Posted 9:29 AM by Michelle
It's a crisp November day, sunny and gorgeous, and still I wait for one man to surprise me.

Posted 7:00 PM by Michelle
I live with a sweet creature called Dolce. Dolce's needs are pretty simple: many scritches on her back and head, time outside, haircuts, and the occasional potato chip stolen from my stepmom's fingers on the way from the bag to mouth. She is pretty finicky with her food, and often decides she doesn't like the game she's playing and will take her ball, plop on the ground, and turn entirely inward.

She is also very loving, and wants more than anything to be part of the family. She wants to sit at the adult dinner table and will do so the minute anyone gets up for seconds. She will slam her head against a cracked door, trying to get out, and manage to shut herself in, helpless to get herself away from whatever is bothering her. She will chase the ball, try to grab it, but ultimately will shove the ball even further under the chair when it was easily within reach of a gentle paw.

She wants to understand what is going on, and intently watches the people who speak of things she doesn't understand. She spends days looking out the window at nothing but the wind on the trees. She will sleep ten hours at a time if no one disturbs her. She barks at the coyotes when the fire department alarm sends them howling, and part of her believes that she could actually take them on. She accidentally interrupts conversations; her social graces are perfect at best, and occasionally abysmal.

She has a habit of making things worse than they already are, and of sometimes getting away with things purely on charm. She wants for companionship, but seems to entertain herself when she's all alone. She is not easily trusting, but when she decides she loves you, there are no limits to her affection and loyalty. She lets you know she wants to be with you by slamming her entire body on your closed door.

Remind you of anyone?

*Sigh*

At least I don't have to be walked.

Posted 10:13 AM by Michelle
Suddenly I realize that maybe lightning won't strike.

All this time, all these years, I figured that it would be in the moment I met him. I thought I'd know immediately that he was the one. Lately, when I shake a man's hand for the first time, I either consider him or completely write him off. It's a phenomenon in my life. When you hit your 30's, you've never been married, you've been single for almost three years, you start to evaluate parts of your life in broad brush strokes. Every time I'm introduced to a man, I wonder if he might be the one I marry. I've yet to shake the man who will get that particular honor; this doesn't stop the thought process. But I've been waiting for it- the moment that I look up and meet the right man's eyes and maybe there won't be music suddenly but it, "it" will happen.

Just tonight, Carole mentioned something about one of my old friends, how she wished that something might happen with him, and my dad cut her off. "Just… stop…" he said, smiling, holding his hands out as if to halt a car about to roll off a cliff. Her comment meant little to me, in that I feel no remorse about this guy who is just a friend. First of all, I'm lucky to have his friendship, but also, I long ago categorized him, filed him away. According to my current thinking, he will always be to me exactly what he is today.

Now I'm about 95% sure about this. I'm know he's categorized me in the same way. We have a great time together but we're not entirely compatible. But tonight I doubt myself. Could I actually fall in love with someone who didn't knock me over at first conversation? Could it eventually happen with someone I see every day? I wonder, I wonder. I have little doubt that I've already met and lost him. In fact, I'm sure. I do know that I've invented something that wasn’t there about a hundred times, and once, not too long ago, had something real and beautiful that just wasn't meant to be. But… I don't know… my life is so different right now and I barely remember what I'm supposed to do, who exactly I am sometimes. It's strange to not be lonely or sad, particularly since those two dark feelings dug in, threatened me more than ever the minute I decided to move here. They were pretty sure they'd get their hold and find a home in my new life. But they've yet to find me. God knows they hovered around my New York apartment, patient, waiting for a chance to strike.

