I have been absent for the last two days on my blog, but I took some time to really enjoy all that California has to offer.  I went sailing on Saturday, and tomorrow, I’m going to blog about that experience, because it was so amazing and important, strangely, to my writing.

But today, I went paddle boarding with Heron and some friends.  We went down to Newport Beach, and we went into the bay.  On the way back, surrounded by hundreds of boats with names like Claire De Lune and All That Jazz, I looked out before me, and I saw the Saddlyback Mountain, the mansions plastered along the hills in Newport and Corona Del Mar and even Laguna Beach, and I remembered how amazing and wonderful and immense California is.  Whenever I need a moment of freedom, of nature, of something bigger than myself, the ocean, the mountains, well, it’s all there.  Today, I was lucky to be alive.  I was grateful to be living in a state I had been dreaming about since I was a kid.

On the way back, we stopped at a little shake and burger shack on the PCH between Bolsa Chica and Sunset Beach.  It’s a tradition now.  They have the most amazing shakes I have ever tasted.  Heron and I also ate some french fries covered in Feta, and I had a cheeseburger, and she had a veggie pita.  It was a wonderful day.

Now to change gears a bit.  When I came home from paddle boarding, and I wanted to do some work.  And just about twenty minutes ago, I turned the final page of Augusten Burroughs’,” Running With Scissors.”  Recently, someone who read my book and offered some advice for revision told me that there were a lot of similarities.  And now, as I turn my novel into memoir, I feel amazed, stunned, really, that someone had already written a book I have longed to write.  It’s a book that spoke to me in so many ways I hope I will be able to explain.  Continue reading “Paddle Boarding in Newport Beach and Running with Scissors” →