Some photos for you, that I took once upon a time, in the winter of 2003-2004.

Some nice things about my family, as witnessed on the day after Thanksgiving:

My grandparents call their stereo "the hi-fi."

Without being asked, my mom brought me a Tofurkey all the way from North Carolina to West Virginia.

Even though I'd missed the official Thanksgiving dinner, my mom and aunt made a second traditional dinner, replacing the food that had been consumed the day before.

My cousin, who is named (and goes by) Rich Whiteman, ate some Tofurkey, specifically to "make [his] cousin happy." My family's response to the Tofurkey was overwhelmingly average, which is better than I'd imagined.

For the most part, my family avoided talking about politics. Also, when I pointed out they'd been talking about hunting and guns for a good two hours, they made a concerted effort to change the subject.

My mom complimented my aunt on her sweater, and my aunt informed her, "You gave me this sweater." (My mom hadn't realized.)

My grandparents are not intimidated by new technology (they've had email for years, in fact). On Friday morning my grandfather and I studied his most recent acquisitions: a cell phone, a digital camera, and a CD burner. He listened carefully to my instructions and confirmed his understanding. He's addicted to the computer, my grandmother tells me.

My grandfather swears that composted banana peels are responsible for the tall rose bush in the backyard. (I believe him; it's just nice.) When my grandmother was in the hospital recently, he regularly brought her roses from that bush. (My mom suggested that when he ran out of roses, he brought her banana peels, but I'm not sure that's true. She may have just been getting him back for saying that he "wouldn't walk too far" to eat the cranberry chutney she'd made.)

My dad drove me to the hardware store and spent ten minutes helping me choose between two (nearly identical) white bathroom tiles.

My grandmother (who, incidentally, has the softest skin on the planet) refers to herself in the third person and says things like, "Grandma's looking forward to seeing what you put on your web page," even when groggy with sleep at 4 in the morning. (That's a little bit alarming to me, but somehow nice as well.)

Buying a $5 umbrella off the street turned out to be a bad idea. Initially I'd ducked into a luggage store but turned around once I saw the $22 price tag. I laughed to myself knowingly, sure that I would find a much cheaper model just outside the door. I did! It all worked out as planned. That is, until I tried to use the umbrella. A gentle sigh of wind turned it inside out, and within the first three minutes, it broke in three places. I wish I were making that up, or at least exaggerating. By now it's surely on its way to the Staten Island landfill.

Using Hotwire to buy a plane ticket also turned out to be a bad idea. I am traveling for 16 hours (only 3-and-a-half of which are in the air), and am spending only 28 hours in my destination town. I actually missed Thanksgiving altogether (while America was busy eating mashed potatoes and large birds, I was sitting alone in the Cincinnati airport working away at a peanut butter and jelly sandwich). When I finally arrived at midnight, everyone was already in bed; tomorrow morning, when I leave at 4 a.m., the house will be very much the same as when I got here.

At night, the stillness of my grandparents' house is interrupted by the cranking, whirring, and chiming of a chorus of clocks. A bird-like noise is spit out of a machine in the kitchen, the heater in the basement cracks and bangs, a faint bass snore seeps out of the back room, and the floorboards creak under my feet when I (quietly) pad to bed.

"Oh! Look at those," I said to Richard, pointing at some bright pink slippers in a full Brooklyn trash can. They were wildly furry and had two large beady eyes on each foot, positioned like headlights. The ends of the fur strands were dirty with brown.

I took a picture of them and turned to Richard. "I think I want them."

"No you don't," he said. Then added, "You'll thank me later, when you still have feet."

I silently agreed that it was probably wise not to procure the dirt/disease slippers, but I wondered whether it was likely that I would think to thank him for the absence of a bad outcome. Since there is no event, no climax, at what point would it be appropriate to express gratitude?

I decided tonight was as good a time as any, so I called him. "Thank you for preventing me from getting foot disease, Richard." In friendly Richard fashion, he said, "You're welcome," even before he realized what I was talking about.

Perhaps I'll do that on a regular basis.

My last words into my cell phone were, appropriately enough, "I think my cell phone's dying." At the end of that sentence, suddenly everyone I know became distant and unreachable. (I didn't have any numbers saved.) I couldn't go online (dialup) if I wanted anyone to call me on my landline (no voicemail or call waiting) and I was even hesitant to play music, because it might've prevented me from hearing the ringer. Having my connection to the world amputated felt kind of lonely.

The first call I received was disorienting (no caller ID), and, while talking, I clumsily got tangled in the cord and dropped the phone. (Pitiful.) Modern living, it seems, has made me a dependent and uncoordinated beast.

It was Friday night, so the phone store was closed and no one was checking email, but with a little detective work (calling one number to get another) I was able to find my friends and rejoin society. (I would borrow two phones during the course of the evening.)

Today, on my way to the Sprint store, I asked a stranger if I could use his phone to make a quick call. He mistook me for a non-cell phone user, referring to me as "one of them," meaning one of the people who refuse to buy a cell phone but leech off of other cell phone users. "You think you can handle this new-fangled technology?" he prodded. "I'm on my way to the Sprint store, I'll have you know," I told him. I think that made him feel better.

