2006-08-16, 12:00 a.m.,

Seeing Abby�s Mom today was both comforting and really awkward at the same time. From the moment I walked up to the caf� I noticed how old she�s become. How tiny and grey. It looks like she�s aged ten years since I�ve seen her last. We had a long chat about everything and she never once brought up the book. Never once brought up Abby at all. It was sort of weird. She was telling me about this new volunteer job she�s doing with the library and asking me about living in Sydney and about my upcoming trip to Thailand and Cambodia (which I just got my approval for yesterday�hooray!)

Then just before I left she said to me �Your mom says you�re doing a launch party for your book.� And I felt this wave of panic swell inside me and I told her yes I was. And she said �It took me awhile to get through it, not because it was badly written but it was just hard. But it was really good for you to write it, I imagine.�

I wasn�t sure how to respond to that so I said �Yeah it was.�

And she said nothing more about it. So I�m pretty sure she hates it.
But that�s completely out of my control.

As much as I hate to admit it, there�re parts of me that will always be a country girl. I love being here in the summer and it�s been years since I�ve been here in the summer. I�ve always come at Christmas when it�s all snowed over and there�s nothing to do. Today there was something so calming about walking around barefoot indoors and out for two days in long skirts and wearing my dads gigantic boat shoes to the lake walking through elbow deep fields of wildflowers with my parent�s collie. The air breathes cleaner and the sun feels brighter. I just felt really good being here today.

I had dinner with Brian tonight and after we ended up going for a long walk to the lake behind my parent�s house. Hot night tonight and we thought the lake would be cooler. Particularly since it�s partially surrounded by woods. Long story short we took wine to the lake, got completely drunk, thought it would be a great idea to go for a walk through the woods in the pitch black dark. We found this massive stone out there and laid back on the cold rock in the dark listening to tall the freaky noises around us and smoked a lot of weed and finished the wine. We were drunk, high, and in most circumstances the thought of being alone with a guy in the middle of the woods in the dark and not exactly sober would frighten the hell out of me. But I trust him and he�s one of the few men in the world I�m ok to be alone with. Apparently we were out there for ages just talking and laughing and catching up and then when we decided to go we apparently went in the completely wrong direction and rather than coming back to the lake, found ourselves at a cornfield.

When you�re a kid, playing in a cornfield is so exciting and fun, they�re hard to get through and incredibly easy to get lost in. Particularly at night. Now us, completely intoxicated and in the dark and now lost were a bit baffled. Brian thought it would be funny to make a run for it straight into the field. SUCH a dumb idea. Because me going after him got us lost. Badly. And I can tell you my friends, I have seen enough horror movies to know that being lost in dark cornfields alone where no one is around to hear you scream is begging for a serial killer. I�ve seen children of the corn. I know what happens. And neither of us thought we were getting out alive. It was terrifying, it was fun we were both in hysterical laughter to keep from freaking out. The weed paranoia certainly didn�t help.

Four hours later we returned back to the house, everyone here have long gone to bed so we sat on the porch outside and calmed down and watched lightning bugs blink in the back yard.

Tonight really made me miss the country and made me realize how much fun I used to have here as a kid. Tonight was probably the most fun I can remember having in such a long time and it�s just weird that it was with a boy.

But not just any boy, really.

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