B says he is going to start ranking my stories on a scale of one to five after I tell them. He mentioned stars-- and I pictured those foil stars in gold and silver and red and blue and green-- and it got me all excited.

I think that tonight, Noam Chomsky was more of a one, while weenie-winks was definitely a five. Probably more like a Five with a capital, "F."

Who do you love to make laugh?

I walked to the post office today and it was a no man's land out there on Wisconsin Avenue. A beautiful, breezy, perfect autumn day, and no one was on the street. Not one person. Everyone was indoors today.

Even Starbucks had packed away all of their patio tables and chairs-- the inside crammed with students, pretending to study while their ears subconsciously listened for gunshots and their peripheral vision honed in on every police car that passed by.

Just as I was closing in on my Uncle Jack's house in West Virginia, my Mapquest directions fizzled out and I ended up a little lost on a gravelly, one-lane back road in a town that doesn't even show up on the Rand McNalley road atlas map of the state. And I got to thinking-- there is just so much United States out here.

Sometimes when I'm road tripping, I dream about what it would be like to drive on every road-- see every last tree, pass every single signpost. When I get on those tiny roads out there, I feel so knit up in the geography of this land. Some roads seem like magic-- when I'm sailing atop the mountains on the curviest paths watching the clouds cast their shadows on the ground below. And some roads lead to magical places-- like my Uncle Jack's farm-- perfectly unchanging, utterly comfortable, truly endearing.

And sometimes, out there is just what the doctor ordered.

Busy, important client meetings to which I wore the combination black skirt/very light silvery, blue button down blouse that B warned might make me look like a bruise. Packing-packing-packing. Meeting Stephan at our Starbucks on the dreariest Thursday afternoon. Taking 10½ hours to drive the 6-hour drive to Columbus due to rain and accidents and that quirky thing called "merge." Girl talk-- so much girl talk-- but avoiding those really important things-- dancing atop the surface of all the things we mean to say. Revisiting Figlio in Grandview to find that they replaced my dried yellow roses with something pink and red and swirly. Listening to my Aunt Ruth's dirty jokes. Dreaming about the day when I finally take B to visit my old stomping grounds-- the Oval at night, Mirror Lake at dusk, the bright sun glaring off of the lack of right angles at the Wexner Center. Way, way, way too many Sex and the City episodes on tape-- to the point where I have nightly dreams about Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha. Holding the tiniest baby-- a sweet little sleepy life measured in weeks and days.

Then sinking into miserable sickness with fever and aches and a blisteringly itchy sore throat-- leading to long afternoon naps and an abundance of pills in my bathroom. Michael's tales of exciting possibilities and a new Plan A that makes me oh-so-excited. The project-- the epic project-- which turns and turns and turns day in and day out. Discovering these piercing, lyrical lines in an essay by Arthur Saltzman-- smacking with epiphany and thesis and enormous realizations:

"Time does not proceed from global calamity to the next. Rather, it is marked by quarterly statements from the bank or by lines knifed into the doorjamb to measure the growth of kids too fidgety to appreciate the ritual. We live life close the vest, meticulously tucking away private histories like shirttails. We best attend to detonations nearest our own home, and we pour over no one's X-rays but our own."

A cryptic voicemail from Todd wondering if I've been sniped in Montgomery County. An interview with Tim O'Brien on All Things Considered. An unexpected call from Julia-- and the realizations that a good friend brings when they need you most and you least expect it. Gushing, pouring, dripping endearments from the one who is dearest to my heart. A homemade apple pie for Uncle Jack. Revealing a birthday surprise to a birthday girl. More packing-packing-packing-- it's time to go again.

How was your week?