Storm's a'comin'. Flocks of geese headed down from Oregon signal a turning point in the season. This morning the wind kicked up from the South -- not its usual direction -- and knocked out the county's fiber optic link, which kills the internet as well as most ATMs and credit card machines. Over at Bank of America they were only letting people in and out through the back door one at a time. All systems down. Torrential rain will no doubt follow soon.

Still, I'm feeling pretty good. The loamy smells of autumn and the sound of dry leaves skittering along the ground bring me a kind of nostalgic peace; crisp bittersweet memories of adolescence in Eugene, frozen breath and teenage heart-thobbery. Times of greater purity, back when there were all sorts of things to believe in, peace and prosperity, when cynicism was just a romantic pose.
the other week to describe times when you go out or stay out after your roommates go home.
My hand is still pink and tender (hurts to go into my pockets for stuff) but whole and presentable to the world. I no longer feel freakish about it, and I'm hoping I can regain that sense of momentum I had coming out of Burning Man: strong and sexy and free, walking tall and lithe, without those dark circles under my eyes. The El Sargento Propane Explosion certainly kneecapped that feeling, but I'm optimistic about getting it back now.

To that end, it was truly a Good Thing™ to get out on the scene this past weekend, jumping back into the world of art and theatre vis-a-vis a 24-hour/10-minute play festival in Eureka. These local avant-guardians have somehow occupied a historic movie theater, from the '30s, and are renovating in into a hub of creativity. Much glory to them.

The festival, as the title suggests, was largely about a process, but the products were fairly good across the board -- and some quite great -- especially considering the logistical constraints. My script was good, my actors a bit nervous, and my own directorial skills rusty to say the least. It took me back to the opening night of [[Nitewerk]], being stuck in the booth, white-knuckled, watching the hit-and-miss of the moments we worked come off (or not). Torturous for me. Still, the performance worked well enough, and the whole thing was entirely enjoyable and worthy as an artistic experience.

It was also important for me socially, finding an outlet for my creative side and taking a step into local life independent of Westhaven. Kellimundo coined the term "secret hour" We're like a little family in a lot of ways, which is a huge part of what I love about living here, but it's vital to have your own thing, especially when you're like me and don't tend to find romance among your first-degree social connections.

(And yes, I did discover that one of the other directors was attractive, articulate and talented. For all I know she may or may not be married, engaged, into girls, or just plain old not into me, but at least this is something to find out. Prospects! Bonus!)

Like most things, my love life tends to run in waves. The two most limiting factors are the waxing and waning of my own self-confidence, and the way in which I can be excessively picky when it comes to the ladies. It's the ying to my sometime manslut yang. When things get to running cold, I go months and months without being legitimately attracted to anyone.

That's been compounded since I moved here by the smallness of my social world, my self-imposed romantic exile and introversion. While it is slimmer pickin's up in the HC as opposed to, say, trendy trendy Billzburg circa 2002-2003, it's not as though there aren't a lot of babes around. Why just now I looked out the coffeeshop window and saw that one tough-ass strawberry blond girl that I've seen around getting into her pickup truck through the window (ala Dukes of Hazard). That's pretty hot.

No, the real question for me is getting beyond just seeing some cute girl out the window. Same as it ever was, meeting people is easy when my inner gyroscope is running strong, when I'm both feeling the present and riding through on a strong polished rail of future vision, when I have a reason d'friggin'etre.

Seems lately it's been day to day, week to week, month to month, and now year to year. That's no way to live -- too much unspecified stress to be present, no real idea what the bigger picture is; the worst of both worlds; a crisis of meaning.

The upside is that this feels like how it was, not how it is. My friends told me when I decided to stick around at the end of last summer that the first test would be the winter, and that if I weathered that it could take up to a year to really find my groove.

I'm not all the way there yet, but like I said, I feel like the momentum is coming back. I realized when I looked myself in the eye after being out partying in the desert with virtually no sleep for a week, and I still looked and felt more alive than I have been on your average Thursday morning all year long -- my life works best when it's big and wild and full of adventure. It's up to me to make that happen.