Time once again to feel overwhelmed. Sometimes I think I might as well be on Twitter since I don't have much to write, beyond a few sentences here or there.

I did my usual Friday night routine, which is to go out to dinner then fall into bed by 10 p.m. Unusual for me I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking of everything. I wandered into the loft area, sat in a big chair, thought, I have to make some changes. I have to decide what's important, forget about the rest...but not now, since I am soooo tired. I tried to read but I found my mind couldn't engage. As soon as I'd close my eyes for a second I'd start to fall asleep.

Can I just not require so damn much of myself? I have a finite amount of energy. I can't be perfect. I can't do it all. That is a fact.

Interesting look at both sides of the Arizona immigration law controversy.

Ooh, Mad Men returns tomorrow. What's up with Peggy Olson's hair? I'm resisting the urge to read the advance reviews.

Yet another adventure driving in the rain

The rainstorm came so suddenly this afternoon that one of my co-workers gasped and said, "Look outside" and ran to the window. A solid wall of water was rushing down the side of the building. The air was so white it looked like we were on the inside of a cloud. We were entertained for a few minutes before we all sat down and got back to work.

5:40 and I finally escaped work. Upstairs from my desk I had seen a couple of people walking through the parking lot under an umbrella. An umbrella would have been nice. Downstairs a crowd had gathered at the front door, waiting out the rain, I suppose. I didn't want to wait that long. I put a plastic bag on top of my head and walked fast. The rain wasn't so bad, it was the puddles that caused the problems. My black flats, nylons and the bottoms of my pants got soaked. These days I am afraid to ruin my clothes, and I was horrified at first but relaxed after I realized the water wouldn't really ruin them.

I drove through several fast-moving streams of water getting to the interstate. Looking back my rule *should* be, you can never be too cautious in a potentially dangerous driving situation. But honestly I was just tired and eager to get through this wet mess as quickly as possible. I was fording these streams without much thought.

I was waiting at a traffic light and saw a truck stopped in my lane ahead. A man was getting out of the truck. What's this guy doing? I thought. He got down into the water and propped up a construction sign that must have fallen in the rain, which otherwise all the traffic would have had to go around. Woo-hoo, this guy is my hero.

More rain-related fun on the way home: I narrowly missed getting hit by a pickup truck after traffic stopped suddenly in front of me and I made a quick lane change. Incidents like these make me debate in my mind whether I'm a bad driver or not. I'm a "bad" driver in the sense that I don't have good instincts for the physical act of driving. I'm a "good" driver in the sense that I usually follow traffic laws to the letter. That is, except when I am very eager to get home and start getting careless. Rain and rush hour, double reason to slow down.

The finale of my latest driving in the rain adventure: a rainbow.

Wouldn't it be cool if there were a pot of gold at the end of it, at the top of the mountain? But no pots of gold, instead another go at rush hour tomorrow.

My friend Stu has a nice review of "Inception" (WARNING: Don't read unless you've seen the movie!): "There are essentially two parallel stories; the heist and Cobb’s 'emotional journey'. Nolan’s trick is that one group of viewers may consider the heist to be the main story, the dark romance the sub-plot. For the rest of us, it’s the other way around."

Tonight's task: I made Rice Krispies treats, I mean Cheerios marshmallow treats. Meaning I substituted Cheerios for the Krispies in the recipe. The taste reminded me of Lucky Charms. It's pleasant enough but I think I still prefer the original.

Relax...I wish I could. I spent 43 hours in a nearly news-free zone, went to the movies, slept late, saw friends and relatives, ate some good food, and yet at this moment I don't feel rested. Maybe I need to try yoga or deep breathing exercises to get this knot of tension out of my chest. An extended vacation? I wish.

I really want to see this. Jesse Eisenberg seems a little too nice for this role, though:

Shopping at the iTunes store

Downloaded from iTunes this morning:
"One" by U2
"Bad Romance" by Lady GaGa
"Paradise City" by Guns 'n Roses
"Superstar" by the Carpenters
"I Love the Unknown" by Eef Barzelay

Love the nearly 7-minute version of "Paradise City" versus the radio version. I was trying to find a song to download that showcased Lady GaGa's more serious side...Um, does Lady GaGa have a song like that? I didn't find one. "Brown Eyes," maybe?

It's been such a long time since I listened to the Carpenters. I used to listen to their Greatest Hits over and over again when I was about 12 years old. "Long ago/And oh so far away/I fell in love with you/Before the second show..."

I have $8.66 left in my account. Any suggestions?

