2004-07-23 - 2:02 a.m.

My Loved One is whooping it up in Vegas right now. He just called to tell me he won $500 at a Craps table. Rar. I could�ve gone, had I not blown my vacation wad to take time off to study for that damn LSAT. I'm not even much of a gambler, but RAR anyway.

Actually, I�ve had a nice time of my solitude. I had lunch with friends. I ran five miles. I bought a flourishing basil plant for $3.00 and felt all rad inside. I cleaned. I wrote. I took a two-hour bubble bath and read the published work of Our Lady Smartypants. Hell of a gal. So damn funny. Tonight I came home and watched the Democratic convention. And then I poured myself a hearty glass of red wine and turned my undivided attention to the Ken Burns special on The West. Gawd, I love Ken Burns. And gawd, I love reading/watching anything about the history of The American West. I had this brilliant professor at UCLA who was obsessed with The West, and he had that magical public speaking ability to get you all swept up into his particular world of myth with his lectures. I shed more than one tear on more than one occasion while listening to the noble Allmendinger. (The noble Allmendinger is a flamboyant gay man who likes to make naughty jokes about his last name.) I took every class he offered during my stay.

I�m so glad Erik and I moved upstairs last autumn. I absolutely love sitting at my computer next to the window with the July night ocean breeze blowing on me. Right now I have a glorious view of the moon. Three cheers for the moon! And boy am I glad the hippie landlords wrapped fuchsia Christmas lights around the trunk of the gnarled pine tree in our yard.

Over the weekend, I drove Erik out to his cousin�s house in the desert regions (his jumping-off point for Destination:Vegas). We put the top down and listened to Matt Pond PA the whole way. And when we got there, we sat around a fire and stared at the desert night sky, and it was so great to see the stars. I forget about the stars. I definitely don�t spend enough time in smog-free locales looking up at the big sky.

I�m allowing myself to have second thoughts about law school. At first, I allowed the thoughts because I thought: now is the time to have them. But now, trying to avert a possible disaster, I�m stepping back further, trying to get a bigger perspective on What I Really Want in Life. Whenever I do this, I realize that I only really care about a few things. Oh, the trickiness of trying to balance this sense that life is unbelievably complicated with the belief that it�s so easy to be happy.

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