Reading: Catherine, Called Birdy

Moving: walked to work (2.7 miles)

House: uh, painted? unpacked? something useful, I am sure

See that date down there? I cannot remember what happened over a week ago.

7 June 2000: The written equivalent of fidgeting

I can't believe I just ate that.

I went to Barnes & Noble because I am a terrible person who left for lunch too late to go to the TCLD. I bought The Hours, Holes, and Catherine, Called Birdy. I wasn't going to buy the last because I wasn't overly whelmed by Cushman's Newbery medalist, The Midwife's Apprentice, and when I saw it was in diary format I curled my lip, because much as I love Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech couldn't manage that format in Absolutely Normal Chaos. But then I saw that Catherine is set in 1290 and I'm a sucker for all things medieval.

I had to get back in not enough time to go to TCLD because I had a meeting at 1:00. So from the B&N café I bought a gross sandwich call a "Handful" (shaped like a "Hot Pocket," which I have also never eaten). And I ate it, and it was so greasy it nearly felled me. I have a meeting this second, in fact, which is why I'm writing here and now in my DayRunner. I am compelled to write during meetings in which I don't want to pay too much attention. Jen Wade recently wrote in a forum that she stayed awake in college by listing the 50 states, which doesn't work for me (especially here) since I can rattle off the states and their capitals in alphabetical order. Perhaps I should work on reverse alphabetical. Actually I should get a list of countries.

It was so gorgeous outside, I should have walked the length of the mall instead of the few blocks to the monolith. Today was forecast to reach the upper 90s, but today feels more comfortable than earlier this week when it was a bit overcast. I can't say muggy, because I've lived in Connecticut (and anyone moving from Louisiana to Connecticut probably isn't allowed either), but relatively, it felt sticky. Global warming. La Niña. Whatever. Today the sky is properly blue, the mercury high, and it's fabulous out.

Against the high temperature I wore the least possible dress I could, a scrap of rayon I found at Ross last year, a short tank dress of pale yellow with a floral pattern with a one-button jacket that cranks up the decency level for the office. This morning Tex asked, "New outfit?" No, I wore it a couple of times last year, though this is the first time this year. I don't like it much, though; the patterns--both cut and floral--aren't quite right. It doesn't look like me and therefore stands out. Whereas when I wore a new dress Thursday and another Monday, no one at all commented. Possibly this was because they are ugly, but I prefer to believe no one recognized them as new because they look like everything else in my closet. Which makes me happy.

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Yesterday afternoon I went to African Grey, bought seeds, a new perch, and a new toy, but forgot vitamins. Those I can get from Petsmart--or online, hey, I didn't think of that. Then the apartment for a last check of the mail, which was good because someone in the office signed for a package from Amazon. DMB sent me The Bluest Eye for my b'day. She thought it was new because it's Oprah's latest book and so was disappointed that I've read it, but I didn't have it in hardcover so it's a nice treat.

And to CostCo, where I tried to buy everything. I refuse to go there ever again: on weeknights traffic makes getting there ridiculous and on weekends being in the warehouse is ridiculous. So I bought three bags of dried cranberries, which'll last a long time, and a triple pack of Hershey's syrup, because I wanted a large amount of one type of food, in order to continue the matched cupboard look the freak favored.

Then chez HAO, who didn't want to go for a swim. If you see HAO, don't miss her legs. She's been gymming, and her legs are completely toned now. I wish she had gone for a swim, because I'd've loved to se the muscle and navel ring together.

So I went for a wee short swim at my old complex--today I must call Parks & Rec to find out when the Congress Park pool opens--and popped into the BB near my house to rent "Pride and Prejudice." SEBB said her watching it more than ten times caused her to quote from it unconsciously, so it's been on my mind. This BB is on Colfax, though. The closest to foreign films it stocks are those with Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jackie Chan. It doesn't have the Jennifer Ehle P&P at all. Freaks.

So I rented "Persuasion" again--its art direction is superb, as I appreciated more in this second viewing--and blew off measuring windows and sorting the mounds of whatever is in the furnace room, in order to lounge in the coolness of the basement and pet buddy head for two hours, which Blake also found an acceptable way to pass an evening.

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I've missed SEBB, which surprised her. I've missed her way with her fave language. More recently and more specifically, I've missed her since January, when she saw NCS. As faithfully forwarded to me from TJZ, whom alone she told at the time, they unknowingly had a mutual friend whose New Year's Eve party they both, with their SOs, attended. I have wanted details.

After they had got over their shock of randomly meeting after ten years, NCS reassured their host that despite SEBB having been a friend of mine, she was okay, the situation was all right; as if the mutual friend would ditch SEBB after a ten-year acquaintance because of her Tainted Past Associations. Actually it was that email that first gave me hope, five months ago, that perhaps the sitch with SEBB was salvageable. She wrote to TJZ that she had seen NCS, "the one Lisa dated lo these many years." The fact that she did not string a slew of imaginative epithets onto my name gave me hope she might have buried the hatchet.