I got home from Arizona on Friday the 18th. Everything about that trip and reading were fabulous. First off, I somehow made it there in under five hours. Either there was really zero traffic to contend with or I've not yet cured myself of my lead footedness like I thought I had. Either way, I pulled up to my friend's house and unpacked, flopped down on the couch with her and proceeded to catch up on six months worth of stuff over a fabulous glass of chardonnay. It was during that conversation that said friend stopped me and offered to help me with something I'm going through, no strings attached. And it was so hard for me to say yes, but I said it. Remember this entry? I was right. I'm learning - not just how to say I need help and how to accept it, but who is truly standing by me while I'm going through what I'm going through.

The next morning a media escort picked me up and drove me to Kokopelli to do an interview with Fox News, where I answered various questions about the book, sexuality, and even read an excerpt for the cameras. I then zipped back home to join my friend on her couch to watch back to back episodes of Degrassi that she'd had TiVoed. It was exactly the mid-day break I needed before getting back to work on a whole slew of new assignments.

And then it was Thursday, the morning of the reading. My media escort picked me up again and drove me to AZ TV for an appearance on The Pat McMahon Show, which was great fun. Pat proved that there's a way to discuss the tenets of my book without being shocking, negative or salacious, even at 9am. I was on for two segments, then it was time to head home for more work and preparation for the reading. I tend to pick what I want to read in advance, and I do my best to mix it up for each event so that I don't get bored by reading the same thing, and the audience doesn't get the feeling that I've read a particular section 800 times already. I feel like it keeps me fresh and on my toes. So for that evening I chose to read about discovering my friend's dad's Playboys, my young make-out sessions with myself, being date raped and posing nude for a photographer friend.

I wasn't sure how this reading was going to work out, which was orchestrated by the PR-whiz at Changing Hands. I'm so used to being at a bookstore of some sort, sitting at the head of the room with rows of chairs spread out in front of me. So when I got to the winery and saw everyone sitting down at tables in groups of four to six, I did what came naturally - I socialized. I sat down with each table and took the time out to get to know each of the women at the event, asking them not just why they were there and what they hoped to get out of it, but also about who they were, what they did for a living... that sort of thing. And when they asked me to sign books, I'd ask the nearest friend to give me some insight as to who they were so I could personalize the dedication. We were all having so much fun that people from the other side of the restaurant were coming over to see what the deal was, and even bought some books as a result.

After about an hour or so of this - during which everyone had some wine - we moved to one of the tasting rooms to do the actual reading. And I have to say that if I could do every reading like this one, I would. I think having the opportunity to mingle with people and get to know them before delving into the book helped make people more comfortable not only about what they were going to hear, but also in participating. I like to run my readings in a very interactive way, partially on a selfish level. Yes, I want to get to know my readers, but by the same token, hearing their thoughts and opinions on the subjects I raise in the book continues to help me work through the fallout of my youth (while I've dealt with it, there are still certainly things I continue to learn from it.) There were moments that made me want to cry, there were many moments where I laughed, and I was so impressed at how open and honest everyone was about their thoughts and experiences. I was there for three and a half hours and signed every book, gave hugs and offered words of encouragement where I could. I was even able to make a friend or two. By the time I got home at 11pm, I was feeling so grateful about the experience that I could barely sleep.

And now, the (somewhat) bad.

My drive home was fantastic, but tempered with the knowledge that I had to move within a week. If you're confused and telling yourself, "Yeah, but didn't you just move?", rest assured you're not missing anything. Yeah, I moved in June... but an unfortunate turn of personal events for my landlords and me signaled my imminent departure soon afterward. So I started packing almost immediately when I got home and made arrangements to put my things into storage. I knew I wasn't going to be able to make a solid decision about where to live on a permanent basis at that moment, so armed with an invite to crash at a friend's place until I got everything figured out, I called a moving company and began preparations.

It all went down on Thursday, and leading up to that point I was doing really well with it all. I'd talked with my therapist about how I was looking at it as an adventure, recalling how some of the best moments of my life were immediately preceded by throwing my stuff in storage for a month or two. The first time was when I was waiting to get into the last apartment I ever lived in in Calgary, the second was when I officially made my move to the U.S., and technically, the third was just before I moved to Los Angeles in 2001 (I say technically because my stuff was in my former mother-in-law's garage while I lived in the apartment above it. So it wasn't storage in the traditional terms, but still kind of counts because it was a transitionary period.)

But then it hit me. My movers were almost done filling my storage space with stuff and went downstairs to get one last load, so I decided I'd wait for them at the space. I stood there surrounded by hundreds of other lockers in a concrete hallway and looked in on the space I'd rented for god knows how long, and marveled at how strange it was that all my worldly possessions could fit in an 8x9 cell. There was my couch, lovingly nicknamed "The Death Couch" for its ability to turn anyone who lay on it into instant mush. It stood on its side wrapped in plastic, looking sterile. There was my Chinese altar table, which I'd nabbed for a steal at a garage sale and used to display stones, Buddhas and my vision board. Now it's holding boxes of kitchen utensils and mugs that I used to have my morning tea in. And then there was my bed, a gorgeous piece of solid wood, hand-carved and imported from India. The bed that I fell asleep scheming in. The bed that I cuddled my kitty in. The bed I'd not yet been made love to in. As I touched the headboard and let my fingers trace the intricate design that had been whittled into the rich, dark oak, I couldn't help it. I started to cry.

It's not because my belongings are in storage. It's just stuff - that's not how I define myself. It's just the principal of the thing. Here I am at 32 and I feel like my shit should be way more together than it is. Of course I've always been a bit of a perfectionist and realize that I'm always hardest on myself, but it just all felt so silly. Storing my stuff at 19, 23, 25... okay, somehow that made sense. But 32? Shouldn't I have a 401-k and a garden to tend to? Shouldn't I be rooting down somewhere rather than couch surfing? But the worst part of it all was when one of my movers came over and pulled my office chair out of the space and asked me to sit down, then started offering me words of encouragement.

I'd hired Delancey Street movers to help me, and if you don't know a lot about the foundation, their basic goal is to give people who are homeless or looking to get back on their feet a combination of shelter, a job and counseling to help them through their transition. These are men who have been homeless, former criminals going straight, people who have really hit rock bottom... and one of them was sitting there with me as I cried, pep talking me about how I can't give up and things are just going to get better from here. And while it was nice that I had that kind of support, I still felt dumb that I was having that moment in the face of someone who really had lost everything. Because even in the face of all this, I'm still really fucking blessed to be doing what I'm doing and experiencing what I'm experiencing right now.

So here I am three days later. I've temporarily set up my office in my friend's dining room, and spend my days working while I look out on her tree-lined street. I have a potential lead on a place that I should know more about tomorrow. I started my day with an interview for an article I'm doing for Men's Health, took a nice, long hike followed by a nice, long bath, and now I've settled in to work for the day. The last few days have been pretty damn phenomenal for a variety of reasons that are both personal and private. But suffice it to say, in this moment, I see no reason why that trend shouldn't continue.

Friends keep telling me that they see incredibly good things coming my way. Not only do I believe them, but I see it, too. It never comes the way I expect it to, but when it gets here? It always manages to be better than I ever imagined it would be. So for once, I'm willing to be patient.