I'm 31 years old. I've not fallen in love since I was 22. I've never had a partnership, never had a truly good man as a partner in my life. I've never chosen anyone who had any capability to take care of me on any level. I've never had the right guy, only the wrong, be totally blown away by me. I've had many shallow relationships, days or nights or months that left me with my head in my hands, cross-legged on the floor, amazed by what the need for companionship would sometimes drive me to do. I invented so many people who simply didn't exist. True to form, I sampled parts of people's personalities, like so many chocolates, and ignored the parts that weren't to my taste. I'm infamous in my family for biting open six See's candies and then leaving the rest when I found the caramel one. I did this with the people in my life. Such strange bedfellows, so to speak. The friends I chose, the lovers, the short-lived relationships, the longer-lived relationships, some so insignificant I didn't bother to mention them, even when they dragged on.

And yet, I do not despair. Why?

I really don't know. I do not know why I'm not beside myself that I have yet to find love. It's not even that I have faith. I just, I just cannot be unhappy about what I cannot control. I can only feel good, and sleep soundly at night, that I haven't made any more terrible decisions.

Posted 5:10 PM by Michelle
Friday, November 14 2003


It's getting near ten o'clock, minutes till my bedtime, and after a lovely dinner with Dad and Carole and some friends visiting from New York, I'm left with two oddly conflicting feelings: I'm at peace here, and I miss New York.

I sleep through the night here, perhaps because I only get about six to seven hours at a time. This last month in New York, I was sleeping ten hours a night. Man, that rocked. But I also spent hours staring at the ceiling, or reading, or annoying my cat when the world around me silently slumbered. Here, I'm asleep by 11, up at 6:30, soundly out for the entire night. I've not had insomnia once.

And my life is peaceful. It is not stressful, but lately it has been full, and I'm not worried about keeping the roof over my head, and I paid all of my New York closing bills without once putting my head in my hands. I have a couple of friends who make me laugh, and who want to do cool fun stuff with me. I have the adults sleeping above me who have done nothing but welcome and support me.

But the Peace Corps called today, and want to know if I still want my position. I thought I had given it up long ago. I never called them, never wanted to actually say "no". I miss my brothers, and my sisters. I miss Chopin. The dog. Today I leaned down to talk to Dolce, sweet, sweet Dolce, my stepmom's dog, who looked back at me with perfectly blank eyes. She's the funniest and sweetest dog you'll meet, a constant source of personality and entertainment. But Chopin would meet your eye and let you know what he thought of you. His kisses were rare and treasured. He hates bicyclists and loves a good spot on the floor, as long as it's near Tessa.

Only about 5% of me nags at my lack of acting and singing. Most of the time. If I actively think about it, it grows to over 50% of me, but then again, I haven't been in a real show since just after 9/11. One of the things I want to do here is to get back into shape, maybe start dancing again, and become a viable actor once more. But is that what I really want? What exactly do I want? Do I really want to be happy here? I'm kinda happy here. I'll admit it. Happier… happier than I've been. I don't know for how long, how long this will be enough but I want to start creating more as soon as I feel ready.

I've started and stopped new book ideas a couple of times. I seem to be doing more short-term writing, but I know as soon as I find my new book I'll fall into it. My old book idea was just the story of a weekend in my life, and I finally realized that the facts of the story were getting in the way of my tale. So I start anew, eventually, eventually.

Steve said that he thought my last blog entry was a little racy (not his word). He said that there were lines to read between, with my stories of the men I'm meeting out here. However, he's wrong. There is exactly nothing between those lines. I've not been intimate with anyone out here. There are no steamy stories to tell. Geeze, I've detailed issues with many of the unmentionable parts of my body on this here blog, and if something happened to me that was worth writing about, you can be damn sure you'd read about it right here!

Or, at least, the PG version…

Posted 8:31 AM by Michelle
I have long and detailed blogs written on my not-at-this-moment-crashed trusty tangerine iBook, but really, internet access is hard to come by. My dad gave me the green light to research satellite access but, oddly enough, there hasn't been enough time. I'm starting to hunt out the people of my generation who hide in this valley. Thankfully I'm not what you would call shy, and so walking up to two men and a woman at a wine bar last night and spending an hour with them was not at all awkward. It also could have been the two glasses of Amarone.

I'm at work, I'm exhausted, I have to go taste a billion bottles of wine.