Okay, it's summer, it's really summer. I finally went boogie boarding with Marci, finally finally, in Bolinas. And of course, it wasn't the same ecstatic adventure it had been two years ago, because...you can't boogie board in the same ocean twice. But it was good to paddle ourselves out there, and catch up and giggle, and my pecs were nice and sore for two days afterwards, which made me feel like I had actually done something.

And I had tea with Alan's widow, Sharon, a good, healing talk, long overdue. I'm also thinking of a new play, something about the three widows of X--because I was wife number 2, and there was one before me and one after me. We're like the three blind women with our hands on different parts of the unknowable elephant that was this very complicated man.

That's one more project for the hopper. Meanwhile Carla likes the first scene of the musical--which means a lot to me, she knows tons about musicals, having been in a bunch of them and directed a bunch of them. She says it has a realistic feel which is hard to achieve in that form.

And C and I went to see his mortgage broker, to discuss the financial ins and outs of him buying into my house, and us living together. When you're in your twneties, you just talk about getting married. I remember many conversations about the food we would serve and who would sit next to whom at our wedding.

In our almost and just over fifties, we are talking about life insurance and interest rates and capitol investments. And to me that's no less romantic, and actually more absorbing, because it's the business of real life. I embrace it. But it's a big deal, and we both felt tired after the meeting, winded, as though we had covered an enormous amount of ground in one hour, which we had.

We went toy shopping for my nephews and nieces at Mr. Mopps toy store, a wonderful emporium in Berkeley that has everything from fake plastic cockroaches for fifty cents to sophisticated educational toys. Spent too much money and enjoyed every minute of it.

It's been a consumerist couple of days, collecting supplies for the Malawi trip: malaria tablets, lethal amounts of mosquito repellant, SPF 45 sunscreen, a shirt from Wilderness Exchange that has special sun resisting properties and cost $22.00. I wonder if I should be bringing supplies to the Malawians, but that will have to wait until the East Coast as my suitcase will be full of gifts for the family.

Now I'm trying to clean my room, get papers off the floor and filed, clear out stuff. I'll try to get a swim in today as well. I perform with Wing It! this evening at the Sacred Dance Guild in Berkeley.

Meanwhile, the NY Times Modern Love section rejected my piece about Wing It!, so am trying to publish it elsewhere. The SF Chronicle also can't use it. Elizabeth is sending it to the East Bay Express for me. I'll also try to send it to More, after my editor there gets back to me about the essay I sent her last week. I'd really like to see some of these essays get published, they are supposed to be the money-makers and I can't seem to place them.

I read Shopgirl, by Steve Martin, a sweet little novella, about the consequences of the erotic in both men's and women's lives, filtered through the experiences of one lost young woman who is working at Neiman Marcus in the glove department. He has an omniscient narrator who is truly omniscient, indulges in a lot more telling than current MFA students would be allowed to get away with--and it works. He gets away with it. Perhaps because it is obviously and painfully the voice of intimate experience talking.

And C is reading Autobiography of a Yogi, a book I gave him when we had just started dating, my favorite spiritual autobiography ever. We saw Paris Je T'Aime the other night--one of my writing students had raved about it. It was okay, a little bon bon, not enough protein to satisfy me, just a bunch of appetizers. I kept waiting to get to the main meal and it never really happened although some of the vignettes were very poignant. I'd like to try to see A Mighty Heart before we leave.