Tuesday:
The evening sun shone sideways through the window - I always forget how quickly the evenings get so very long here, come spring - and we sat talking about how to know when things are dangerous, and what you should know before you travel. S. is going to Liberia soon and so was asking me about the country, and the other S. looked at me shrewdly after a few minutes of conversation.
"You want to go back, don't you? You aren't going to last here long."
Wednesday:
Fighting class, kung fu, I don't know.
Thursday:
Advanced fighting class was canceled, and I took my bike out for the first time this spring, in that same sideways evening light. I wanted to go to rei, and I remembered how I used to use my bike for transportation instead of just for riding in circles, so I pumped up the tires and checked the lights, and off I went. It was easy on the way there, all downhill and smooth. I spent far too long studying hiking backpacks, and then finally I paid for one (it is to arrive in the mail soon) just as the store closed, so I had to ride back uphill in the dark, on the long, unending, winding road to my house. I stopped for a car. I started again, so slowly that I ran into the curb. I started again, and again. Finally, at the turn onto my street, I walked my bike for a few dozen feet, lungs and legs screaming, before climbing back on to finish the route.
Friday:
I almost made the girl cutting my hair cry. (In fairness, I almost cried myself when she chopped three or four inches off a huge chunk of my hair that I did not want cut so short, or so much of it short.)
"Um," I said, "I am kind of panicking over how much you just cut off. Didn't we say long layers?"
I made up for it by giving her an obscenely large tip.
Saturday:
I needed a kleenex, and the bathroom was full - the whole living area was full, in fact - so I darted into the K. parents' bathroom to grab one. On the way in, I slammed my knee into the footboard of the bed, and crumpled over in that can't-breath-nothing-exists-but-pain manner to which I have become rather too accustomed since beginning fighting class. (Usually it is my toe; the sensation is the same.)
I spent some time contemplating the fact that I run into things constantly, my general clumsiness, as it were, and I reached a conclusion: I am rushing through life. I need to slow down.
My knee is an awfully vibrant purple with little darker dots.
Later, over cigars to celebrate B.'s graduation, F. told us how he had accidentally sent a message, intended for S., to the man he had just met with about a contract. It said, "Ask Princess to recommend a good contract lawyer."
I'm not even fighting the Princess thing anymore.
Sunday:
Just as the sermon started, I handed N. a zot in church, a pink one. It was watermelon flavored. A few moments later, he jumped nearly out of the pew, and I couldn't look at him for five minutes, because we were both laughing so hard we almost couldn't sit up.
"I knew it was going to fizz," he said after church, "but I didn't expect so much fizz so suddenly."
I tried ribs for the first time ever at lunch, and everyone watched me taking little nibbles off the forkful of meat. "Delicious?" someone asked. It actually was, as long as I could forget that it was pig on my fork.
On the drive back to Universe City, I almost missed the county line, where usually I despair over the fact that I am returning here, because of the rainbows appearing and disappearing and reappearing again over to the east as the sun set through the rain.
Monday:
I have grown accustomed to checking my car for flat tires just about every time I get in it. I live with a constant suspicion that something is wrong with one of the tires, and as they say, it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
Another one was flat today. Not, fortunately, the one that I just replaced three weeks ago, for there would have been swearing, but the other rear tire. I drove slowly to the tire place and once again - once again! I've only had this car for seven and a half months! - spent my lunch hour contemplating racks of tires while the tire guys fixed my tire.
Apparently it had taken on a piece of metal.
I am beginning to despise my tires.
(Random side note: in the middle of typing this post, I had to restart my computer. The v, c, and h keys had stopped working. Try typing without them. It's harder than it looks.)