It’s been a crazy couple of weeks—busy like. Tomorrow we leave for the wild, empty West, and I’m looking forward to it like it’ll be a vacation from work. I have been working. And looking for work and worrying about work and trying to change work. All of that doesn’t rest well.

It has been social, too.

Lunch with long-lost Rose. Her mind bending mine a little, hers a more flexible intellect. Where have the intellectuals gone?

Kate took me shopping downtown because she was looking for a sweater to buy her girlfriend, and we totally shopped. This is Kate, my skateboarding friend Kate, my Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater nemesis. And there we were in Nordstrom looking at the Kenneth Coles she’d just bought and she saying, "I liked the red ones a lot, but I wear more blue so I got the blue ones.You should get the red ones."

Speaking of blue, Bleu is my new favorite hangout. Pam said it was good and I couldn’t be wooed that far down the hill until one night Andrew and I were looking for a new spot and I remembered what Pam said, so we went and closed the place out in the tiny table right beside the kitchen, drinking cosmos and gin fizzes. Then we went back because they serve food till midnight and we are always eating late. Later, I took Maureen et al after ChuckP3. And Angela for her birthday. When Pam came home, she took me to Bleu and we were the only daylight patrons and they served me the strongest drink I've ever had (they know us by now), and I had to ask to have it watered down. The waiter said he thought I’d like it like that, but it was 1pm and I just couldn't take it. Anyway, that was the last time I went. I’ve been too busy, and out of money.

One night before going to Bleu I snapped a shot (in the bathroom, of course)

Too busy pulling the trigger to smile, so did it again

And, well, sometimes I look like this, to you anyway.

Other things, many things. Like ChuckP4. It’s crazy groupie-ism and I swore him off because his stories are all the same just different venues and character names, but that reading at the UW was good. He tells a good yarn. He’s the Henry Rollins of the literary world, and his name will mean nothing in one hundred years, but right now he’s a celebrity with counterculture 20-year-olds and a hobby for Maureen, Jennifer, and me.

Oh yeah, and that crazy birthday party of Kris’ where most of the people were his pubescent roommates’ friends. When I called Andrew to see how the thing was going, he said he was one of the oldest people there, so I knew it was going to be weird. And when I got there, children were everywhere. Thamer said they weren’t that young, but I think he’s tricked and is in to girls who haven’t grown into their bodies.

That was a week ago. This morning I shipped off another manuscript and called it vacation’s arrival.

Then Andrew and I went to Anita’s wedding, which was a fun time. I’ve been reading about Jack since she met him and so, even though I hardly ever see Anita, I didn’t feel at all removed from the situation. What I really enjoy about Anita is her complete lack of pretense which seems to come from self confidence, and which is pleasant company.

All right. Where is that man. It’s time to go to bed. We’re aiming for daylight driving here.