Beth's back. Properly to celebrate that wondrous happening, I thought I'd write a tad myself.

Yesterday SEM wrote "Don't get me wrong, sex is the best thing in the universe, except a nice tofu lettuce and tomato sandwich when the tofu is nice and lean--it's so perky!" and since he got "The Princess Bride" in my head, I can blame him when I say, "No no, there is too much, let me sum up":

We spent a lovely Fourth in Vail with LEB and Phil. Saturday after the downpour We ate at the Gore Creek Grill, where I was disappointed that Zach, my favorite bartender in all the land (a Kymm phrase), has grown a van Dyke. Over Christmas, Tracy (who became as infatuated as immediately as DMB and I had five months before, but who hid it less due to Zach's martinis) found out he was engaged and was very unhappy about this; I was pleased to note there is not yet a ring on this Aiden Quinn-lookalike's hand. On the Fourth we hiked six miles around the top of Vail Mountain, looking into the Holy Cross Wilderness area and spotting birds and flowers and a mule deer and several ground squirrels and possibly bear tracks. At night, watching fireworks without a blanket, I scissored my legs to warm them and was disappointed to continue not to be Chester Cricket. Monday we drove up to the west side of RMNP, stopping just south of it at Grand Lake to picnic and to swim (I was the only one to swim) and in the park hiked eight miles and so no animules at all. LEB and Phil returned elkless to Vail and RDC and I went home through RMNP, over Trail Ridge Road, at whose topmost altitudes of 12,000 feet we saw, as expected, all the elk who had climbed above the mid-90s heat of hike (at 9,000 feet).

During the weekend I finally finished Wicked and pursued For Whom the Bell Tolls more seriously.

On Tuesday, back at work, someone remarked on post-holiday lassitude, saying people just weren't in a Dot Org state of mind. "Isn't that a Billy Joel song?" I asked.

On Wednesday on the bus to work, I read this line of Hemingway: "Not seeking the bubble reputation in the cannon's mouth but seeking the solution to the problem in yonder bowl." I still have no idea what a bubble reputation is supposed to be, but at least I have an origin for Cathie Pelletier's title (the out-of-print The Bubble Reputation). The protagonist, as far as I remember, was neither an alcoholic nor a Spanish Republican, however. Also I understood why it was inevitable that the scent of bitter almonds would always remind the doctor--where the hell is Love in the Time of Cholera?--of the fate of unrequited love.

Plus Columbine mentioned rereading Carry On Mr. Bowditch so I found that in the library.

Then I helped HAO move. I am pleased to report that we moved both her big bookcases without noticeable damage to the spandy-new Impreza. She had already dinged her spandier-newier Chevy Tracker with her gobs of stuff.

Yes, this means that HAO now has a car, bringing the grand total up to three cars for two households totaling four people instead of one car for the two households totaling four people. This is very good news.

On Thursday the 8th BJWL called me early in the morning. My family is wont to do this because they know I am home. It has been a happier arrangement since we turned off the ringer of the phone in the bedroom where any husband I might have lying around asleep might be sleeping, and a less happy arrangement since I started to go on-line in the morning. She "just wanted to check in," said she, and asked me again for RRP's address. "Ma, I sent you her address back in fucking April."

"Don't swear, honey, it's so hostile."

"Damn straight it's hostile. It pisses me off that you don't read my letters."

Zounds, I said it! Hooray! She said she'd go look for that letter (which she read carefully, she asserts, like I write her so bloody often that there'd be so many letters to reread and oh! such very long ones) and now that I said her address it did sound familiar. A two-digit number, a tree, a type of road; a town she knows well, in the same state; a ZIP code in the phone book. For seven months she's refused to write it down from a phone call.

After work I rode home in the sprinkling rain and really enjoyed it, since I could take off my sunglasses and still see. Have I mentioned lately how much I love contact lenses?

The depression of late June has not passed. On Friday as I locked up my bike in the parking garage, a sharp sudden blasting noise startled me and I screamed then burst into tears. I am timid and on edge, obviously. The big difference between now and then is that now I am able to navigate to work, cry in the shower, and be calm by the time the whistle blows. Then, I was almost totally incapacitated. I dislike stopping my tears, though; I think it's unhealthy. What I was crying about wasn't the startlement but that my negativity has made me so timid that I did react thus to the noise: I was crying because I don't want to be again like I was that year.

I wasn't wholly pitiful all day, though. I called ASZ's old number in Long Island, since I lack any current contact information. I was extra-polite as I introduced myself to whoever answered and asked if this was the Z residence. He didn't want to say--what was I, a stalker?--but finally gave up and gave the phone to ASZ's mom, who remembers me from when I visited 13 years ago to see the Moody Blues with ASZ at Jones Beach and remembers my handwriting as little and neat. She's right about the Moody Blues, anyway.

I don't want to call it depression. There's a big difference between "being depressed" and "feeling depressed," at least to me. When I was scrupulous about not eating four-footers, I said I ate vegetarian but wouldn't call myself a vegetarian. I can feel sad without being down long-term.

