2003-07-14 - 9:30 p.m.

I laid by the pool, and we took a couple of amazing hikes (wussy hikes, for the record. Virtually no uphill. Heh) We went to dinner, and barbecued at the awesome house the grooms parents rented for the occasion, and drank wine and in the afternoons the boyfriend would run and I'd sit on the little back deck, where the same fat chipmunk would run up every day and stand on its hind legs, sniffing for food. The wind would kick up by then, and I'd sit there with goosebumps raised on my sun hot skin, reading with my feet up, and I'd watch the leaves turn over in the wind, and breathe deep, trying to memorize the light, and the hay and grass scent of it, dry and dusty, so I could write about it. I sat out there, thinking about writing, thinking about my journal tucked in the pocket of my suitcase, but I never did write it down. Took some pictures, though, and met some great new people and had a 90 minute hot stone massage with my friend Terry and the bride, and all in all it was a truly amazing vacation. I will say that I was slightly disturbed by the garage sale signs tacked up all over town : Guns and Stuff. I can say, in all honesty, that I am far more frightened of a place where guns are sold at garage sales than I am of a place like NY, with its drug dealers and gangs. There are rules to those sort of things here, and one can increase the odds of safety by following them, e.g minding one's own business and staying out of certain neighborhoods at certain hours. Guns at garage sales? That's a free for all, right there. It was a blissful trip, all that aside.

Only slightly ruined by the FUCKING NIGHTMARE that returning was. I honestly can't even get into all the painful details, I just don't have the energy. I just finally let go of it last week. Suffice it to say, we left J@ckson Hole at 11 am on Sunday, PST, and arrived home in NY at 5:30 am EST, Monday morning. Without our luggage. I would also like to say that I was an absolute raving lunatic the entire time, and if I were the boyfriend, I'd have killed me. The girl next to me was right there with me, and we bitched and ranted (stuck on the runway, in the plane, for 5 hours) and then started questioning the Amerisuck Airlines representative they sent in to calm us down. At that point the boyfriend did threaten to change his seat, but in the end, he didn't. I was actually quite in control of it, no yelling or screaming or anything like that, but God DAMN did I want to beat the shit out of somebody, anybody. It's that impotent rage, because, really, who can you take it out on? Not the stewardesses fault. Not the gate person, either. When the boyfriend asked me to rate my level of anger and frustration to him, I told him I was VIBRATING. So that really, royally SUCKED. But it's over now.

And my niece stayed with me on Wednesday and Thursday nights, which was the amazing time it always is (for me, anyway :o) - we went to the park and the Emp1re St@te Building, and to Ground Zero. We shopped, and went for pizza, and to T1mes Square, and we bought her the same K@ng0l hat that I have, and we wore them everywhere. We went to see Leg@lly Bl0nde 2 (note - this act in and of itself proves what a good aunt I must be... I would rather dig out my eyeballs with teaspoons than watch that shit.. I sat there the whole time thinking, "I am WAY WAY too cynical to be sitting here.." ) and then we went upstate, with my parents and brother and SIL, and my nephew, and we had a great weekend, as well. And all weekend, I watched the boyfriend, helping the kids build a fort, all of us playing tackle keep-away on the front lawn while my Mom took pictures, taking mini-hikes and cooking dinner, and I turned another corner. Maybe the last one.

My very last concern in our relationship was the difference in our view of family. Not our values of family, or ideal of family, but our day to day differences. His family isn't close, while they love each other and are close in their way, they live fairly separate lives. I, on the other hand, am pretty immersed in the lives of mine. And I worried that this would become an issue down the road (you know, like it did in my marriage) and it became my last remaining obstacle, my last, desperate self-created barrier to commitment and intimacy. And this past weekend, he kicked it loose. And I realized, seeing his Dad sitting with my parents on the deck, that instead of it dividing us, it's been good for us both. I have gotten a little long overdue distance from my family, and he's gotten a little long overdue closeness. Funny how that worked out.

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