Reading: Bee Season, Biographer's Tale, Anne of Green Gables

Moving: two hours strolling through neighborhoods

Watching: spectacular blue sky and layers upon layers of mountains

Listening: Crash

1 September 2000: Sleeping

Who knew a party was so tiring? Everyone left by 1:00; we were in bed 1:15; we fell sleep somewhat later; and I slept until Blake woke me at 8:30. I had put him, kicking and screaming, to bed at 9:00, so by 8:30 he was more than ready to get up up up. We spent a little time up and I got him breakfast and let him sing in RDC's ear until RDC got up, whereupon I went back to bed. I read Mohawk and then didn't: I slept until the phone rang. My friend told me it was quarter to noon and I flatly denied it. We were going to paint the dining room this weekend! This weekend, yes indeed, even though the hallway took RDC a week.

So I finally had lunch sometime after noon, sitting on the porch swing finishing Mohawk with Blake on a pedestal column. I still say Richard Russo can invent characters like almost no one else, but Mohawk was certainly weaker than Nobody's Fool or Straight Man. PPF, the college friend whom RDC hadn't seen in over eight years until last month at EJB's, also likes Richard Russo, and I want to talk out this book with her. Which means I should dig out her email address, which I have somewhere or other.

We went for a nice gentle stroll through Park Hill, finally found the library, inspected the house SPM and JJM just bought, popped into an open house for a Dutch Colonial. There's a house style you almost never see here. It had the barn roof and a fanlight and a split staircase with a knee-high window on the landing and I realized again how much I like my bungalow. I suppose I would like a Colonial better if it weren't so conspicuously unsuited for this city, if it were genuine. By definition, no house built in Denver could ever be truly colonial.

Anyway. The party. I didn't call this the housewarming party, since the house isn't done and we only had our regular crowd from school, but it was most people's first visit. Three of the men, who do housepainting, reclined in camp chairs and contemplated the back of the house, discussing how to mask the brick so the soffits could be sprayed. Our floors were admired and our peculiar bathroom arrangement marveled at (have I mentioned this? because of the strange plumbing, the basement has a toilet in a closet and a sink and a tub in a separate room) and our kitchen mentally remodeled by many.

Later in the evening, JPM, CGK, and I huddled in camp chairs and talked Careers. It was very grown-up. I scurried downstairs for the pimp comforter and the three of us in our separate chairs shared it. So if the conversation was mature, at least sharing the blanket made it feel more like summer camp.

I was reassured on one point: the backyard doesn't look to everyone like the wasteland I currently see. To people who live in apartments, the backyard looks like a backyard, space of our own. I look at the house and the yard and I see work to do. I should step back every once in a while and appreciate what already is and not just anticipate the projects ahead.

Which is what I'm doing today. I cannot believe I slept until nearly noon, but after I did that and had breakfast and partook of our little stroll, I came home to more slacking. Maybe the dining room will get primed this weekend, maybe not. Tomorrow we're going to the Taste of Colorado and Monday we're having people over again to continue consuming beer and burgers. Maybe the dining room will get painted by Thanksgiving. Maybe.