On Saturday I talked to RJH for almost an hour, then I swam a mile, and then I walked 5.2 miles with Jackie, DEDBG's French foster mother. When DEDBG first went to France, or at least, first as in "the first time since I had met her and her going would matter (to me) since I would miss her," JUMB asked around for a family for her to live with. JUMB's former roommate teaches English with Jackie somewhere near Grenoble, and voilà, there landed DEDBG. When I first arrived at Charenton several days before DEDBG's U.S. wedding, the first people to descend upon me were two women. The blonde one said, "I am the French mother" so I said "Mme G!" but she was not SPG's mother. SPG's mother was the brunette with almost no English. My assignment the next day was not to chop down trees or dig ditches or any of the laborious tasks I had feared might still be needed to prepare the house for the wedding, but to take SPG's parents and DEDBG's foster ones to Mystic Seaport. Jackie and I hit it off, which was good because she was the only one whose English made up for my bumbling French. Now she is here for three weeks chaperoning chilluns, and oof! Denver is a nice city, but it is a city and therefore you should land here and proceed directly to the mountains.

Jackie had dinner plans so RDC and I went alone to the Wynkoop for supper. We were about 5/6 of the way when I realized I didn't have shoes with me. Such are the dangers of being a mostly barefoot person. We parked at our usual spot, walked the length of the mall, and RDC bought the books he scoped when he'd come downtown on his bike while I read Eloise in Paris, and then we went to the restaurant and compared guidebooks.

Speaking of jumping up and down on tummies [these next few paragraphs were part of a long email to SEM; that comment was in context in the email and I leave it now as a curiosity], ooof, I went to the amusement park Sunday. Dot Org had its annual picnic at Elitch Gardens this year, which is now Six Flags Elitch Gardens and overrun with WB stuff. Black bat wings were added (I assume added; it was my first time) to the seats of one ride so it could be a ride over Gotham. All the cheap carnival prizes were bad reproductions of WB characters. The first stop was the Tower of Doom, which hauls you up 10+ stories and then drops you, free fall. That was cool. The seat is like a regular chair with your legs dangling so when you drop, your feet get thrown up straight--hello, hyperextended knees! Then we went on a rollercoaster that has two upside-downs but isn't a continuous loop, so to get back to the starting point you do the whole thing backward. Now the thing is that 21 years ago when our parents did the obligatory trip to Disney World, we also went to Busch Gardens Tampa and CLH and I were going to go on the Python? Anaconda? anyway, a rollercoaster that goes upside down. We had never been upside down before. Unfortunately, it was closed that day and CLH and I promised each other that we would never go upside down without the other.

I broke that promise on this first roller coaster (I figured she wouldn't mind) and it gave me a slight headache (I am ashamed to confess (this is an email of confessions, isn't it) that I get seasick), but I still wanted to go on the next ride, THE MIND-ERASER.

Call that the gastro-intestinal track eraser. I discovered I get seasick when I started to do whalewatches and would go on those huge ferry type things with their loud motors. I was fine on the boat we sailed on to get to a snorkeling place in Key West on our honeymoon--sailing=quiet. I wondered about going out on EJB (the best man)'s sailboat last summer, but I was fine even in the cabin: sailing=quiet.

A roller-coaster is not quiet. This one is particularly cool, though: you sit normally but the seats are suspended from the top, so instead of a series of carts between you and the track, there is nothing underneath you and your legs dangle! And as with seasickness, keeping my eyes open and focused on the horizon (the spinning and flipping and twisting and not horizontal horizon) might have helped, but I kept my eyes closed and willed myself not to be sick. I was successful, but just barely. I did do the pre-spew heave thing a few times but at least brought nothing up.

Which really disappointed me. I've always loved rollercoasters. D'you remember the Thunderbolt at Riverside? Wooden and creaky and you could never be sure if it would fall apart underneath you? Elitch's equivalent was closed, and despite the heaving, I think I could have handled a regular, right-side up coaster no matter how it flung and twisted and dropped me.

As for going upside down, it has taught me not to break any promises to my sister. [end letter]

Monday I told myself I was still queasy, so I took the bus to work and after work rode to the pool, swam 85% of a mile, rode to HAO's new place, walked with her for more than an hour, and rode home. She's pro'ly about five miles away by trail, maybe less. Four and half minutes' drive, anyway. This is a good thing. Also I finished For Whom the Bell Tolls and bought a new Mattie Sue Athan book (she's a deity of companion parrot behavior and lives right here in Denver and our vet's in her book! And Blake's breeder was in her last book!).

Tuesday I rode in, read A Separate Peace at lunch, and came home to air-conditioning. RDC had succumbed, since it was 98 degrees. I called ASZ and talked to his wife for a while. I am relieved that she and I, who have never met or corresponded, could chat easily. I have not heard ASZ's voice in 11 years and we've had quite long lapses in our correspondence. She even invited us to stay with them when we visit Seattle, but we want to stay right in the city, not a suburb; and a five-month-old baby and not seeing him for a decade or her ever make me timid. We might stop with MEWN if not in a hotel.

Also Journey's "Wheel in the Sky" played continuously on my internal jukebox all day.

Also someone mentioned "hardcore Boolean junkies." Nope, just Cowboys for me thanks.

Also I recently wrote to Kymm that whatever album "Pull out the Pin" is on is my least favorite Kate. She said it was her favourite favourite, so I checked and lo! The Dreaming is excellent of course and also has "Get out of My House," a personal anthem of mine. It's Lionheart that I like very little.

Today (Wednesday the 14th) I rode again and will swim again this evening. And again tomorrow, except I might try to join some rollerbladers for their Thursday night skate instead of swim. I'm not sure I can keep up, but it would be nice to have some company--and some pointers. I could swim Friday at another pool. Saturday we go to Winter Park to bike and swim (except Grand Lake is distance away) and Sunday we rebuild the Mac. Wheeee.