DREW DOPE! I put together a fun little website called POPE FACT. If you don't get it, don't worry—the website is an online version of a real-life game involving writing fake tattoos on people's knuckles. The launch fell on, and was in honor of, the birthday of Molly Hallweaver, one of the ladies who first introduced me to POPE FACT at Lake Tahoe.

I designed and launched a new version of the Lei-Out Beach Ultimate website. Joaq said it is the prettiest version to date, so that's worth something. Chalk up one win for gorgeous photographs found via Creative Commons search on Flickr. And, of course, the new Lei-Out website is running on my most favorite CMS to date, Drupal.

I have begun maintaining my Drupal installations on Github, with repositories for Drupal 6 core and Drupal 6 optional modules and themes. Now, when I need to do an update on my dozens of Drupal websites, I install the updates on my master, commit and push from there, and then pull the changes down on all the rest of the sites. Commit, push, and pull! So easy!

Whit hit it big, where "it" is defined as The Internet, this month with his video, "Drunkest Guy Ever: Larry Goes to the Market." Have a look at the video then go read his blog post, What! No Beer?, describing his creative process and the video's success, currently sitting at 716,000+ views on Youtube. Did I mention that he got linked on Huffington Post and BoingBoing? Yeah, seriously, I know: I need to redesign Whit's blog so that its features and appearance are consummate with his success.

Whit and I are trying, in a nutshell, to figure out how to promote efficiently and effectively our friends. Clearly, this goal cannot be accomplished simply by telling someone to get on Twitter. Expect more on this subject from us over the next year. For now, ON A COMPLETELY UNRELATED NOTE, you should go watch our friend Brittney's video application to The Big Trip.

Oh, and I dressed up as Zombie Abraham Lincoln for Halloween. Naturally.

EDIT
Oh, and I forgot to mention another website I launched this autumn, Nicole d'Avis at Bellalogica. This beautiful site is for my beautiful sister—a place for her to write and just be amazing, not that she needs a specific place for that. Did I mention that she got married to a wonderful man, Mark, and that they bought a house? It's good to have a big sister who is super good at life.

This story is impossible to write perfectly.

This story is a smell and a feeling and a smile and three years and a half years of big life changes and rain. Seattle has treated me well and for that I am thankful. I have experienced such fantastic joy and friendship and love and growth and food and coffee here.

But I have been sad in Seattle as well and often a bit lost. I could simply continue my life here, and such would not be disagreeable, but I would do so lacking faith and ease in the direction of my life. If you have spoken to me in the last year, you know this feeling of mine and you are familiar with my uncertainty.

I awoke this morning in a cave created by my soft, cozy bed and my cold room and the growing rain and dark outside of Seattle autumn. I knew, upon waking, that I would be purchasing a one-way plane ticket from Boston, Massachusetts to Liberia, Guanacaste, Costa Rica for January 4th, 2010. One-way, in that I am not returning to Seattle following my month working and surfing in sunny Tamarindo. I am leaving Seattle on December 22nd, eight weeks from tomorrow. This is real.

Yes, I know that is really super soon and I know that you will miss me. I will miss you, too.

The beach, and the waves, and all of Latin America beckon and what can I do? If not now, when?

I will continue from Tamarindo to Bolivia and I will live there. I will live in the country where my father, Federico Antonio d'Avis, was born and I will connect with my family there and I will find the street in Cochabamba that shares my name and that of mi abuelo, Doctor Carlos Andrés d'Avis. I will live in Chile and I will live in Argentina. I will eat salteñas. I will climb Machu Picchu, as I have dreamed of doing since I learned of its existence over two decades ago.

I will remember what it is to feel challenged in the minutiae of my daily life and I will remember how to speak Spanish well and I will find time alone in my head. I will think about where I live and where I have lived and how I want to live the rest of my life. I will think about how to find love and whether that is actually defined as someone to have babies with in the next ten years. And I will, of course, be updating Twitter and continuing work as a web developer. Honest, I asked my clients! They said I could!

And I will return... probably. I mean: totally. Yes, I will totally be back to the United States in June. I cannot promise where I will live when I return. I don't even have a flight out of Costa Rica yet so, please, be patient. I love you, and all the Malbec in Mendoza couldn't change that.

And the dream rushed back to me.

You were wearing a purple dress and I was worried that the aforementioned tie did not match quite well enough. I was late, still not showered, having just returned from exploring the flooded ruins of a tropical hotel, crumbling into the ocean. I had tried to leap from one jut of stone to another but barely missed, slipping into the shallow water and surrendering the integrity of my pocketed cell phone to briny dysfunction.

You were wearing a purple dress and we were at a wedding and the whole wedding party was waiting outside my door with fifteen minutes to go. Fifteen minutes. I needed to shower, and dress, and knot my purple tie, still uncertain if it matched.

