comments frequently that, were she to have this kind of money and opportunity, this is exactly how she would style something. She points out the amazing use of depth and space, as the Gregorys fill every room with art and objects at different levels, from the hanging metal lamps, which have a Morrocan/Spanish feel, to the frequent mirrors and stunning artwork. The first night we ballparked the decorating of this home at a massive amount of money, though perhaps with the endless Mexican artisans in Baja California, that number was much lower.

Settling into our beautiful, warm room, we look out over the valley from our balcony, and the question of the weekend sets in: what do you do with yourself when there is nothing to do? This is a wonderful question to ask, which I never allow myself to ponder, so this is a vaguely discomforting notion to me. But it's a wonderful habit to get into, and we threw ourselves into that amusing challenge with gusto. There's a cocktail hour at 5:30, where Alejandro brings wine made here to the guests, along with an organic botana (snack). It turned out to be a remarkable carmelized onion mixture within a chard leaf. A short while later, we had the recommended first night dinner at the house. This is a one-night affair, because it's a pretty pricey meal, charming though it was. It's a four course meal, where the first two courses were probably the best, especially the creativity of the ostrich spring roll. The entree and dessert were a little underwhelming, though one understands why the house chef is described as "visionary" - everything we ate was unexpected and original. Just not sure that all of it "worked".

After dinner, we retire to our room to drink more wine, talk about futures, people's attitudes towards marriage, and how our own opinion of those rituals have changed over the years. The Gregorys wines - especially their cab - are phenomenal, but at $25 a bottle, wasn't what we were going to spend the whole weekend drinking. We popped open our own, and had a wonderful evening.

After a wonderfully authentic and spicy breakfast, Saturday was spent lounging around, going to the gorgeously crafted pool to relax, read magazines and books, and do absolutely nothing. We wandered the estate, finding a stone labyrinth. When you first hear there's a labyrinth, you think hedges and getting lost. Instead, it's a deceptively simple circle of 6 inch high stones that you follow around to the center. There are no wrong turns, and you kind of wonder why you're walking around like a semi-homeless person following the path. But the longer you do it (it takes around 5 minutes), the more you realize this is a manifestation of creative energy that comes from living away from it all - the less time you spend on your self-imposed "to-do" list, the more time you have for free thinking. Reaching the center of the labyrinth, only 15 feet from the exterior edge, it doesn't seem pointless, but rather, serene.

We drive for an early dinner, hoping to make it back for cocktail hour, but the directions we're given to some restaurant with the word oranges in the name is deceptively complicated because of the heavy road construction. We eventually grow a bit worried and turn off onto a winery road to check out La Casa de Dona Lupe, thinking it's a restautant. It is, to the extent they make pizza to go (take THAT Domino's!), but more specifically, it is a shop of organic jams, jellies and aromatherapy products. And old Dona Lupe, a 75 year old woman, sits behind the counter, bagging your purchases, while her beautiful daughter, mid-forties, shows off how smooth her skin is from the products we're buying. They give us more exact directions, and we find the restaurant, where few speak English, but the food is good. More wine back at the del Valle, but watching "Coraline" on my computer is waylaid by other interests...

Sunday we head to Ensenada after L and I have a game of bocce ball. The shopping district is quiet, and we can't find much that really interests us, sadly. It's a somewhat underwhelming town, but when we get munchy, we stop for margaritas and nachos, and to watch the first quarter of the Packer game. Heading back to Del Valle, we pick up an early dinner of Mediterranean lamb, and then make cocktail hour, where we sit with the Gregorys and some friends of theirs, talking for a couple of hours over multiple glasses of wine. That Phil keeps pouring demonstrates that they enjoy our company, and we're not unwanted in their gorgeous living room after the close of the traditional cocktail hour. We eat our dinner and cheese-filled apple pie in bed, before retiring early from a evening of heavy wine consumption and rapturously sensual delights.

We don't want to go home, though we must. We'll head back via Tecate, and prepare for the rest of the holiday week, along with the arrival home of my little guy, who I can't wait to have a visit from Santa. Provided no one else dies this week (the weekend was cast under a shadow by the news of two deaths leading into the weekend, one quite impactful and important to our lives), it should hopefully be a wonderful holiday.

