a moon, worn as if it had been a shell

I'm home again in Los Angeles after a perfect weekend in San Francisco and just outside of it. I spent most of the time hanging out at my dear friend Jody's house. I wore my pajamas until noon, and she lay on my bed and we talked and talked. Her husband made delicious coffee. We went to a ridiculously fancy restaurant on Friday night in San Francisco and ate tiny portions of too-rich and fussy food. We went to a beautiful benefit for a school for kids with severe disabilities -- the school where our darling Lueza attended -- and I sat next to Jody and cried when the slide show ended on her soulful face. Despite the sorrow of Lueza's absence, and it was palpable, the love that surrounded that child fills her home still, and I can honestly say that I have not felt so relaxed and happy and at ease in years. Thank you, Jody and Jacek, for your warmth and hospitality, for your beautiful home and for being such steadfast friends.

We woke up this morning and visited Jody's good friend, ate the most amazing homemade biscuits and orange marmalade (honestly, I could have eaten a jar of it) and sat out on a high porch in the hot sunshine, laughing and talking. After that, Jody drove me into the city to my blogger friend Sally's house where the famous Maggie lives, and after listening to Maggie's jokes and chatting a bit in their wonderfully quaint San Francisco home, Sally drove me to City Lights, where I raptured in the poetry room upstairs and purchased a small stack of black and white postcards of poets and a copy of Jack Gilbert's The Dance Most of All.

Sally and I walked to North Beach and ate eggplant parmigiana sandwiches at a corner bar and continued a conversation that lasted all the way through lunch and to the airport several hours later when she dropped me off and we decided that meeting one another was exactly what we had expected and that we'd known each other forever. 


Reader, I've a perfect score on melding my real life and my blogging life as every single blogger I've met personally has been an unequivocal pleasure. I'm awed by this and very, very grateful.