I realized that somewhere there was someone whose job it was to scare me into planning, into preparing for the millennium rather than living my life. It was in the summer on my birthday. John asked that I arrive by noon, and now it's noon, and I'm still an hour from the farm. The California sun is shaking off shades to let the heat pour down. My window's down, stereo on.
Time is different in the country, kept according to the sun.
And it's still high in the sky when I arrive, when I smell farm, see John. John asks what it is I want to do most, it being my birthday, and we decide on doing nothing. I wear cutoffs and a swimsuit, and we drag the couch from the porch down onto the field, positioning it under a tree trunk. We find some beers and play cards. We talk and sputter, soak sun to burn.