I always feel like the mother of the world.

I think I have mentioned how the past three weeks I've been waking up every morning, without exception, at 6:17 am. I haven't figured out the significance of this time yet, aside from the fact it's now my least favorite time of day. It's a full hour before 7:17 am, the time I prefer to get up, and because of my active mind I can never get back to sleep so I lose out on that hour of sleep every day. The only remedy I've found is to go to bed earlier, but this plan always fails. I am thinking the mental anticipation and stress of readjusting to life in Provo are doing it. Darn them.

I have had a reoccurring dream since I was in kindergarten. I'm standing in my kindergarten playground at Sequoia Elementary. It's a gorgeous day. The sunlight beams lackadaisically. The clouds smile, plump and full and white as marshmallows. Suddenly, a shadow crosses paths with the sun. A plane, perhaps, or just a cloud. It is recess time, and all the children in the yard look up to see what creature has dared disrupt their sunshine splendor. It is me! It is me and I am flying, soaring, whirlygigging through the air. I am wearing a green coolot dress (that's what my mom called skorts). I never speak--I simply fly. I fly all over the playground. I fly up to the tops of the big oak trees and the towering eucalyptus. I fly over to my friend Melissa Jones' house down the street perpendicular to that playground. I fly over the big kids' playground on the opposite side of the school. My classmates are in awe. I flip and twirl and circle and I am full of delight. I am a bird. I have always loved birds.

Sometimes I judge the passage of time--mainly how soon something in the future is--by the extended forecast in the online weather report. I know I am leaving New York soon because August 9 has now entered extended forecast territory. It must be soon if the weatherman feels certain enough in his prediction to report on it. Scattered showers, 82 degrees, 60 percent chance of precipitation, undoubtedly 80 to 90 percent humidity.

Today I saw my daughters* on the subway. They were sisters. They were as close to fairies as two little girls can get. They giggled at nothing and everything. Their hair wisped around their faces like straw spun into gold. Someday I will have my little Ruby and my little Pearl, and they will be just like those girls, except they will be mine. We will have a horse because every little girl wants a horse. He will be white and gray and his name will be Starfire, like the Low song, and because Starfire is the best name in the whole world for a horse.
(*how I imagine my daughters will be)

On Friday night, after Phil and I got our "vintage" Nikes, we went in the Ritz-Carlton to use the restroom. If you ever come to New York, know not to go the R-C on the south end of Central Park, the one next to the Plaza. We go in, and the lobby is terribly small. There are no restrooms. Confused, we get in the elevator. Unaccustomed to the ways of the rich, Phil and I are told by another young woman in the elevator that you need your room key to go up. "Oh, we left ours in our room," Phil pulls out of his you-know-what. We get off on Level 3. It's a room floor, and all the bathrooms are behind locked doors. We find the stairs and go down a level. A bathroom! Yes! But we still need to get back out. The elevator you need a key for is out of the question, so we continue on the stairs. A level down from this bathroom, we realize the stairs might not be of much help either, but lo! I look up and I see Pellegrino and bottled water sitting on top of a big yellow cabinet. I walk over to it, fully intending to snag some R-C spring water, when I see a plethora of bottled Coke products inside! Coke in 8-ounce glass bottles! I don't see special things like this everyday. Phil and I stuff some in our bags (really, I feel worse about stealing than it sounds--I am the girl who won't even pick up change off the ground because it's not mine) and continue down the stairs. We find ourselves in the boondocks of the hotel. A dude that works down there finds up and scurries us out the door. We escaped with our Cokes and most of our dignity.

Here is a link to my Guitar Hero 3 story.

I am going to see this movie and I am excited. It's about skinheads. I have a few friends who used to be skinheads. That's not why I want to see it though.