Oog.....I am so hung over....Finished Horizon at about two a.m. last night. I think the series is over now, but that doesn't do me a lot of good when my female relations are firmly pulling me out of bed. Got out with Lark about nine. We went most of the way along the first leg and still got home an hour later. Urgh..... And I didn't think to get the other books in the series even though I know I always want to read the earlier books afterwards.....

Was about up to where I would normally be at eight-thirty, consciousness-wise, by about ten-thirty when Lee left. I haven't decided whether to go back to sleep, reread Horizon, start Memory, or just stay on the computer. Mom shoved me onto the comp in the interests of keeping me awake until she and Grandma left for an appointment. I ended up reading Horizon most of the time they were gone.

Peter called after they got home. It was kinda fun talking to him. He wants me to tell Philip they got Crysis, and complained a little bit about Philip buying a Macbook. "Do you know how much he could get with that, in desktop stuff?" First he relayed the news, though, and I didn't even have to understand Doug's indistinct comment to reply: he says he can't get rid of the other laptop because then he'd only have one computer, an intolerable state. Yeah, sure. Oh, and he offered several trades for Lark: I could have Owen, I could have Baron, but send them Lark. Right. Oh, and Doug's apprenticeship to Hank seems a little unlikely at the moment, thanks to more legal troubles about Josh. There's no way I would be able to understand it from talking to Peter about it, but sufficeth it that Josh was arrested, CPS got involved, and now CPS is threatening Josh's family with prison, on undisclosed charges. O-kay.

Isaac called at five-fifteen to ask if I wanted to come watch a movie tonight? No, sorry, I was going somewhere with Mom on her last evening--but would he like me to come over and play for awhile? He would. So we ran around and stuff until six. 

After dinner Mom and I went to Goodwill. I got books, she got clothes. I don't think I got any clothes, in the end....=_= But I got lots of books! Dorothy Gilman, and a random volume of Fruits Basket, the last in Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy that I have the middle volume of but haven't read the first and am terrified of the last, a random book that looked interesting, and--wait for it--Dave Barry Does Japan. I am positive it's a bad idea, but I couldn't resist.

I'm not sure what just happened, but the result is Mom telling me that I'm coming home August 10. Uh.....okay?

I don't feel so good.....like my circulation is inadequate or something...... =_= Bleah. Haven't felt this bad in weeks. Dreamed I found a new issue of Shojo Beat in a store....but both covers were ads, and I don't remember any manga inside. I've come to the conclusion my subconscious doesn't have enough to do around here. At least I don't remember any Bara no Tame ni dreams--those would probably be pretty weird.

From Doug: 

"And in other news: Looks like I may well be going to Hank's for a month. If nothing comes up between now and next Monday, I gather. I'm looking forwards to it, I suppose. I mean, working from 8 A.M. to 2 A.M. sounds rather daunting, but the worst I'm worried about is my level of fitness dropping quite a bit... Well, we'll see... We'll see..."

What, I go so kick Doug out too? I feel sorry for Mom already, with just Peter and Owen....

Larked at nine, after Diane got here. Planned to take the long way again, but it was an oven so we took the short way. It took almost as long as I'd expected the long way to take, too. Met a middle-aged couple in great shape jogging. Women, take care of your fitness level and your appearance will look after itself.....at least, that's what I think. 

Carole came today. She's going to Missouri for someone's wedding tomorrow through Sunday, so she scheduled today before she left. I like talking to her. Did I ever tell the story from when I was reading Out of Africa? I'd been reading in the kitchen while she did the studio, so after she finished I was walking by carrying it. "Oh, that's a good book," she said. A very small incident, but it still amuses me.

Decided I'd spent enough time mucking about with equations and went on to square roots today. Considering my mental abilities today, this was probably easier anyway. When trying to think feels like moving through a swamp, it's much easier to go "oh, okay, radicand," than actually try to solve anything. Although I did a fair amount of reading when the math wouldn't work and I was trying to stay awake. Especially during the period when the Net went out.

At five I succumbed to the nap attack that'd been threatening most of the day, figuring since I'd have to wake up for dinner, I wouldn't get enough sleep to seriously interfere with my sleep cycle. I think in the end I got half an hour of uninterrupted sleep, and then I had to start coming to some form of consciousness every five minutes to throw a tennis ball. At least it meant I wasn't completely asleep when Grandma came in. I was adequately conscious to catch the television saying the Nova program tonight would be (in fancy font) "The Secrets--of Samurai Swords." Oh, hey, that looks interesting. So after dinner (salmon) I held Lark off and watched it. It was pretty interesting, really. On the one hand you have professors and scientists from various Western universities talking about atomic structures of steel, and on the other you have Japanese craftsmen explaining about the shrine in the forge. Cool. There were lots of fight scenes, too, interesting mainly for the costumes, and they had a kendo master and his daughter demonstrating this ritual--I'm not too clear on what it was, actually, but it involved the master's daughter shooting at him with a Japanese longbow, and the master had to cut the arrow before it hit him--and it could easily have killed him. He did, too. And there were no fail-safes or anything. They were kinda late in the program, though--it started with smelting the steel, in a clay furnace called a tatara, like the name of Sarasa's brother in The Legend of Basara. I wonder if Tamura-sensei had that in mind? After that was the swordsmith--I was amused to see that the apprentices do stuff like hammering. Very efficient. After him was the polisher, and then they started talking about collectors and museums. Oh well. There were movie clips, though, and did I mention the fight scenes? And the costumes? Mmmm. 

At eight the program ended, and I couldn't hold Lark off any longer, so we left. It was just the first leg again, and very buggy it was. I had to let my hair down first thing. We met three lady joggers who may have been three generations of a family. The ages seemed about right. We made it home about nine, I think.

Fifteen nonstop pushups on hard; twenty nonstop situps.

Levi came over yesterday and talked for awhile. We haven't seen him since late last year, and we've been feeling a bit guilty for not at least telling them that we didn't move after all. Anyway, he and his little brothers have gotten newspaper delivery time almost down to Doug's best, and they seem to be doing well. We were kind of annoyed with them this winter because their parents were driving them when the weather was bad. Doug always biked, even if it was snowing, unless he was really sick. *subsides into peeved muttering* But it was nice seeing Levi again.

We went to Olive Creek Lake, or whatever it's called, for dinner. Doug and Owen wore camo, against, Doug said, bug bites. Well, I've got plenty of those.
Doug drove us home. I think it was his first time driving at night, and the only mishap could just have easily have happened in broad daylight, and probably would have. He came into the driveway off New Hampshire, and didn't quite manage the turn into the driveway. The Buick is now sporting a lovely scrape and a broken taillight. Dad actually swore. He didn't lose his temper or anything at Doug, though, just carefully explained that there are certain things he tries to avoid, and one of them is having to turn into the driveway. Mom said he should have seen that coming.
Which reminds me that Dad rented Shooter, and watched it several times. It went back today. I've learned a lot of the plot. :p And no, I haven't seen it myself.

Survived the paper route, no thanks to the fact that there's a new start. Lloyd Otto, last house on the right on Apple, if you're reading this, Doug. Tell Mom that Dad misses her. He's been carefully talking to me as if I was five, but when I was five, I couldn't have gotten away with wishing out loud to hit him over the head with Lloyd Otto's newspaper. Which reminds me: Sarah did the route with us. I felt a bit guilty about talking Bleach with Peter, since she couldn't join in, but we didn't do it constantly. Which isn't much of an excuse, if any.

Waiting for Peter to get off Battleaxe.