I didn't get the phone I wanted, which was the plainest and darkest model. Apparently that phone hardly works, according to the salesman. I didn't bother asking why they didn't somehow improve it, or why they even had it on display as an option. Instead, I reluctantly agreed to a phone I found rather offensive, one that had a bird actively flying on the screen. So now that I am equipped with a phone again, my only real priority today is to somehow MAKE THE BIRD STOP FLYING.

My old phone housed a lot of numbers of people whom I'm no longer in touch with. I was saving them just in case, because deleting them seemed too decisive and final and mean. It's weird to think that those people are likely out of my life for good now, all because of the death of a strange little gadget. I probably would've kept those numbers in there forever, however obsolete they became.

...

So, if I know you, you mind sending me your number?

Let's say you're seeing someone's apartment for the first time. Let's say that person seems completely normal, but you don't know him or her that well, so it's entirely possible that s/he has a taxidermy collection or a cabinet filled with rifles. Would that be so terrible? Wouldn't it?

What are the things that would give you pause, if you were to spot them? Stuffed animals piled on the bed? The Footprints poem hanging on the wall? An inflatable doll? A witchcraft bible? The Kenny G boxed set? What?

Do you make fun of things because you truly have contempt for them, or to make yourself feel cooler? It's both, isn't it?

I was standing half-in, half-out of the rain. A stranger joined me on the stairs and sized me up; his voice was coated with a thick Italian-American accent. "Let's see...you're not smoking a cigarette and you're out in the cold and the rain. That can't be good." I smiled. "Long story," I responded, which was kind of a cop-out but totally true. He nodded and walked away.

Moments later, after I'd been more or less rescued, the Italian American returned. I figured since he was nice enough to show concern, I'd give him an update. "Everything's okay," I quietly assured him.

"Well...if you're going to have drama," he began, but stopped short. He looked around and gestured to the play house behind us, and turned the corners of his mouth down the way that Italian Americans are supposed to do when they shrug. He continued, his accent on its best behavior. "If you're going to have drama, this is the place to do it. It's...what do they say...apropos." He carefully annunciated his syllables. Ap. Pro. Po.

It doesn't matter to me that he didn't know anything about my situation or that he gave me random and unsolicited consolation. (I wouldn't have said anything to him, had our roles been reversed.) But I think that makes me appreciate his gesture even more. (Or perhaps I just liked that he made me laugh.) I thanked him and left him on the steps, pulling on his damp cigarette.

Sometimes I try to make certain email messages last as long as possible by reading them methodically—slowly, stopping after each sentence, reading the words again before moving on. I do this for both happy and not-so happy emails, patiently dragging them out into order to fully absorb them, like eating crumbs instead of taking whole bites. Afterward I read the message a second time, in its entirety, with the diffidence of a Big Gulp soda.

***

This weekend I became a blonde again. It's weird how easily one can cheat genetics.

The others played paintball. The less aggressive of us rode horses. I wasn't nervous about it, only about galloping, but somehow I became known as "the scared girl," the one with the least experience. The director of the stable kept seeking me out, asking how I was doing, overdirecting me, and babying me. Where's the girl who's COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT? I would reluctantly raise my hand, secretly wishing that I hadn't claimed to be a novice.

My horse was named Candy, and was known as being the ideal animal for uncertain riders. Girl scouts and grandmas ride her, I was told. She was chestnut colored (I believe that's what it's called) and remarkably furry, thanks to the dropping temperatures. I rubbed her neck a lot and said hello from time to time. She seemed to want to see who was riding her, so I leaned forward and to the side. I anthropomorphize a lot.

Candy crunched through leaves while the tips of my fingers turned pink and dead. She followed the horse in front of her with blind dedication, her head moving gently up and down with each step.

Toward the end of our quiet, slow walk through the woods, I broke the rules and put in my headphones. Sometimes I need that sort of thing (music, camera) to fill in the empty space between me and the world, which is kind of too bad.

I sort of hated the palm reader. I don't really know why I went (it wasn't faith, or even a need to know the future). I think I went because it seemed like a nicely dumb thing to do on a 30th birthday, and because I had a mild curiosity about what goes on behind the glowing red letters.

We sat in soft chairs in the store front window (which I found slightly embarrassing), and she explained the services on offer. It was at that moment that I realized I didn't actually want any of the services; I simply wanted to experience the novelty. I chose the cheapest option and held out both of my palms. (They tired quickly, unnaturally uncurled in that way.)

She glanced at my hands from her seat (never taking them into her own hands, which I was glad about), and she began talking, quickly. She wore street clothes (rather than hoop earrings and dripping layers of purple silk), and she looked bored. Her accent was tinted with Spanish.

My mind kept drifting, because I didn't really care what she was talking about, and was in fact ready for it to be over. After each "assessment," she'd ask, "Is that right?" I'd respond with an "I guess so" or an "Uh, not really." She told me I was going to die of old age, and that I "keep things inside."

