Who needs two arms, anyway?

Im sitting in Vogue's spa listening to some of the most annoying elevator music I have ever come across.

And there is a hornet after my Vanilla coffee. It hovers just a few inches from my face, but seems unphased by the size of the creature in front of it. And now I must take this pesky creature outside before Vogue comes out, sees it, freaks, and destroys it.

I tell her, "Just get me. Ill take care of it for you." Better that I capture the spiders and wasps than she does. But in her panic, she does not always think to call for me.


My only hope to save them is to get to them before she does.

Today I am on the schedual for an "Ionic Foot Bath". I haven't a clue what it is. Other than that it is a bath for the feet that may or may not contain ions...

Im told it is used for cleansing the body of impurities. And I wonder, if my body is cleaned of all its precious impurities, what will be left of me?

I saw my first bear the other night. This trip has become a haven for "firsts". It came right up to the front door while I sat at the kitchen table talking on the phone. I thought at first it was a neighbor dog, one I had not yet seen. A very large, fluffy, neighborhood dog.

But as my eyes adjusted to the dark I realized it was a mid sized brown bear. Not quite a baby, not nearly an adult. I cut off the other half of the phone mid story as I jumped to my feet and filled the house with a shriek of excitement at the very first bear I had ever seen outside of those depressing zoo settings.

Vogue came running down the stairs then, and the dogs followed with their hair raised, catching on now to the chaos taking place just outside the door.

But in her frantic pounding down the stairs, and the dogs fierce howls of territorial display, it turned itself around and waddled down the porch stairs. I began to open the door- just a crack, mind you- to get a clearer view of the pudgy little critter now half way down the driveway.

But Vogue slammed it shut, yelling at me to stay away. Well, it hardly looked harmful. Even if it had come charging towards the house, it would never have made it to me before I got inside and shut the door behind me, I reasoned.

I only wanted to pet its fuzzy head, after all. I mean, Ive got two arms. Surely I dont need them both.

She told me repeatedly not to open that door again. She shook her finger in my face as if I were a naughty child, and her a mother on her last nerve.


"Okay, okay...Chill out" I told her, placating her as I would any irritated parental unit. I then waited for her to go back upstairs before opening the door and stepping out onto the porch for a cigarette. But the bear was long gone by then.

I named it Pudge-Butt McWaddles and I hope to catch it one more time before it fades into hibernation for the winter.

I thank you, Colorado, for giving me so many things to write home about.

I woke the other day with a fierce need to be around running water. I took a bath, and then still, a shower after that. I stood by the sink and listened to the water running down the drain. Finally, I informed vogue of this odd desire which was consuming me, and she decided to take me hiking the next morning where we could settle ourselves by a rushing creek and twiddle our time away.

This we did on Sunday, and the dogs, too, accompanied us. We laid out a blanket of the course sand and she played with her tarot cards while i searched the rocks for colors which entranced me.

The sound of the water put my mind at ease and I waited patiently while she gave me a reading on my past present and future, according to the box of cards.


It assured me that my visual nature was indeed a plus. That now was the time to kick up my heels and celebrate, and that I should not be worring myself with a timeline of growth, my evolution would come in time.

"Huh", was all i could think to respond to such a thing.

It had in fact answered my question. Perhaps only slightly more accurate than if i were to thumb through a dictionary and point randomly to words while posing to myself questions that plagued me.

But I promised myself on this trip that my mind would be closed to nothing. As detatched from the use of tarot cards and crystals as I may be, they are there none the less, and heavy within the mind of my Vogue. And frankly, Ive nothing against crystals.

It's all mind over matter, this I believe firmly.

Each stroll down the street, or hike through Vallecito brings me home with pockets full of rocks. Always slightly dissapointed in the vibrancy of colors that seems to fade once removed from water, I gather them together in a bowl and keep them wet so as each day brings for me an explosion of unreal shades.

I catered a wedding party this weekend. Vogue passed the job of bartender off to me, which pleased me greatly. People do so adore the individuals who brings them alcohol. And with my constant rounds, there was not a dry glass in the house.

I was given ridiculous tips just for keeping the glasses full. An older gentleman by the name of Alan took to me right away. The older gents usually do.

He assured me that my freckles were not only beautiful within themself, but an irish badge of honor and strength.

I thanked him, as beliefs such as that are a dying breed. But freckles are no badge of honor, I thought, it is wrinkles and grey hair that speaks of such things. Freckles just...are.


Winter approaches, I can feel it in the air. It taunts my poor Vogue, whose heart grows with sun and not shade.


She confessed to me that the Colorado winters bring much bitterness for her. And I assured her, that with my love for snow and cold, and hers for sun and heat, our moods would bind together to form a peaceful balance.


There will be allowed no such disruption of peaceful snow covered lands with bitter revelries for long lost summer. It will, after all, come again. Just after Spring, as it does every year.


But she will hear nothing of my musings for snow capped mountains. She remains in a silent denial that Summer is gone, that we are no longer in sunny southern California.

I, on the other hand, dance to the moonlight in anticipation of those beautiful crystals of falling ice.

Well, Vogue came through on the leg wax threat. It was fortunate there were no other appointments in the building, as I'm sure my manic screaming would have frightened off any other potential wax-ees. What woman would choose to do that more than once, i wonder?

The same women, I imagine, that chooses to birth more than one child.

Masochists.

Its madness, I tell you.

While my days here are never dull, with my Vogue nearly always within arms reach, I do find myself missing my east coast. I promise a trip to NYC for my dear Vogue. She will love it, I know. And NYC will love her.

A true mafia buff, she will have me taking her on tours of where the NY Boss' spent their days. She demands musicals as well. As she does Tiffany's, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton....

It comes to me every now again, this sadness for my lost city. It creeps on me as I lay in bed, or while reading a book that takes place on familiar streets. It comes to me with the sight of soft pretzels, with the scent of roasted nuts, with every pause at pricey shop windows. And it sinks down to the core of me with every snow fall. The longing intensified by the nagging feeling that there is little chance Ill find myself living there again.

And people continue to ask why, if I love it so, I choose not to return.

Brooklyn and Manhattan were noble and generous lovers for years. But time and circumstance drew us apart, as time and circumstance tend to do. Nothing is written in stone, nothing in life is. But when I think back, fondly, to my dear, dear city, I remind myself that I had great love there. I had it. And no matter where this world takes me, it cannot never remove that fact.

I existed in NYC, and NYC continues to exist in me.

Reasons of more depth are between me and my city. I do not kiss and tell.

This simple Colorado life is not unpleasant for me. I find myself quite at peace here, in fact. Waking every morning to a beautiful woman laying next to you is never a bad thing for the spirit.

But I know that if not for Vogue, Id not have found myself here. There is something truly disturbing about living in a town where everyone knows everyone else's name and business.

I am silent and anonymous by my nature, and such things do not suit me.

I saw my first true cowboy the other day. Lasso and all! Ruggedly handsome and chivalrous with the tipping of his hat, he was herding a flock of sheep down the main road in Bayfield. There I was, trapped in the car, layers of sheep on both sides of me.

They baa if you baa, Vogue showed me. I could not understand what in the world these cowboys were doing, marching hundreds of sheep over 50 miles. Is this not 2008?, I asked Vogue. Can they not truck them?

No, the cowboy life requires that they do this march, and spend their nights in the open fields that are designated to them for rest. Twice a year, they do this. And twice a year, for several days, the people of Bayfield get stuck in a herd of sheep on the only main road in this town.