Are the French really "green"er than Americans? Not much, according to this columnist:
"But when it came to living greener, the French behaved pretty much like Americans. The plastic Evian bottle reigned and I did not see one reusable bottle the entire time I was there. I saw a chain of stores that sold only plastic wares, boldly named Plastiques. At the supermarket, I did notice an absence of plastic bags but the amount of packaging on products was insane."

- I'm trying to identify the lizards that live near my house. According to this article, they could be collared lizards.

- 9 a.m. today, I'm at work and realize there is a pretty large dried-up water stain from ironing on the left side of my pants. It's the kind of stain that if I tried to scrub it out in the bathroom I might have made it much worse. So I did nothing. I would like to believe that no one noticed it.

- I woke up last night because I felt suffocated by the hot, humid air. Thank God for the refrigerated air A/C. July is *not* my favorite month.

Yay, I can stop pretending to care about the World Cup now!

Colorado

Colorado must be heaven if you love climbing mountains and/or drinking beer. Too bad neither of those are my hobbies. Nevertheless I did have a good time taking in the scenery in Colorado.

I liked the cows and pianos on 16th Street but overall urban Colorado (Denver) didn't impress me much, especially when I saw a middle-aged couple wade into the fountain near the county building. Ugh, I could have lived without seeing that.

Good thing our final destination was not in the city but the mountains: Estes Park. Getting there was perilous. It was raining like crazy when my sister A. drove on the mountain roads at night. I prayed. But my sister is a capable driver, and we got there in one piece.


The next day was blue skies and sunshine, fortunately, and I was stunned when I took a short walk and saw the Rockies up close. In Colorado I questioned whether I had ever really seen mountains before. Mount Rainer, I suppose. The Franklins look like a few hills in comparison. I saw pine and aspen trees, ducks, chipmunks, even a couple of elk, exotic plants and animals for someone used to the desert.

Our inn was literally something out of a '40s novel. It was the sort of place you could spend a week with the family hiking in nice weather and playing cards in the library when it rained. It smells like the wood it's built out of, and like burnt firewood in the nights and mornings. No TVs in the rooms. I could see myself going there to work on a memoir, Reflections from the Mountain, or something like that.

Besides hiking we drove around and took a brewery tour, which I liked more than I expected, and saw the Stanley Hotel, the hotel on which the setting for Stephen King's The Shining is based. I didn't feel scared, maybe because I haven't seen the movie The Shining or read the book. But I honestly thought our inn would be a scarier place to be snowed in than The Stanley, since it's even more isolated.


It was a short trip and I left thinking there is so much more to Colorado. I got a few snapshots to take home, but I know there is a grand epic in those mountains for those who desire it. I want to go back with hiking boots, a tent, and a fishing pole.

Does anyone else think this is a crummy graduation speech? Do NOT major in philosophy, whatever you do. Come on, Anna Kendrick, couldn't you write something better?

So Much for That by Lionel Shriver is too cynical and depressing for me to recommend wholeheartedly but it has its moments:

...But when Zach typed an a it was magic. His iPod was magic. His digital TV was magic. The Internet was magic...Collectively, the human race was growing ever more authoritative about the mechanics of the universe. Individually, the experience of most people was of accelerating impotence and incomprehension. They lived in a world of superstition. They relied on voodoo--charms, fetishes, and crystal balls whose caprices they were helpless to govern, yet without which the conduct of daily life came to a standstill. Faith that the computer would switch on one more time and do as it was asked had more a religious than rational cast. When the screen went black, the gods were angry.
...
For After Glynis had discovered a terrible secret: There is only the body. There never was anything but the body. Wellness is the illusion of not having one. Wellness is escape from the body. But there is no escape. So wellness is delay.

Found this post while looking for some new blogs to follow: "...I’m not concerned that women don’t engage in enough building of self-confidence or self-esteem. I’m worried about something much simpler: not enough women have what it takes to behave like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks." Ha ha, I've noticed that, too. Many women (myself included) are bad at self-promotion and they *shouldn't* be. This book was an eye-opener for me and has some very helpful tips on this topic. I encourage all women who work to read it.

Could this be true? It seems more plausible the longer you watch.

- Work, work, work. Maybe I'm addicted? This week it seems I haven't thought of much else.

- I'm thinking of joining Twitter. Anyone have arguments for or against?

- I'm leaving for Colorado on Sunday. I'm trying to see more of the world. But whereas travel is a frequent thing for some people, it's actually a pretty infrequent thing for me. I don't typically do weekend getaways, more like a few big trips per year.

- It's 9:30 p.m. and I'm exhausted. I wish it wasn't so. I do want to write down my thoughts so they aren't forgotten. I also want to find a good book to read and go out to watch Eclipse and take the dog for a walk and finish watching The Wire. In that order.