Sometimes I didn't quite understand what she was asking, so I just started making up answers, just to get it over with. Occasionally she'd assure me that she already knew the answers to the questions she posed (but of course). I wondered if the lines on my palms revealed that I thought she was making stuff up.

"Do you have any questions for me?" She asked at the end of her performance. I declined, not knowing what I could possibly ask, and not really caring what more she had to say. I think this makes me a bad sport.

Five minutes total. A quick $15. The bored talking to the bored.

I've decided I'm okay with you, thirty. Not that it matters, really; you're here regardless. I'm tired of dreading your arrival and am learning to (sort of) embrace you, and whatever baggage that you're supposed to bring. People who know you have told me what to expect out of you, but of course you treat everyone differently, just like the rest of us treat everyone differently. So, uh, hello. Be nice.

The past week—the past weekend, even—I've experienced just about every emotion I've ever known, all of them condensed and packed into a tight span of time, a sort of multi-vitamin of intense feelings. To name a few: disappointment, camaraderie, love, hate, sadness, dread, excitement, embarrassment, defeat, accomplishment, resignation, hope, and gratefulness. Michael told me that all weekends are like that in your thirties, that it's a secret no one ever tells you. (He never said whether he was serious.)

I'm alive, certainly. And I have good friends who came to my party and brought me things like mix CDs and a superhero unitard. (A hard ending, but not a bad beginning.)

...

In addition to updating my age, I've updated the photo project.

The distance between the Flatiron district and Soho is small, but a frustrating small. The two are far enough from each other (a 20-minute walk) that you can't walk there in steady rain without soaking up a substantial amount of water. So instead you wait (with determination!) on the corner of 19th and 6th for a cab—without an umbrella and with your hand in the air at a 2:00 angle—for exactly the same amount of time it would've taken you to simply walk to Soho. A constant river of yellow steel passes by you, but all of the taxis are full, or worse, cruelly displaying their "off duty" light.

You give up and head to Union Square, where you take the wrong subway line (though it goes roughly the right place). You emerge to be pelted with more malicious water from the sky, water from someone else's umbrella, and water from a puddle that jumps at you by way of an SUV tire. You walk the wrong direction—twice—but it no longer matters, as your hair and clothing won't absorb anything more.

At the door of the restaurant (feeling better, with sympathy), you lean against the building and wring out your socks, creating small waterfalls tinted with black dye.

I can't decide whether to be unhealthy or healthy. There's a certain charm to eating available scraps, cereal for dinner, a frozen waffle as you walk down the sidewalk. Other times I pride myself on regular trips to the grocery store, cooking semi-elaborate balanced meals, and feeling a sort of culinary "responsibility." Currently I'm in the former stage. Bananas, toast, eggs, instant oatmeal. Burritos are my vegetable.

Sometimes, when I'm deep (too deep) into stage one, I will eat things that I find a little humbling, even if no one's around to witness it. Peanut butter and jelly, but separately and by themselves? Once I was on the phone with Scott P. when he happened to ask what I was doing that very moment. "I'm not telling," I said. I gave in, though, and admitted that I'd just eaten a spoonful of dry hot chocolate powder.

Batter and raw biscuit dough are a weakness, too.

The second thought I woke up with this morning was unrelated to the first. (The first thought, of course, was election-inspired: This Can't Be Happening.) So the second thought was that I probably shouldn't bother D. with an email today (even though I'm very inclined to), and what would be a good way to prevent myself from writing D.? Why, by putting staples in my fingers so that I can't type! (Staples: enabling self-control.)

I immediately recognized that thought as an odd one, but also as an infinitely pleasant one compared to my original thought of This Can't Be Happening.

This can't be happening.

I'm incredibly disappointed. I apologize, dear rest of the world.

It got dark early on Halloween. Neither of us felt like putting any energy into dressing up this year, in part because I was out of town on Saturday night. Instead we spent the evening creating a long dialogue, full of difficult decisions. We talked on the couch, we talked on the porch, and we talked on the sidewalk.

At one point, we decided to take our dialogue to Fort Greene park. We sat on the edge of the monument at the top of the hill (alone) and noted the orange leaves glowing around the lamp posts, the unusual number of Brooklyn stars, and the fact that dialogue in a place like that had become rare.

Some teenagers gathered about twenty feet from us, laughing and jumping on benches. We ignored them and concentrated on words.

The first one flew through the air, forming a crescent, and then popped on the concrete. What was that? Another white streak, and another popping noise. I felt a streak of liquid brush my face as the frequency of bombs increased, and I could see the oval silouhettes as they coasted toward the ground at our feet. We were being egged.

They were fifteen years old or so, and there were seven of them, two of whom (I think) were girls. They followed us and pelted us until we drew a cell phone (the inferential weapon), and then they scattered.

We cleaned the goo off our clothing (I wasn't hit directly, but he was), pissed off and incredulous. We continued our dialogue from the safety of a bar, where we were served by a tattooed wolf.

***

The voting machines in New York resemble old high school lockers, and have levers and switches that creak when you pull them. They make you feel like you're doing something technical and clever, like flying a plane, or emulating the Wizard of Oz. (In North Carolina, you get more of a standardized test feeling, since voting is done with paper and pens.)