5/4

Vacuumed and mopped at the apartment today, nice loud mindless work. Read a lot so I could return a bunch of books to the library. I just got my fine down to $1 and I just know I'm going to blow it with this course, as I check out maybe 20 books a week. But I ordered Outside Over There, In the Night Kitchen and Where the Wild Things Are from Amazon a couple of days ago along with some other stuff so I can return all those for sure. I never had my own copy of Where the Wild Things Are, though I did have a treasury that included the full text and all illustrations which were of course scaled down to miniscule. Next on my list I guess is the Nutshell Library. I've been sneaking some real trash into my pure recreational reading time (the number-one reason I lose out on sleep and subsequently arrive late at work in the mornings), like a random Sweet Valley High book here and there. It feels sort of wrong to spend time on things like that (even a half hour, which is what it takes to read one, maybe) but sometimes a shallow escape is a wonderful thing, like resting your head on the lip of an inflatable baby pool and dozing off in a half-float. I have plenty of "adult" trash to see to, like all those Agatha Christies I once bought on a whim. Latest from the library: many heavy books on the evolution of picture books, a puzzle book based on Alice in Wonderland, a book on the Tenniel illustrations of the Alices, and a very large book on Tiffany jewels, called jsut that I think. Also 'book the second' in the Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, but I don't think I'll continue with the series, because those kids never get a break and frankly that's depressing.

Speaking of unfortune, I dragged Mart to see the Lizzie McGuire movie with me this afternoon. It was loads of prepubescent fun. I can't lie, I liked it a lot, like i knew I would, because I like the show. THen we met my mom at the OSF for dinner, and I dunno why but lately the food at OSF has sucked something major. I know it's not gourmet or anything but all the sauces taste canned and the staff has taken to asking "Would you like salad with that?" instead of "What kidn of dressing would you like with your salad?" (which makes more sense to ask because since the salad is included in the meal anyway ... or are they tryign to conserve iceberg lettuce, like serving water by request only? Do people leave whole plates of salad untouched? Maybe there is some kind of good reason for it.) It's really not as big a deal as the food sucking.

Also went to Borders, but didn't buy anything (having recently spent about a hundred imaginary dollars to build the Maurice Sendak portion of my library). Looked at dog books. Saw Steve (Rabbit Man) and he hopped over to inform me that there were more dog books on the other side of the shelf. Funnily, the For Dummies ones offered the most information about euthanasia and bereavement. I wonder if professional help would actually ... help. In general I'd say I'm against the idea of paying someone to listen to me talk, but I'm starting to wonder if that might be a good option to consider.

Oh yeah, also went to Costco today, this morning. Was thinking, I need to get my own membership so I can come here when I actually need stuff and not have to wait until my parents go (and then I never buy stuff anyway because my parents tell me to put what i need in the cart and I can pay them later, and then they tell me it's OK and later they complain about how much stuff they have to buy me so finally I said forget that, and I just go along for the ride and buy my stuff later like when E's B goes because he has no problem taking money I hand him.) But then, I shouldn't have to wait till E's B feels like going. So duh, me, get your own membership already. I never get around to doing that. So I put it on my list of things to do this week. Second is to remedy the situation created by my lack of Mach 3 cartridges, which is why I need to go to Costco so badly in the first place. Ew.