i woke up at 10. they picked me up at 11. we started driving. i’d never met paul before, but he’s a pretty cool guy. i like him a lot. i like the way heather is with him, and i like that the two of them like each other, too. oh man. so much wine. we went wine tasting again. i bought a few bottles this time, which means i’ll have to check a bag full of clothes, but it’ll be okay. the bottles were too delicious to ignore twice. after a few stops, and just as everyone but heather was getting a little silly, we got some cheese, shane bought the wine (!), and we headed next door to my favorite winery, to heather’s camp. oh man. i haven’t been to heather’s camp in what seems like forever, but i swear there’s no place more magical. when every other magic has left me, and i have nothing more to find, i could die at that cabin on the lake. we sat on the dock, exchanging stories. some were "remember when," but none of those stories made me feel that nostalgic sadness that i’ve been feeling the past few weeks here at home. they were all laughter and fun, reliving childhood for a story at a time. we passed around the two bottles shane bought and felt wonderful. paul dropped his ring. we were sitting on the end of the dock, where the boards are every other, with big holes in between, and paul dropped the ring off his finger when he was playing with it. the water was so clear that we could see exactly where it was. and the end of the dock isn’t that far, the water was low this time of year, and he wanted it back. we weighed our options, and paul decided he needed to go in and get it. now, it was a nice, almost-spring day for upstate new york. the sun was out, almost all the snow is gone by now, and it was only, maybe… 40 degrees outside. i’m not even being sarcastic, that’s warm here. but you can imagine, or maybe you can’t, how cold that lake was. he stripped down to his boxers while heather went to fetch whatever towel-like clothing she could find in the cabin. and all of a sudden, shane was in his boxers, too! shane was just doing it for the heck of it, i guess. they stalled a bit, as any sane man would, but eventually they flippin’ jumped right in. paul couldn’t see a thing under the surface, he said, but they got in, screamed bloody hell, and we helped them out. we weren’t giving up, but how the hell were we supposed to get that ring out of there?? i paced, a little drunk, and after a few seconds decided i had to do this. i couldn’t sit by and do nothing. i took off almost all my clothes, marched to the end of that dock, and with my eye on the prize, i hopped the side like i was hopping a fence. i was in the water, and when i was under, i was just praying that i was close enough to feel the thing. i started floating up to the surface, but didn’t want to. i tried to go back down real quick, but all of a sudden couldn’t breathe. in these slow-moving milliseconds, i thought that i could come up for air and go back down before my body realized how cold it was. but i was wrong. i got to the surface, gasped for breath, and even though my brain was saying, "go back down! quick! you’re so close!", my body was not moving. my limbs refused to go back down, but my brain refused to give up. i stayed for probably less than a second, but they were all shouting that i needed to get out of there. they pulled me up, and i dried off and put some of those clothes heather found on. wow. paul mustered up the courage to go back in somehow. heather tied two sticks together to point out where it was, and he felt it for long enough to grab a handful of dirt. the suspense! but he’d gotten it, somehow, and got the hell out of there. we dried off, with no need to sober up after that polar dive, and shipped out back home. we went to heather’s house after for dinner. somehow heather got us to drink some more wine, that she bought because it specifically tasted delicious with bbq (trust me, it did), but we were too exhausted to drink much of it. we watched a few episodes of ER, which i’d never seen, and there was a guy named carter who found himself in africa. i guess that’s a topic for another day, but i really felt something after those episodes. i hope i find myself again in california. what an amazing day. i can’t describe how warm i feel, leaving new york like this. thanks, guys. thank you.

Yes, we are indeed cool. Day 4 in Houston. Touristier. Since day 3 was mostly driving around and moving stuff, we made day 4 more vacationy. We started off at the Red Lion where we ate the most delicious quesadilla. It was a tandoori chicken quesadilla. From there, we went to Brasil for some dirty chai. I made Linh try one. After that, was Herman Park where I took lots of photos including this one. We then returned to Bubba's for the most amazing buffalo chili dog. After recovering from Bubba's, we walked around the Galleria to burn off some of the food we ate. When the mall closed, we moved to Dietrich's for some more dirty chais. We chilled on their patio and watched the sun set. We ended up staying there until 10:00 or so. It was a beautiful night. We had a late dinner at Mai's, a Vietnamese restaurant, where I ate my favorite Viet dish, bun bo hue. It was incredible. We ended the night back at the apartment watching an episode of No Reservations while drinking a bottle of red wine. 245 of 365 - 09/01/08