Goddammnit. I hate this. At 7:47, as I distinctly remember, the alarm went off, and I touched the snooze button. And then it didn't go off again. I would have heard it. I'm trying to figure this out. Next thing I saw was the time 10:06. I have three classes in a row this morning, and I always forget that they're on a different schedule, so I thought, okay, well I missed French and Philo, but I can easily make it on time to Syntax at 10:30. Except of course it's not until 11:20, whereas I could have been fairly reasonably late to 9:55 French. But I didn't realize that until I had made the long trek around to DuPont and saw another class going on not led by the hopefully returned Kari. And I didn't even have the little book, