I finally have a place to keep my marbles

So I woke up 5am in the wintry New England Dark sleeping under its crust of old snow. I drove down to Asheville where it's rainy, but it's spring, and it's young. It was the most enjoyable drive, I relished every minute of music on the radio and all the pretty land streaming by the window, these Northern States blending into Mid Atlantic becoming south land as the sun fell and finally disappeared. I'm starting to wake up and realize how much I missed this country when I was in Chile. In Pennsylvania you drive through Amish country and you can look up and see their horse drawn carts passing overhead. And on the radio I had Adrienne Rich live at the Y on 92nd with her ethereal voice and sublime poetry, and real coffee in a climb high travel mug and everything was alright.

Now I'm here in Asheville staying with Yonton who, like Adrienne Rich, is both sublime and ethereal, and a million other good things. Last night we went climbing and then he took me out to The Bistro for my (belated) birthday. We ordered every appetizer on the menu and I drank my fill of blueberry martinis and lemon drops. He gave me two birthday presents, one from Israel and one from China, both of which will come in handy for my current lifestyle. I told him a story that lasted for 2 1/2 hours and holy smokes, he listened intently the entire time. (That's rare quality in a person.) We finished the evening by reading aloud from Etgar Keret.

I love Asheville.

Today I slept in and then went out to eat with Astral at this barbeque place. It was covered with outdoor stickers so I found premium wall real estate and tagged it with a handful of Go Huge stickers. Then I hung out for a while at the Astral warehouse and checked out color swatches for new Ladies PFDs, can't wait for those to come out. What a cool as shit company! Can't wait to work for them at OR this summer.

So now it's one more night in Aville, then on to Boone! I'm going to tag Boone, climb a bunch of mountains with Will, run around town, maybe run a river (but maybe not, I like this 2 week kayaking hiatus) and then on to Fayetteville and 4th quarter with Huge.

When I settle down and all that, it's going to be in North Carolina.