Ah, the slowness of Sunday. I finished a nice bicycle ride this morning, Doolies is studying away for her family board exams across from me, and I’m sitting in my PWA (perfect work area), having finished my coffee with a generous lump of chocolate (but no milk—I’m experimenting with easier to make coffee; the milk frother takes too long), and thinking about writing. Doolies returned from her Taiwan adventures yesterday evening, and I hope to post some of her fantastic photos over the next few days. It feels like she was gone longer than two and a half weeks—I guess now that she lives in the Castle, I feel her absence more. Once you have something, it makes its loss that much more.

I’ve been racing through books lately. I guess that’s better than sitting around and playing video games.

It’s not working again, the animal story. I tried to turn the gears, but they were stuck: missing oil or perhaps misshapen. Whatever the cause, not a word I wrote; I did take pleasure in cutting and effectively decimating some of the words I had written. Doolies is sleeping, the jetlag having caught her with a cross punch across, well, you get where I’m going with this metaphor. My little Dell laptop is burning up my lap as I type this. I’m thinking it’s only a matter of time before my thighs combust. I guess there are probably worse things than combustible thighs even if I can’t seem to pick any out. It seems my bike ride left me with a bit of an unwanted suntan. My upper thighs, arms, nose are bright red, and I’m beginning to itch. I laughed when Doolies told me about this mystical lotion that protects you from the skin—I think she referred to it as “suntan lotion.” Clearly it’s a misnomer designed by marketing people. And, besides, it’s slimy, and I can’t stand slime.

Look at all these words. Wonderfully formed and placed words, none of which gets me any closer to finishing this serve. Oh, if the world could understand my problems, my expectations, my insane frame of mind. That’s insane in the membrane, if you were wondering. That world, my friends, would be a much better place, a lucid place, if you will.