I had stepped out into a courtyard with now purposeless stone pillars all about me and encountered another family exploring those same ruins. And I had realized that it was not my first time to this hotel. I had recounted to the parents and tow-headed children my prior visit, and warned them of the leopards I encountered stalking amongst the once grand lobby and patios and suites. Be careful, I had told them. I would have shepherded and toured them safely through the ruins but I had been late.

I had rushed back to the wedding and into you with your purple dress. My pants were still sodden from my exploration and I needed to shower. I stepped into my room and I was lost. What was I doing and where was I? I had been here before, in another dream, and seen leopards in ruins, but I did not even know whose wedding I was attending.

And you were wearing a purple dress, and did my tie match?

I ate four apple cider doughnuts on an achingly autumn afternoon with my father Federico and my mother Melanie and my sister Nicole and my brother-in-law Mark. Not pictured above are the wedding I attended the day before in Gloucester for Amy and Don or the striking colors of my first return to October in Massachusetts since 1999.

I took a Tuesday lunch at home as a challenge and constructed my finest sandwich in recent memory. Highlights include the first bite, the second bite, the last bite, and all those other scrumptious bits between.

I revisited fully, every page and word, the Lord of the Rings for the first time since having seen the movie, as evidenced by a particular Saturday afternoon at Volunteer Park Cafe. In the books, the women receive less attention and the men are all more obviously in love with each other, though less annoyingly so. I'm not sure Sauron has ever had Côtes du Rhône wine or bacon-chevre-chanterelle quiche, but maybe if he had he wouldn't have been such a jerkface.

I woke up this morning and I was thinking about my drive into the law firm this morning for consulting and I committed myself to listening to this song on repeat in my car until I know all the lyrics by heart, in my sleep, underwater. Listen up, for serious.

Showered, breakfasted, and happily outfitted, I spent the morning at Victrola. The Americano was delicious, as always, and one of the baristas called me 'Dapper Dan.' Silly! My name is Drew (sort of), not Dan! But I'll take the Dapper anyway. I worked on a fun project and I worked on real (read: paying) projects and I tore through my email, with a particular focus on securing a house for January in Panama. There may have been a chocolate orange cookie in there at some point for refueling.

Did I mention that I can walk now? I've been over a week without crutches but, regardless, the Victrola staff felt inspired to congratulate me on my mobility and normal walking. More sun shining on me!

And then I needed a change of scenery. So I walked down the hill to the park and, without guilt, parked myself in a bench for a lovely, leisurely phone call with a friend. Of course! Why not? It's the 9/9/09, and I'm wearing a tie! I can do whatever I want!

I proceeded to lunch at Oddfellows, ordering a ham, cheddar, and tomato panini. When the cashier asked me if I wanted a beverage, I knew I didn't need more coffee yet so was content to stick with water. But why go content when you can go big? So I had an Abbey Leffe Belgian blonde beer with my lunch, sitting in the sun by the open windows and reading up more on Panamian surf.

I suppose I kept working after the lunch, and I suppose I had another Americano? Seriously, I was actually productive, even with the beer. I was satisfied just after 5pm and closed up shop (read: closed my laptop). I headed back to the park bench for another lovely and leisurely chat, this time with my sister, Nicole, far off in Boston.

I reached home, eventually, invigorated by the walk in warm breezes. I itched for activity but didn't even stop to yearn for an impossible distance run. I changed right into my board shorts and drove to Madison Park. Ankle be damned! Setting sun, you can suck it, too! I went swimming, sharing the rather cold Lake Washington with only two others, both of whom were training in swim caps, goggles, and triathlon wetsuits. WIMPS. I totally looked more hardcore than they did, what with my shivering bare torso and numb feet. But truly, my body was exultant in exhaustion… yeah, and also super duper cold.

So I made soup. Because I'm so good at life! When you're cold, and your roommate brings home limes from Labor Day, you make coconut curry lime vegetable soup, or that's what I've heard. And I improvised some coconut curry lime chili chicken that came out bangin' as well. And now I'm in bed and full of delicious food, and I'm totally going to go to sleep and dream about high-fiving Obama and baking cookies with Jenny Lewis. But I won't remember the dreams in the morning: I'll be way too excited for my next cup of coffee.

So, last night, after Hovey, Niki, and I dominated (um, yeah... we won 0 to -2) the first game of Mini, we started another game. And I was cutting all lazy and didn't feel like faking Mike hard so I swirled around and then went deep for Hovey and she put up this high OI flick which was actually pretty great but it meant that I had to sky Mike really hard so I did that but somehow my torso ended up above his body and my feet were sort of tangled up below his body and then we landed and my foot fell off. For maybe like a second. I looked down and my foot was turned under and inward with my ankle pointed out and down and then I flexed my leg and it popped back in. Heh. FUN STUFF.

[…]

PS I mentioned that I caught the disc, right?

