good morning.

today i woke up in our new house, feeling refreshed after eleven hours of deep and peaceful sleep, the sunlight greeting me through the living room shades. i got mexican food for a big lunch at el chile down the street. people sat outside at tables drinking oversized margarita glasses, and the smells of cinnamon, chiles, and cilantro stopped me to drink in the ambience. there is this quote i heard that resonates with me: "the greatest voyages of discovery are made not with seeing new landscapes but with having new eyes." i don't need to leave the city to experience a changed perspective. our neighborhood has the mexican restaurant, a hipster coffee house, and streets of old houses filled with college students, married couples, and young people living together, railroad tracks cutting down the center of it. being in a house is already changing my outlook. i feel more grounded. we live right next to a quiet, trickling creek and one house from the railroad tracks. nestled behind us are two duplexes, and we share the same gravel driveway. some of my good friends live in this neighborhood. we sit in each other's houses and talk and drink. is it a surprise, i wonder, that i love drinking? i remember being that girl who would have half a beer at parties in college, the perpetual designated driver, the one who hated the feeling of life becoming foggy and ambiguous. years later, i've acquired a great love for wine, beer, and whisky. p commented the other day that i must like "everything being foggier." maybe. she met me yesterday evening for the photoshoot in front of a victorian brick building, with a chain fence and graffiti and an alley way to play around with. i selected her to take my photo for the poetry book because a) i wanted it to involve local women artists and b) i feel comfortable and at ease around her. word of advice is to never model for a photographer you do not feel chemistry with because chances are the photos will not reflect the true you. i did that once some time ago, and was not happy with the photos. i had a hard time determining what to wear for this shoot, and settled on a blue jeans, tank top, and puma sneakers look. nothing formal or dressy. i think agatha is finalizing the layout this week, and then the book will be published! the book has been 'my baby' for several years, and the novel is like 'my marriage.' i have to wonder when i will meet my real significant other, outside of the world of books. i've shifted my thinking from "if" to "when" it will happen. i will fall in love and probably get married and probably have a child one day. on friday, i went to see a woman i used to date perform. she is now the lead celloist in a band. i sat down near the front of the stage and watched her play. the music and the movement of her fingers across strings under bright lights made my past flash before my eyes. she had no idea, did she, that i had come out just to see her, and surely no one in that audience knew about the history i had with her. for about 3 years she and i have not spoken that much and i was determined to reconnect. after she got off the stage, i tapped her shoulder, she turned around, and we spent the next two hours immersed in conversation. she lives in a house with her girlfriend now. we are going to start hanging out again. the eerie fact i learned is that her birthday is the same day as my ex-girlfriend's. june 7th. i don't know what it is about people born on that day, but we are drawn to each other for some reason. after 2 a.m., she lugged out her cello from the club and walked me to my car parked eight blocks down the street. i rolled home around 3 and crashed on the couch.