I have returned from sunny Chico, CA, where we went to help my Uncle Brett celebrate his 50th birthday. The weather is gorgeous there. I wandered across Lindo Channel and walked through my old high school and was reminded of track season and spring fever and this old sleeping bag I used to have in the trunk of my '84 Mercury Topaz that I would spread out on the grass at lunch or during free period (or during class if the weather was particularly inviting).

While I was away, quite a few of you answered my shoe survey. I knew I wasn't the only one!

Am I alone on this? I was certain that I've talked to others who use men's shoes as an evaluation tool. Actually, I look at women's shoes, too. If they're wearing shoes that I think are lame, it's a good indication that they're not a whole lot like me, usually. This isn't the primary evaluation tool, of course, but it's one of them.

Apparently, none of my guy friends or the women they've asked in the last five minutes agree with this. What about you? Is this news to you?

Do you remember the first time you became aware of the Olympics? I do. I remember that I was really, really shocked that the USA didn't win everything. Okay, so it was ridiculous. I can see that now. But it was the first time in my life it occurred to me that there was a whole other world out there -- an exotic world full of people who were referred to by their nationality and their sport. But I had been led to believe that America wins everything. We even call ourselves America, ignoring the fact that there's not only the rest of our continent, but a whole other continent with "American" in its name. I didn't really think of it in those terms, though, back then. I just thought we were supposed to win and I was alarmed that we didn't. What did this mean? How could this be? I wondered about it for a long time before I finally worked my way around to the conclusion that other people in other countries (even the ones you can't pronounce or spell) can be just as talented, if not more so, than anybody in our country. It made me a little sad at first, but now I find that I'm pretty happy about it -- how boring the world would be if the USA really was the best at everything.

When I get really busy, I tend to space out on stuff. It's as though my brain decides that the information I keep shoving at it is worthless, and it just kind of misplaces it. When I get mad and question my brain**, it just kind shrugs and throws up its hands in a gesture that says, "Hey, what do you want me to do about it?"

Last week, for instance, I e-mailed Sydney and reminded her that we had planned to go see a Shakespeare play. She bought tickets; we agreed to meet up on Saturday and attend the play. I forgot. Completely. Until I was on my way home around 9:00 and I got that awful chilled feeling you get when you wake up and look at the clock and you know you've overslept because you were supposed to be at work two hours ago. I hate hate hate that feeling.

Luckily, Sydney is wonderfully nice and understanding and is not mad at me. We're going to see Midsummer Night's Dream in April (as long as she remembers to remind me).

**In my imagination, it's a little cartoon brain with hands and feet, and expressive eyebrows. It's not very impressed with me, my brain.

Stagnation. Stasis. Fixety. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been horribly remiss in updating this thing. Some weeks, five minutes seems like a lot of time.

The house hunt continues. I found one that I really liked the other day, but I'm a little iffy on the area. I'll have to go back during the daylight hours, when people are out and about. Also, I looked at it after snowboarding all day, and I was a little punchy, to say the least, so I definitely need to see it again before doing anything about it.

Have I ever told you about my muffin lady?

I am having terrible bus karma lately. First, on Sunday, I got stuck taking a Greyhound. On Monday, I lost my hat on the bus on my way to work. I took it off when I got on the bus, and put it on my lap. When I stood up to get off the bus, the hat, being subject to the earth's gravitational pull just like everything else, fell. I can picture it there, on the sticky and strangely puddled floor of the bus, a sad, discarded hat. More than likely, someone took it.

To round out the bus trauma, the bus I was on this morning stopped to pick up about twenty Jr. High students who were going on a field trip. This was a noisy procedure, and took quite a long time. But when about forty more got on at the next stop, I was regretting having hit the snooze button. Sixty teenagers on a shorter than average bus -- the 1600 series, according to the geeky boy who got on and announced it to everyone -- does not make for a very quiet ride to work. To their credit, they were a very polite bunch, despite the fact that they were (naturally) loud and annoying.

I am sleepygirl today. I skipped my Java class last night because I would have gotten sick, but now I'm worried that I'm going to be too far behind. It's a 4-hour class (hell on a Monday night), so a lot of material gets covered.

I wouldn't have been in such bad shape if I hadn't gotten stuck riding the Greyhound back from Washington. I took the train up for my (insanely cute) nephew's first birthday party, and I thought I was going to take the train back, but Amtrak duped me. They sold me a bus ticket, the lousy jerks. I love taking the train, and was so looking forward to it. Instead, I got a cramped seat on the Greyhound (leg room? what's leg room?) and a one hour dinner break at a truck stop in northern Oregon. It was, without a doubt, the ugliest truck stop ever. I got barked at and chased by a semi-rabid dog, but his hillbilly owners finally called him off. After that, I sat on the bus for about forty minutes until we finally got moving again. At least I had a good book with me.

Speaking of books, I decided to set up an associates account with amazon.com. I figure I'll eventually link all the books I read to Amazon, and if anybody buys them, I might get a gift certificate out of it or something. I actually felt a little cheesy doing it, but it's a service I like and use, and if I can get a free book every now and again, what's it going to hurt?