having a ball

Thursday, dec. 7, 2006   |   0 comments

The reading was so fun! Fancy cheeses, god-made cookies, fresh margaritas, pomegranate champagnes, and the oldest dog that ever was — it was out of control! And so many pals were there: Angela, Jordan, Eli, Chris, Andrew, Barb, Anna, Trevor, Heidi Meredith, Heidi Pollock, Liz, Michele, Matty, Adrienne, Lori, Laura, Scout, Megan, Julia, Addison, Rebekah, Stephen, Jessica, whew, plus a bunch of new friends, including the amazing Stephen Elliott and Daniel Handler, wow, as well as one incredibly nice and pretty Jennie, who came to the reading simply because she read about it on these very pages — I so love it when that happens. Hurrah for new friends! I drank many delicious drinks and ate grapes and signed lots of books, and it was a truly great time. They really put on a classy act at the Candystore, and I am one very lucky thing to have such lovely opportunities and such present (and so very presentable) friends. Happy, happy! Lucky, lucky!

And then cut to me, at 5am this morning, wide awake and awash in shame, panic, and regret because…because…I hadn’t publicly thanked the Candystore at the end of my reading? Because what if my slideshow didn’t make any sense? Because sometimes drinking drinks just makes you wake up at 5am awash in shame and panic and regret? Whatever the reason, I definitely woke up on the wrong, bad, crab-apple cove side of the bed this morning. So I went off to this AM meeting I had scheduled in downtown Berkeley, and then I decided to walk off my disgrunts and worries. At first I was going to simply tool around Berkeley for awhile, but after I got going, it felt so good, I just went whee-whee-whee all the way home, all six-point-however many miles.

My “march back to sanity” march took me the full length of College Avenue. And let me tell you, they really went all-out on the Holiday decorations this year:

I’m not quite sure you can see it in these strange, strained photos that my cell phone can’t help but take, but each tree in Rockridge has been festooned with one, solitary red ball. Marco and I actually saw the guy putting these up a few weeks ago, and at the time, I thought that he was just doing one color at a time. Surely someone would be by later with the green balls, followed by the gold balls, and then the silver? But no, that was it. Just…one ball for each tree. Did they run out of funding or something? If so, maybe a better plan would be to fully decorate each fifth tree and leave the others blank. That would be better, right? Instead of this row of sad, sad Charlie Brown goose-egg trees? Though, like so many things I complain about, I’m beginning to wonder mid-fume if maybe the approach that so riles me is actually way more awesomer. Yeah actually, I think I’m going to withdraw this complaint, and instead offer my congratulations: hats off to you, Rockridge, for having the balls to go uniball this year! And hats off too to my marathon stroll, for stomping the irrational regrets right out of me.

Now Marco and I are off to another champagne-pumped event. The non-stop train of holiday woo has officially chugged into gear!