Levels Rising

2009 has featured a tremendous capacity for dealing with stress. It's amazing how being happy, being in love, and feeling hopeful and optimistic can leave you with strong reserves to deal with stress. It's been a great year in that regard.

That being said, the last couple of weeks have left me a little more frazzled than I would prefer. It's all work related, not lifestyle focused. We just tacked on a major element to our new work endeavor, which comes directly from my old department, while demanding that we set up entire new operations on our end. It's a big, crucial initiative that I'm currently carrying on my shoulders, and I spend my nights dreaming of spreadsheets, and my mornings waking up with my first thoughts about what work-related things I should be doing that very moment. Brushing my teeth I'm game-planning my agenda, and by the time I have my coffee, I'm already three steps ahead of what I should be doing.

All of this is theoretically great in terms of experience and career, but the plan is to be hiring someone to take on many of these duties I'm pitch-hitting for. That plan was set in motion, aspiring to make the process smooth and easy in terms of a resource, but due to something as mundane and insidious as company politics, it got blown to smithereens. Lots of people ended up doing things in a far less than optimal way, and my agenda gets compromised badly as a result of it, and who knows if there will be later political fall-out. A really unfortunate circumstance that's ultimately going to cost my company a fantastic employee, and me the ability to keep the ship moving forward smoothly and quickly. While I've felt like a superstar at times this year, this was something that I felt I could deliver, and I failed. That's a bummer.

So I've felt more than my share of work-stress for the past few weeks, and I feel badly that I've burdened L. with it. She doesn't deserve it, and though I don't feel that I've been a bad guy at all, she knows that I'm preoccupied, and not as focused on us as I'd like to be. So that's a shame, and I don't want it to be that way. It makes me realize that I'm not perfect when it comes to coping with stress, but then again, what does that mean: to be perfect when it comes to stress? Isn't the very nature of that to upset the psychological apple cart and not be able to be perfect? I still think that I'm generally better than most in that regard, but I'm not sure what all the coping strategies and mechanisms are, from person to person.

And, on top of that, my wonderful L. is in some far away place called Fresno tonight. Fresno. The word itself sounds like abandoned drive-ins and Chinese restaurants called Oriental Palace. But I hope that she's having relaxing family time with her father, and that moments like these help build a stronger bridge between them, which may not have been consistently stable and strong through much of her life. It's good that she's doing it, and me being away from her for a night isn't much of a price to pay for that.

Where The Wild Things Are Waking Up

It's been a surprisingly good year for movies, despite the general debasement of the American movie-going culture. Between "Up", "The Hurt Locker", "District 9" and Zach Galifanakis' penis, it's been a pretty solid year overall. I mean, who doesn't want a fair dose of Galifanakis' member?(Actually, it wasn't, but whatever).

From the first moment that I heard the Arcade Fire-backed teaser for "Where the Wild Things Are", I was hooked. Desperate to see that movie, knowing that a children's film directed by Spike Jonze couldn't possibly resemble a children's film. Year-long rumors of production troubles and threats of taking the movie out of the director's hands did little to dissuade this notion.

Turns out that it definitely wasn't a children's film. As Jonze insisted, he wasn't interested in making a kids' movie, but rather, "a movie about childhood". He succeeded unlike anything I could've possibly imagined. I have read Sendak's classic dozens of times with Z, and we know it word for word, but I'll admit that I don't hold any undue reverence for the book. It's great, no question, but I never had a "oh god, they can't possibly make a movie of that" reaction. After all, it has the general guts for a movie - the book simply doesn't have a middle. But it has motivation, a beginning and an end. The rest was up to the filmmakers.

Jonze is a filmmaker I generally admire, though haven't loved. "Malcovich" was immensely clever and fun, but "Adaptation" made me frustrated and angry with its navel-gazing obsessions to self-obsessed artists. So I didn't walk in with reverence towards these uber-hipster filmmakers, and spent much of the last few weeks wondering whether or not I could take Z to see it. But that Arcade Fire song... god, it works wondrously in a trailer.

