(from Wednesday August 8): This week has been sorrrrrr muggy -- muggy enough to draw Maoxie away from the Alhambra-y cool of the bathroom tiles for only the most urgent of needs, and to relegate all but the best-looking cyclists* to peds and rolling stock. Needless to say I have joined my fellow average-looking commuters in moistly shuffling onto and off of the METRA for the past fiveish business days. Sigh. Hopefully tonight's cool albeit wet climes will prevail through the a.m. so I can bike into the world of rolling stock (and newly acquired barges per this evening's elevator convo with the man in charge) once again. If Maoxie's renewed genk is a harbinger in any way, out will be the oscillating redundancy of railcar-commute-to-gainful-railcar-based-employment-to-railcar-commute, in will be the invigorating zing of multi-modality.

The weekend before this was a full and satisfying one of old topography and the overlapping venn diagrams of old/newer friends. Rounding Lake Michigan in my auto I was able to fill up my Blarney Castle mug for $0.63 so many times you don't even know! Well. Danielle probably does.

The novelty of reading John Updike's Couples last year after swapping it for ____ at a restaurant in Banos, Ecuador wore off for me about halfway through this year's Rabbit is Rich. Then sometime during Wednesday's commute it came raging back and I am currently feeling warm inside and musing over whether I'm smart enough to appreciate its having won a Pulitzer.

*True? Maybe not, but it might be.