I broke no bones but severely strained my ligaments. Best case? Worst case? Uncertain. I was so fated to ride crutches hard for just about two weeks, after which I removed my temporary splint to find a mostly unswollen leg and a totally disappeared calf. The calf came back and my pain slowly decreased and I started walking and life got a bit happier. My friends were, in fact, wonderfully helpful and caring. But seriously, there were some bad moments there, like every time I had to take a friggin' shower with a friggin' plastic bag or like when I had arranged, while hopping on one foot, a bowl of macaroni and cheese on the couch to eat and watch TV but then started to lose my balance and caught myself by knocking the macaroni on the floor. GOOD TIMES.

I will thus play no more Ultimate this year and I cannot guess as to when I will run again. But I will be ready to surf in January in Panama. GOOD TIMES.

We stayed all together at Casa de la Tía Tere, a favorite Oaxaca hotel of Nicole and Mark and located dangerously close to Tlayudas Libres. Nicole and Mark know the staff well, having stayed at Tía Tere every year of the last five (six?) visiting Oaxaca, and we were not disappointed by their warmth and care in every part of the stay. The wedding was held on the roof of the hotel, with panoramic views of the city, its valley, and all the mountains surrounding.

The rooftop ceremony was carefully planned with seating and flowers and papel picado. We had considered the sun and heat and where photographs should be taken. We did not account for that Saturday of their wedding, that February 28th, 2009, having extreme winds unlike any other day. I think my mother's hair gives you a fairly good idea:

Despite some difficulty hearing over the wind, and the beautiful shredding of the papel picado, Nicole and Mark said their vows, we signed the copious Mexican paperwork, rings were exchanged, kisses were kissed, and all was right.

We retired to the courtyards below for a more calm clinking of wine and champagne glasses, and some snacking on light, delicious dishes from Cafe Gaia. After a few toasts and few more photographs, we loaded up taxis and headed to dinner, where I had foam dishes not once but twice. And I toasted Nicole and Mark successfully, in that I made people laugh and I made people cry. Go me.

So, in short, they totally got married and it was totally awesome. Truly, I cherished the opportunity to spend time with mi familia d'Avis as well as finally meet Mark's family, the Andersons. And I have added Oaxaca to my list of destinations for return visits. Joy!

I closed my eyes and tried to write an email late Saturday night, a drunken email to one lucky recipient, but all I managed were two nonsensical introductory paragraphs before the closed eyes turned to real sleep.

I perch now precariously at the edge of a living room chair, facing inward toward my laptop with a glass of Cab close by, a cheap splash from a $10 bottle whose flavors slipped away easily beneath couscous and salad and a yam and a delicious new chicken recipe. I rubbed chicken thighs with salt and pepper and cayenne and paprika and brown sugar and then cooked them long and slow, covered in the oven with slices of red onion and chicken stock for good measure.

I avoid an email now to a different (lucky?) recipient. I, in fact, blog somewhat nonsensically so that I will not write a specific email but my fingers will still feel sated. I can dance around that email with discussion of excessive dinners and insufficient wine and having watched the season premiere of Entourage this evening. Oh, Vinny Chase, you're so lonely despite your fame and success!

That email, and the messages it would invariably carry, will be wrapped and entwined in nonsense, safely hidden from view, tied up far away from this night's dreams. I will sleep on a full belly and a head willfully pointed at the happiness of a Tuesday, the truth of joyful plans for breakfast, work, lunch, and dinner.

And now the wine is gone and the clock is done. I'll see you tomorrow, 'neath the summer sun. Or, as it were, Seattle gray.

My aunt gave me a watch when I graduated from college and I've worn it ever since. Five years later, I've added scratches and dings but it still marks the hour. The steel timepiece has a rotating dial encircling the face, clicking to and marking any one of sixty arbitrary moments in time. The dial only turns counter-clockwise and my sense of order only accepts the marker at zero (or 12 or 60, as it were). Even a single click to the left prompts 59 more to return time to its proper place.

Knowing my peculiarity, Trina used to sneak a single click when I wasn't paying attention, sleeping or in the shower or otherwise distracted. I would don the watch, time would pass, and I would notice the offset and be happy.

Time passes, and all I want is the intimacy that slows, defeats, and confounds it. Love, Freddy, that's what it is.
from Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin

In the past few years, I check the time in certain moments and again find the inexplicable offset. I click the dial 59 times and I remember and I wonder what force in my life now displaces time. Are the Tralfamadorians just having fun with me, pulling Trina's hand forward through the years to issue that click, that jolt?

There is a "No Parking" sign about a block from my apartment. Sometime, in the last year, as I walked by the sign, I discovered a nail stuck into the bottom of my shoe. I used the metal of the sign to pry the nail out of my shoe and then pushed the nail into the top of the wooden signpost. Whenever I walk by it, I push the nail into the top of the post a little bit more and the nail gets rustier and rustier and more and more stuck and resistant. And I wonder if I should take a hammer to it, bang it all the way in, and leave Seattle.