"Wake Up" is nowhere to be found in the movie, but the underlying message of the trade-offs that we make between childhood and adulthood infuses the soul of the film. The confusion that children feel, living in a world of adults and not feeling understood - and not understanding themselves - is something that carries into adulthood, and the characters of the "Wild Things". They are, on the surface, meant to mirror Max's lack of emotional control and understanding, but their very adult voices and relationships gives the subtle sensation that, no matter the age, we don't conquer these feelings and find answers to these questions.

In this way, "Where the Wild Things Are" is really the "Synecdoche, New York" of 2009. The feelings of alienation and confusion, the inability to put a finger on where you fit in, and who loves you, and whether or not those insecurities can and should be trusted... they're endemic to being 9 years old, but it doesn't leave when you're 20, or 30 or probably 60.

Not only is the song amazing, but the lyrics show there's no question they chose it for a clear, definable reason:

Somethin’ filled up
my heart with nothin’,
someone told me not to cry.

But now that I’m older,
my heart’s colder,
and I can see that it’s a lie.

Children wake up,
hold your mistake up,
before they turn the summer into dust.

If the children don’t grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We’re just a million little god’s causin rain storms turnin’ every good thing to rust.

The song is an admission that children understand there are complexities to life that they don't necessarily understand, but they know they're there. Just keeping those emotions buried deep does nothing but allows them to cope in a conventionally pre-defined way, but not to really live; eventually you fear that holding them down is what leads to emotionless drones later in life. While Max may not handle this emotions in the way that he necessarily should (he's definitely "wild" in a way that's too dangerous by half), at least he's acknowledging them. And the depiction of how those emotions bubble and surface in "Where the Wild Things Are" is brilliant, haunting and meaningful. Seeing them in Max is one thing, but then seeing them reflected in Max's face as other characters (namely Carol) grapple with them, is truly beautiful and heartbreaking.

And I still don't know if I should let Z see it. But I know that I'll want to have conversations with him about it for years to come. Especially about how the fact that, even as you get older, the confusion, the insecurity and all those other painful feelings don't necessarily go away. No one has it fully figured out.

Fall is here... for the moment

A brisk wind blows through Los Angeles on a Sunday afternoon. The first weekend of October. The first one in LA that actually feels like fall. It's my favorite season, and one that Southern California doesn't feel with the full bloom and force as in other parts of the country. So it's a momentary pleasure, as next weekend may be 85 degrees, or the following one may forget autumn entirely and settle into the blandness of 65 degrees. Not that one should really complain, because three months later it will still be... 65 degrees, while it's 20 degrees where I come from.

Speaking of where I come from, I was able to breathe in the coming fall back in Wisconsin with L. Empty country roads and Door County farmhouses while on a gorgeous, picturesque tour of my home state. We ate pure Wisconsin cheese, savored the joys of Leinie's Red, and sat beside beautiful Lake Mendota, appreciating life back in Madison, the most perfect place in the world when the weather matches its charms.

All of it makes me so appreciative of this time of year, which creeps up so slowly and disappears so fast. Even back in Wisconsin, they're probably now having the most stunning weekends of the year, replete with the smell of fallen leaves on the lawn, but in a month the Midwest will be concerned with weather-stripping and ballooning heating bills. Here in Los Angeles, Halloween will pass, and we'll ponder the holidays, which will erupt without the benefit of the further changing of seasons. Yeah, we'll put on our thin, Fall coats, but it's really not the same.

I guess that neither way is ideal, but the connecting thread between the two is unavoidable change. These are brief, momentary periods that need to be savored and cherished, because tomorrow they will be gone. At least as far as the weather goes.

But for me, I'm going to appreciate every minute of it, from the pumpkins on the kitchen table, to the football season unfolding in 16 weeks, to what promises to be a comically fun time at Knotts Scary Farm tonight, to that stiff wind that somehow both chills and warms, to the lovely, wonderful woman that I get to spend my time with, who only gets more beautiful with each passing day. Yes, Fall is a time to be cherished.