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     Hello.

Still up north on the fires. Last night, my birthday, I went on a long drive. I didn’t really what else to do. I’d had to change hotels, and the new one wasn’t half as inspiriing as the old one — the old one had a view, and this new one had…. well…. it didn’t. Nor did it have the internets (no ANTM! Oh, no!), so I dropped my stuff and went out driving.

Oh, my. I went to Ferndale. It was gorgeous, much prettier than it looks above — huge field with nothing in sight but an odd farmhouse or occasional Victorian. And cows. And sheep! Hooray! That low fog that was actively rolling in as I drove. It smelled so good, fresh mown grass, and hay, and sheep, and ocean.

I didn’t stop, really, except to say hello to my friends the cows. I just drove. And it was amazing. I kept driving. I found a windy road that led out of town, and I followed my nose. About an hour later, just when I was thinking "oh, crap, I’ll have to turn around and go back the way I came if I can remember what I did," I ran across the highway. Of course, I was all turned around and ended up going the wrong way on the highway and had to turn around, but around that kind of beauty, who cares?

That was a good birthday present. And everyone guarantees that when I get home, I get more birthdays treats! Sushi. I want sushi. Anyone have a sushi recommendation in Eureka? Mmm?

Last year or the year before my mother called on my birthday and got my cell phone. She sang me a message, which I’ve been saving every 21 days as it gets close to expiration in my voice mail.

I’ve been terrified of hearing it. So I listened to it tonight, in my hotel room, a day early. Just to get it over with. I was already crying, what more could it hurt?

Her voice. Her New Zealand accent. She sang, and said she hoped she talked to me later, and told me to have a lovely day.

Her voice was so damn quick on the machine. So bright. So her.

Now that I’ve started typing, I can’t stop crying.

I’ve been doing so WELL. Being up here working the fires has been great. I’m so far from anything I know, anything I love. I’m so busy and working so hard, learning so much, for long hours. It’s driven most other thoughts out of my mind.

My room looks over the Eel River, and the fog is rolling in for the night. I don’t know what to do. I love fireworks, never miss them, but do I want to go chase them tonight? In a strange town? I did hear where there’ll be a show, but do I want to be around that many happy little families? I don’t think I do.

So. Now I’ve been sitting here for long minutes, staring at this post, watching the fog roll in and the parking lot below fill up with firefighters from all over the nation. I keep writing sentences and erasing them. For some reason, whenever I’m sad about Mom and writing about it here, I think about that ugly email I got the night Mom first got sick (don’t go looking for it — all reference has been deleted). Sometimes now, when writing about Mom, my words feel stifled. I don’t want that person to ever read my blog and gloat, reveling that all isn’t perfect in my world. But sitting here, watching the sky, I just decided I’m going to stop thinking like that. All is perfect and just as it is supposed to be in my world, even with the loss of one of my favorite people. Underneath the grief, I am happy, as usual, and it makes me sad that there are people out there in the world, who deliberately try to cause other people pain. She even took her email a little further that same awful week, in something I won’t write about here — she was trying yet again to cause pain, but of course she failed in a big way. I’m glad she failed, because she was just being mean-spirited and small. But it makes me sad that she’s that sad. It has to be sadness, right? That makes people want to be mean for the fun of it, that disguises itself as mad or hot-tempered or aggrievedly self-righteous or just mean? It’s just sadness. It kind of sounds weird, I know, but it makes my heart hurt even more that some people are THIS SAD all the time. That the way I feel tonight is what maybe she feels all the time. I wish that weren’t so. For anyone, ever.

Whew. Now that I’ve thought that out, dealt with the strange feeling that’s been holding back my words sometimes, I feel better. The sky outside my window is GORGEOUS now, all pink fog rising above the steely river, the redwoods slanting into the hills. I’m not going to watch fireworks, and I’m fine with that. This year’s holidays will be hard, and this is no small exception. So I’ve run a bath, and I’m going to read my book, and then I’m going to get into my HUGE high-thread-count nice-hotel sheets and watch more ANTM online, because contrary to what Lala says, America’s Next Top Model is a better grief tool than old kung-fu movies. Any day. Happy fourth. Tomorrow, happy birthday to me (with all this overtime I’m making up here, I’m getting myself a big ole MOM tattoo. See if I won’t). And my birthday wish is peace and joy to all who need it. That’s a good wish. Yes.

