Just like the past, with a new coat of paint

I feel like writing, just not here. I am in command of my vocabulary lately, I just haven't had anywhere to properly direct it. And I'm using too many adverbs.

Fuck it, it's an online journal, that once oft-disparaged literary art form.

Someone's parents parked their honkin' SUVs in the parking spots behind my house and my neighbors'. They were moving out of the apartment across the alley, but still. You should ask permission to park in spots like that. It's akin to parking in someone's driveway.

Kevin and I spent the Holy Day of Our Lady Great Nation America in Olympia. I spent too much on groceries and he drove to alleviate boredom. I had to barter to get him to come with me--I didn't particularly want to drive alone on a holiday, since my sister (channeling our mother) chastised me for attempting to drive on what could potentially be a day of very bad traffic, etc. WSDOT made the roads look pretty clear, but still. So we settled on a trip to Woodard Bay, which Kevin had never been to and was unlikely to host several hundred obnoxious picnickers, to precede visiting Becky.

The park was lovely. No one was around. It was beeaaauutttiful. (Hint: If you want to see more pictures, switch the "2" at the end of the link's filename for any number 1-5. My web server doesn't seem to like directory listings, so you gotta do it by hand.)

I drove from the park to Becky's house. It's not a terribly long ways, though the park is out in the edges of civilization, even for Lacey.

We spend the evening with Becky (joined much later by Shawn), who let us use her kitchen to make a stir-fry that was intended to be grilled skewers. She shared some of her good teriyaki sauce (the Soy Vey brand, which is rich with whole damn sesame seeds, yum). She showed us anatomy and physiology and developmental psych textbooks and told stories about her life lately and the people in it. She seems much happier these days, which is so good. She says the only apparent downside to antidepressants is they make her very sleepy, and since her mom and stepdad are also on the same meds, they are all sleepy all the time. But sleepy-happy isn't necessarily a bad state, eh? Better than fucked up for sure.

We left around 11 since Becky was getting very sleepy indeed. She told us not to die. Kevin wanted to drive again because he gets rather bored otherwise. He drives as fast as the person in front of him, usually trying to find the person going the fastest--in this case, 80 mph. Just south of Exit 114 to Nisqually, I mentioned that there was, in fact, a state trooper lurking. That was when we saw flashing lights. The story is my semi-fictionalized account for the sake of Caleb's insatiable thirst for storytelling. Anyway, after that, we switched, and I drove under 70 mph for the remainder of the trip.

Today is gray. I need to call the Bothell family and try to secure an interview. I don't know how much they seek or avoid publicity for their story, and you need to take a lot of precautions around sick kids. I don't know; it could be very sensitive, and I'm not sure how well-equipped I am to handle it. I can be somewhat empathetic, and I have had some real-life experience and some journalistic training in this general area, but still. Who knows.

I just finished reading The Hot Zone this morning. Ebola doesn't sound like fun. And we came so close to total annihilation!!!! The writing style kind of annoyed me; it tried to hard to recreate a movie-type scenario, read peoples' minds, etc. when it sounds like it was more of a post-hoc journalistic investigation. But it was pretty scary, without ever actually using the word "annihilation," as I recall.

Maybe Pamie's book will arrive soon so I can read something that's not fucked up and scary. Like the New Yorker.

listening: ben folds five - missing the war