These last few days the weather in my undisclosed location has been disconcertingly sunny. I wake up in the morning and there it is out the window, the sun, shining down at a slant through the eucalypti, making everything all golden and whatnot. And it stays there in the sky, hour after hour—such a beautiful day!—casting the same clear light on everything, not distinguishing between rock and clod and poison oak, without even the pretext of subtlety. In the evening it sets of course, but without any clouds to catch it: some mild pinkening, a moment’s redness, then poof, gone, ready for the next one. I went for a run yesterday, post-pinkening—and just so you know, I am running forever towards, never away, or perhaps, it is possible, I will admit, in circles, which is to say in both directions at once—and as I passed through a dismal sort of swampy hollow I felt a certain delicious chill on my legs, an emanation from the earth, a little whisper, and I knew, not that I know anything, but I knew and felt that the fog would be returning. And so, after a brief jaunt into civilization last night to view the national spectacle as it should be viewed, on several giant widescreen tvs at once (“B E L I E V E I N A M E R I C A,” CNN commanded—I can’t make this stuff up), I was pleased to see that the fog had returned. Old friend. I drove home through a cotton ball and was not scared but comforted. It’s still here, the fog is, playing peek-a-boo with hilltops, making trees and whole valleys disappear, winking, kissing, wandering, so much more playful than the sun.