In honor of the wretched heat wave we're currently experiencing, I french-braided my hair today for the first time in about 6 years. See, it used to be past waist-length, but then I cut it all off and kept my hair short for a few years. Now it's finally longish again, and so it was bugging the hell out of me in this heat. Anyway, I was surprised at how easily I could french-braid, given how long it had been since I'd done it. I expected to be clumsy from being out of practice. Nope. Huh.

Decided, after much consideration, that I enjoyed the first volume of Tezuka's Buddha enough to buy the second and third volumes. I'm still not fond of the art style, but I'm trying to approach it on its own terms, not be so judgmental, appreciate its good points. For example, there are small anachronistic jokes here and there which often make me grin. And occasional self-referential, medium-aware bits (such as one character commenting on how another is drawn) that are amusing. But, above all, I guess I just decided that the story was interesting enough to me that it was worth making the effort to appreciate the art, at least to some extent. Reading the second volume, the art has been much less of a problem for me than it was while I read the first volume. I think I may have just gotten used to it.

So Shannon and I stopped by Comic Relief, chatted with Rory, spent some late-received birthday money, and went out for dinner. It was nice. I'm so glad I'm feeling social again!

In the evening, I had a terrible craving for chocolate with caramel, and so walked up to Walgreens before they closed, bought candy, picked up prescription, came home, put chocolate in fridge to de-meltify. A few minutes ago, I took out my chocolate and opened it, only to discover that I had unthinkingly bought the Ghirardelli milk chocolate with almonds, instead of the milk chocolate with caramel. Ack! I was incredibly disappointed. It's not like it's important or anything, but I was all ready for caramel. Sigh.

My writing is not happening today. No writing. Maybe tomorrow. Only 1500-2000 words left to go.

Tonight I was watching an episode of Cowboy Bebop, and Shannon wandered by. "Who's that guy with green hair?" he asks me. "He doesn't have green hair," I explain. "It's just very dark." To which Shannon replied, "Look at it! It's GREEN!" The moral to this story? Anime artists use colors to indicate shading in dark hair. It doesn't mean the guy's hair is green. The End.

Oh. Another bit of dialogue from this evening, excerpted from a conversation about Bush and Kerry:

Shannon: Apparently Bush was A.W.O.L. during much of his time with the National Guard.

Kimberly: What a patriot! [pronounced PAYTREE-it] ... Oh ... wait ... no ... my mistake. That's "HIPPO-crit".

Shannon: I thought it was "IDDY-it".

Also, Shannon invented a cheer to encourage my writing. We were walking down the street and he was waving his arms in the air, crying, "Go, Kimberly, go! Gimme a W! Gimme an R! Gimme an I! Gimme a G! Gimme an H! Gimme a T! What's that spell? WRIGHT!" To which I replied, "Gosh, thanks. I suddenly have this urge to go build an airplane."

This journal entry has been brought to you by the number 3 and the letter W.