[Hi, you sweet things. This is preblogged from the past. Right now I’m
actually up north, at an expanded dispatch near Eureka, working  the
fires that no doubt you’ve heard about. If I may brag about my dispatch
center again: we’re becoming known for having incident dispatchers
qualified in lots of specialties — we get requested across the state
for big fires, and sometimes even other states borrow our dispatchers
to work on their lines. I’ll be up there for as long as two weeks, so
if you don’t hear from me for a while, don’t worry.

In the meantime, pretend like I’m just writing this today:]

I had a one of those La Brainy thrift-store days a few days ago. In one spot (Thrift Town, El Sobrante), I scored a pair of Doc Martens for four bucks, and a pair of cowboy boots for ten.

AND, while I was cruising the store, a customer randomly walked up to me and gave me a clipped coupon for three dollars off.

I found a piece of fabric that was REALLY loud but I liked something about it. It was ninety-nine cents. When I got it home and unbundled it from its masking tape wrapping, it turned out to be about five yards. Dude. For bright red and shiny gold fabric, that was a little much, so I decided to use it as a muslin for testing a dress pattern I wanted to make.

I have never in my life succeeded in making a dress that I would dare to wear out of the house. Many, many skirts, yes. I can make a skirt. I can make a skirt in a half-hour. Out of a pillowcase. But not a dress.

So I decided to use my brain. I would just practice with this fabric. Instead of guessing at my measurements, I would actually take them. And then I made the size THAT WOULD FIT ME. Sewing does have an odd aspect to it: while I fit comfortably in size 10 or 12 jeans at most retailers, I am an 18 in sewing patterns. I’m a person who is comfortable in my skin, so that doesn’t send me into a spin, but it makes me go, "huh." You know?

And in cutting the pattern pieces for this particular pattern (New Look 6375), I had to draft it out a bit, since the bust would work, but the waist was too small. I was so pleased with myself for thinking! For using my head! For realizing that no, my waist is NOT 30 inches, and no matter what I think it is, I need to cut the pattern for what will FIT. I think I am so used to knitting, where we regularly plan for negative ease, that I forget that cotton fabric is, well, a little less forgiving. Positive ease is my friend.

So I cut. And then cut the fabric pieces. Then I sewed. And I basted the bodice and tried it on (another stupid thing I’ve done in the past is just sew-sew-sew till done, try on, and realize I’m a moron for not trying on earlier). It fit! I sewed some more. Tried it on. Raised the hem. It fit even better!

The weird thing is, when it was done the dress looked good. In the practice fabric. The same fabric that Lala had wrinkled her nose at when I’d shown it to her. It did look outrageous in the bolt. And it looked pretty outrageous when made into a dress and lying flat. But on me, it kinda works. What do you think?

I’m so proud of myself! All I want to do is make dresses! Now I want to make one like this:

But if you want to buy this adorable little thing, it’s HERE. I think I’m going to attempt it using Simplicity pattern 3774 (recommended to me by the nice gals at Pattern Review). Maybe I can make another one I can wear out of the house.

In the meantime, today when I went to the county fair I wore this:

It wasn’t until after I put everything on that I realized I’d made the sweater (Bella) and the undertank (Coachella) and the skirt (those are martini glasses in black on the blue and green background). So I took a picture. I’ve come a long way, baby.

(Amy and the bunnies – email me! Thank you! So much!)

I said, "What if we get married at the Oakland City Clerk’s office? I saw a picture of Kira and Rachel’s ceremony they had there yesterday, and there’s a wedding-ring quilt hanging behind them. So it can’t be all that sterile."

Lala said, "Sounds good."

"And then, what if we walk over to Baggy’s? To have a drink-up after with all our friends? You know, nice and circular, the place where we had our first date….."

"That sounds great."

"Really?"

"I always have fun marrying you," she said.

No date set yet, but I’ll keep you posted. Love is good stuff. Happy Pride.

It’s the most watched video on the internet right now (and only went up four days ago), but if you’ve missed it, please go watch Matt dance. I’d embed it here, but you should watch it in high quality (button below the main box on youtube) and in full-screen. I don’t think it’s just because I’m overly emotional that I bawled while watching it.

It’s beautiful. Enjoy.