DIRTY ROTTEN HOME

It is almost 12:30 a.m. by the time Michael and I finish dealing with my lost luggage and emerge from the security area to find his waiting parents. By the time they drop us in our driveway, it is almost 2:00. Of course, in our bodies it is California time, 11:00 p.m.

Our cats greet us as only cats can do: "Oh-hi-it's-you-I-need-to-go-outside-now." (Though the next morning I wake up with both of them napping happily between my knees). Since I have no luggage, there is no unpacking for me to do. We shuffle around the house, poke through the stack of mail, rummage for food & liquor and try to re-familiarize ourselves with the place. I remark to Michael that I feel like an adult returning to my childhood home, a place that is familiar and full of my possessions, but not a place where I feel like I belong anymore.

We are both in that strange place of being tired but not ready to sleep. Our bodies and brains are in shock because we have suddenly dropped out of hyper-speed to a full stop. We are suspended. Lost. Bored. Excited. Happy. Sad.

The next morning, like animals marking their territory, we begin to reassert ourselves on the place. Me cleaning and reorganizing inside, Michael digging and weeding outside. My luggage arrives, intact, late in the afternoon and the long process of sorting through the 'stuff' begins.

THINGS I WILL NOT MISS ABOUT BEING ON THE ROAD:
Riding the bus every day. Hotel rooms. Bad coffee. Trying to find a decent restaurant. Not knowing where we are. Crappy, old theatres.Doing the show, doing the show, doing the show.

THINGS I WILL MISS ABOUT BEING ON THE ROAD:
Riding the bus every day. Hotel rooms. Local coffee shops. Stumbling on a great restaurant. Not knowing where we are. Amazing old theatres. Doing the show, doing the show, doing the show.

Though I have a long list of things that will need to be attended to over the next week or so, I suspect that the rest of today, and probably much of tomorrow, will be spent rummaging through the house, trying to remember where I left my life.