until the birds started pecking their way through the windows and poking out our eyes...

When I try and remember the best parts of my life so far, they're rarely specific events or days. They always seem to be random moments, snapshots pulled out of 32 years of living a regular life, full of commuting and television and worrying about my hair.

Every once in awhile you get one of those snapshots, sometimes when you really need it and sometimes just like frosting; it's extra, a bonus, dumb luck.

Everything's fine with me, my mother would be delighted to know. I'm probably jinxing it but work is good, blogging is fun, no one's breaking my heart, my friends are lovely, my bed is made and my sheets smell fancy.

So it was serendipity, dumb luck, frosting really, that I found myself where I found myself last night. After shopping and exploring all day, the Brians and I sat down in the sparse dining room of their brand new beach house in Bodega Bay and had dinner. Over chicken and risotto, we talked and made plans and discussed where to put they couches they'd eventually buy.

Afterwards, the three of us piled on the lone couch in the front room and read questions to each other from Trivial Pursuit. To lazy to start an actual game, we split cookies and tea and laughed at each other.

This new house has no heat yet. That's still coming. Brian and Brian have only been the official owners for a whole week. I was amazed they had towels. Freezing, we decided to head upstairs to what I now call 'the nook.' The nook is a loft, on one side over looking the "Great Room" and on the other, features big windows staring out to the Pacific. You can see waves slam on the rocks and cars meander around Highway 1. The floor's been stripped and an ancient, overstuffed loveseat faces the view. The nook is wonderful.

Around 11 an night, we bounded up there with blankets and pillows and one of those floor heaters that you plug in until they catch on fire and inevitably burn your trailer down. Leubitz managed to find some scary stories on his iPhone, podcasts read by authors and actors and we turned off all of the lights.

Looking up, we were shocked at the stars. You could make out all kinds of constellations, the sky seemed packed with flickering lights. I lay on the floor in sweatpants and the cozy socks Santa brought me. Bundled in blankets, with the pugs cuddling up against us, I could look up and watch the sky while I listened to the ocean right outside the window.

And then Brian pressed play on his iPhone.

I haven't heard someone tell me a good scary story in years. It's been decades since I sat around a campfire and years since a vacation fully blocked the bills on my counter, the work on my desk, the shit in everyone's life that keeps you from really, truly enjoying massages and $30 entrees. But laying on that floor up in the nook like a 9 year old, gazing at the stars and listening to some women tell a long, spooky story about a Native American creature that lives in a river and rips the faces off loggers...well, I got another snapshot.

And for the rest of my life when I remember the first weekend I ever went to the Brians beach house in Bodega Bay, I will feel that blanket and see those stars and hear that story...