things were pretty much back to normal today and it felt good. had a rough time gettin' out of bed this morning, which I suspect might have something to do with my not having been to the coffeeshop since thursday, that put me at four days without coffee as of this morning (and it'll be five, by the time I get there tomorrow), my system must be entirely caffeine-free, the good news is that despite that, I haven't had a headache or any adverse symptoms, the bad news is I was pretty sleepy this morning, might be entirely unrelated though. either way, I think I'll go to the coffeeshop tomorrow.

It's kinda strange being able to talk again, I feel like I've returned from a trip, and yet I've been here all along.

tim stopped over this morning to sound me out about skipping the moby dick reading this year. it's probably not a horrible idea, but I hate to get away from it. as he pointed out they missed a couple years early on, while I was in buffalo, so it's not out of character for the oceanarium to be inconsistent on these things. he's thinking about either focusing on the water station or on getting a newsletter out instead of the moby dick reading and I think that might be a good idea.

after he left I started work finally on transcribing notes I've written myself over the past several years and putting them in the "ramblings" section of the site. I haven't gotten very far and I fear that it's a huge undertaking, but I'll see how it goes. I haven't posted anything yet... probably tomorrow. I've got a couple other projects to work on this week so my time will be a bit divided.

went to the beach around one, ran into dov, had a swim, the water was surprisingly warm, which was great, but the tide was outrageous and the waves were huge and breaking too far out to have any fun with, so it was a pretty short swim. dov and I hung out on the beach for awhile and then tim showed up and I enjoyed the sheer decadence of the three of us just laying around in the sun on the middle of a monday afternoon___ admittedly today was a holiday for some, but not one that any of us were observing, except our own endless holiday, or so it seems in this timeless present.

came home, worked on the transcription, painted a bit, then a little before five aliza called, just back from ojai. I joined her and her mom for a glass or two of wine at hal's. it was very nice to see her mom, I really like talking with her and it sounded from the schedule that aliza had described to me last week that I wouldn't get a chance. so we had a very nice evening and then I walked with them back to aliza's. sandy, aliza's mom, headed off to the car rental return and from there to the airport. aliza and I joined a discussion group/class that rachel was having in there front room (rachel is a friend of mine and aliza's roommate__ rachel is the one who introduced me to aliza a couple years ago). the meeting/class thing was not nearly as dull as it probably sounds, I really enjoyed listening to a group of education grad students/teachers discussing education theory, and I even contributed a little, although it seemed a bit presumptuous (aliza ansd rachel encouraged me though).

I came back here a little while ago. made chess and scrabble moves with lucy, talked with michelle on the phone and typed this. I'm ready for bed, but I'm glad I got to this before I went to sleep because I want to get up and go to the coffeeshop in the morning without having to type first. lots to do tomorrow it seems.