This time last year I was out on Orcas island, waiting until very late at night to take my boots out to wander along all of the usually hidden land that was exposed by the low tide. I like to turn over all the rocks, see whatever it is that is usually hidden by the cold water and the weight of years.

We've been spending a bit of time lately at a bar that serves rum from all over the world. I'm usually a whiskey drinker, but I've been amusing myself tasting rums from unlikely places. I like the tiny little bits of novelty in the middle of my routine, safe in both ways, trying what I would never otherwise think to taste.

Tomorrow is my favorite holiday, which I will spend with possibly the nicest family I have ever met.

As is usually the case, I am thankful for the families we make and find, for all the laughing and ill-conceived shenanigans, for the vast amount of love and adventures in my life.  I'm not sure how I managed to fall into this life, but I am sure that I am grateful for it.

I really don't mind the rain and the dark of a Seattle winter, but this does not mean that I am above booking a winter vacation to Hawaii, which is exactly what I have done. We are going to Maui in January, where I have every intention of drinking everything with an umbrella in it and putting my face near some fish. Relaxing, tropical, and beachy are not usually words that you would use to describe my vacations, so I'm looking forward to sitting in those kinds of places with my favorite guy and reading all the books I can get my hands on.

Truthfully, one of my favorite things about traveling is preparing, reading all the guidebooks and travel stories. Planning and adventures are two of my favorite things, so I suppose it's only natural how much fun it is to combine them.

In Clarice Lispector's Near to the Wild Heart she says, "I don't feel madness in my wish to bite stars." Some nights this seems like the most sensible way to deal with the weight of the universe, all that emptiness pressing like a palm on the top of my head. As though we must bare our teeth and push back or be lost.

This weekend I saw some landscape paintings painted on aluminum that shone through the spaces that would normally be solid, all the water and clouds and pieces of sky. These were places that I wanted to walk through, made of light and transformed.

Some nights I want to put the stars whole in my mouth, turn sizzling and bright. Some nights it seems that the only way to deal with the vast emptiness of the universe is to become larger than it.

Four years ago we rallied and marched in frustration with the passage of California's Proposition 8, feeling like we had to do something to mark our disappointment with anyone who would take away the rights of others. It felt a little silly to do it, since it wasn't our state, but without the option to cast our vote for equal rights in our own state it was all that we could do.

Last night we finally had that chance, and Washington almost certainly passed Referendum 74--a vote for equal rights, not against the criminalization of them--making history with Maine and Maryland by making these decisions through voters instead of lawmakers. It still feels a little wrong to have to vote for it, that a whole population's rights can even be up for a vote. Still, this effects the lives of many people I love very dearly, and I am looking forward to a lot of well-deserved parties. You know how I love a wedding.

The R74 campaign involved a lot of phone banking, and one account included this exchange:

I was talking to a guy who sounded like he might be in his 60s. He was torn on the issue: He was a religious person who thought homosexuality was a sin, but wasn't so sure his religious beliefs should dictate everyone else's lives. (We talked about how Catholics might oppose divorce but don't struggle to make divorce illegal for everyone else.) He was split right down the middle.

We teeter-tottered in this discussion for awhile and then I said: "Well, how about this? If we have an opportunity to make people happier rather than less happy, shouldn't we take it? Shouldn't we want people to be happier?"

He seemed to like this idea, and said he'd be switching from "undecided" to "possible supporter."

I am really happy to live in a state where the majority of people are in favor of more happiness, of kindness, of tolerance and love and of parties.

A while ago I saw a photo of a sculpture by an Italian artist with a baby tree carved inside of an older tree, full size and towering and vulnerable. It shows all the layers inside the tree, all of the things it has seen and never otherwise mentioned, all the years it has kept all locked up inside other years. In these trees you can see right through the past.

They do this with bones too, of course, and I can't say it's not tempting, opening up the insides of our bones to let the air all through. The carving might not be the most pleasant thing, but we could turn our bones into lace and see all the seconds we've lost to time.