This is the one-year anniversary of this blog. When I started it, my intention was to write about the life of an old-fashioned "cultural worker" to use that 70's term coined by Holly Near. I wanted to write about working for a living, about sending out work, creating a sustainable life in which i could write, and I hoped my book, See How We Almost Fly would be published, or at least accepted for publication early in the year.

I didn't expect I'd go to Africa, fall so deeply and quickly in love, have my beloved move in with me, win a big poetry prize unrelated to my book, publish something in More magazine, have my play Saying Kaddish With My Sister produced, or any one of a number of great things that happened this year.

I didn't expect to meet people who know me mostly through my blog, and how intimate and intense those exchanges could be.

I didn't expect to write a play in 9 days, as i did with My Hot Tub With Andrea.

I didn't expect to write a short play in a long weekend, Oasis, that was produced in SF last May.

I didn't expect Elizabeth Mendana's production of See How We Almost Fly would be so gorgeous, or that my father and sister's visit would be so sweet and rich.

I didn't expect Michael to die, or Jasch, or Scott. I didn't realize how much those deaths would hurt.

I didn't expect that falling consciously in love would entail looking at some of my deepest wounds again, through fresh eyes.

I didn't expect that after coming in as a finalist in at least two contests, See How We Almost Fly would still not be published. I didn't expect that that would not matter so much, in light of everything else going on.

Last night I went to New College to hear Rebecca Solnit speak about "The Writer as Activist." What a brilliant woman! She seems to think in whole paragrapsh, which come tumbling out of her mouth at ninety miles an hour, a torrent of words. She's also about my age, I guess, from looking at her, and has published ten books. Yikes. Not that I'm comparing or anything. Comparisons are odious.

Meanwhile, I'm still engaged in this monumental task of shoveling out--I mean cleaning the house from the detritus of untold generations of housemates. I asked for and C obligingly dropped off some big hefty trash bags--the kind used on construction sites. I'm going down to the basement--a scary scary place--and begin the excavation. Send in the dogs if I don't appear within a day or two.