So how do we get home if we can't go back the way we came?" I ask our host. He gets up from the table and grabs the ladle, then begins to quietly stir the miso soup bubbling on the stove. The soup smells heavenly. He smiles, sets down the ladle in the small bowl on the counter, and sprinkles the chives gently over the top of the liquid. When he turns to look at us, he furrows his eyebrows in confusion. "I'm sorry," he begins, "did you just say something?" Patrick reaches to my side of the table and puts his hand over mine, as if to silence. Our host turns back to his stove, busies himself with finding bowls and spoons for us. Patrick's hand squeezes mine and I turn to look at him - he motions toward the window behind me. When I turn and look, I smile and shake my head.

The place we've just driven in from has been enveloped by storm clouds, or rather, the top of the path to it has. The freeway that led us here, all six barren lanes of it, emerges from the clouds and down the side of the mountain at that same crazy seventy-degree pitch we coasted down. It all feels close enough to touch, and I know, too, that it's barely a few hundred yards to the beginning of the climb back up, but our home might as well be in a different universe. The road is too steep to climb on foot, and miles long. Around this small enclave of homes, I see nothing but mountains, their peaks now hidden from view, the same matte black surface undisturbed by rocks, or outcroppings, or vegetation. The clouds above the top of the highway behind us light up for a brief second; a pair of headlights emerges slowly, then picks up speed, heading like a teardrop down the side of the mountain. I feel very much like Alice, lost in a universe that should be like her own, but isn't. When I turn to ask my question once again, our host has vanished. So has the soup.

The hormones cause the most incredibly vivid dreams. Before Katrina was born, especially in the last month or two, I would wake up three, four times each night in tears, or in elation or in sheer horror. A few times I awakened myself by laughing in my sleep. The dreams started almost right away, this time. It was one of the ways that I knew, you see.

Two weeks ago, I was sitting on a similarly steep, tin roof (complete with steeple and wrought iron rooster, I will have you know), listening to the Queen of England tell me that I couldn't eat my lunch until I went back down and checked in with the restaurant's Maitre D'. Never trust the Queen of England when she's holding your tuna sandwich hostage. "Pick the left side," I heard her grumble as I was getting up. I shrugged. Not only was the trek down to the 20th (top) floor a pain in the ass, but as it turned out, getting back up was a bit of an inside secret with the staff. What you have to do is go and sign your name in the register, then be ushered through the restaurant and on to the lovely balcony. An equally lovely roof-access hostess then asks you if you would prefer the left path or the right, and points to what turns out to be... an obstacle course up the incline of the roof. Actually, I should rephrase: it's not an obstacle course. It's just a path, up the incline, with nothing to hold on to, no grooves in the tin, nothing. The whole thing sits there, waiting for you, baking in the sun. But it's only two stories high, so you figure... what the hell, I'll give it a shot. It took me three hours. By the time I got back up to the top, I stank of sweat and my fingertips were bleeding. By the time I got back up, Queenie had not only eaten my sandwich, but was ready to go and insisting that I hold her hand on the way back down. But that's not the worst of it, I assure you. In the past three months, I have been kidnapped, raped, murdered and mutilated. I have died four times and no, I didn't wake up right away. I have been privvy to the lives of condor chicks and the secrets of sultans. I have begged, I have injured, I have maimed. I have been in several Turkish prisons. Patrick has left me six times, never met me twice, and awakened me inadvertently three times while I was being chased by ghouls. We have had four weddings. I have had more vivid sex with more women than I care to remember. I have been... disturbed.
I have had twins. Triplets. Quads.
I have met a Russian baby who was born knowing how to speak, and his mother, a lovely girl of twenty who did nothing but weave hand-made Persian rugs day in and day out. The carpets were not for sale.
I have met Richard Branson. Or rather, in the original context, Richard Branson has been honored to meet ME.

Life's been groovy, baby. Life's been groovy.