magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

today was the (eleventh?) annual peace festival in wasaic. we went and sat in the grass and watched my dad's friend libby perform and had some good vegetarian curries. the whole thing is sort of based on the peace prayer: may peace prevail on earth. and so for all the countries of the world they do a may peace prevail in (for example) peru, may peace prevail on earth sort of thing. and they have flags for the countries and all. after may peace prevail in australia, stef turns to me and says, "we should live there."

i've always been intrigued by australia, but the implications of what she said go much deeper than the place. we've sort of talked long term, we've had to, the decision to stay together through rome brings us to a year, and we've hinted at things beyond, but it's also always seemed as if we're only keeping a few steps ahead of our differences, our complications, our odd angles towards each other. and i felt that finally we're getting out from under some of that.

and later, all of us out at dinner again. and tonight stef has the caffeine and i have the alcohol.

after dinner we went for a drive and stopped and looked up at the stars and stef says "how are we ever going to live together? we both have too much stuff. and i want a very minimalist apartment."

"i think we both have a minimalist aesthetic taste, but collect junk. we'd need a study, full of books and everything else."

and later still she's wide awake and i'm sleepy but i don't want to go to sleep because we're talking about the past, our earlier impressions of each other, how we came to be where we are. and where we are feels wonderful, content in her arms and wondering how i could ever feel insecure about anything.