ineffables
I think the reason that I don't post very much anymore is that it is hard to describe what is good about my life now. 

I can write that we revived Sunday Night Trivia this week, and all of the teams were named after themes that teams might be named after (for instance "Numbers" "Smart Women" "Themes") (so meta!) except for one team, which was named something obscene, and we laughed a lot as we madly answering questions, but it doesn't quite convey the atmosphere of the evening.  

I can describe the Lit Crawl on Saturday, which was San Francisco's answer to the pub crawl - themed readings all up and down Valencia St. in bars and bookstores.  I could tell about the skeezy guy in a beret who read some "creative non-fiction" mocking a Vietnamese prostitute, or the enormous gay man who read about his attempt to become a porn star, while practically straddling the microphone stand.  I might even be able to describe the atmosphere: the hipsters crammed in beside the aging lights of high San Francisco culture, the hushed poets and the tattooed middle-aged women who did way too many drugs in their youth, all cradling beers and spilling out onto the sidewalk. 

I can't describe though, the rest of the night, wherein we spent literally hours laughing at and about the people unlucky enough to sit on a couch we dubbed "The Awkward Couch" because everyone who sat on it ended up staring awkwardly off into space, not talking to the people beside them, or talking to say, one of the people, while the third sat awkwardly on the other side.  I realize that I just described the night I said I can't describe, but the point is, my descriptions don't do it justice.  It sounds boring, and kind of mean, to sit and make fun of a couch (and it's inhabitants) all night.  But somehow it was fun (and we did talk about other things as well).

Mostly, I can't describe a normal night at home, when Alex, Mel, and I sit around our kitchen table with mugs of tea and discuss the cat, San Francisco politics, our houseplants, our friends, our love lives or lack thereof, names of characters from romance novels, presidential politics, food, NPR, strange news stories, college, work, the death penalty, homelessness, law school applications, the cat some more, things that make us angry, and various and sundry other topics which may or may not actually interest us or anyone else.  It sounds mundane, to sit around our kitchen table and talk, but I spend most of the time laughing.  There are so many jokes I can't explain.  So many conversations I can't even remember the details of.  But all combined the experience is so good.  I am so happy being there, being part of ridiculous conversations, drinking tea, laughing, or discussing soberly, or mocking ourselves.  Most of my nights are like that now.  So I don't write, because there's nothing to say exactly.  I went to work, I came home; we had tea and talked about all the things we always talk about.  I went to bed. 

Maybe I'm floating, not moving anywhere, but times like these feel rarer than they should, feel precious.  I want to savor it; soon enough it'll be gone and I'll be forced forward again.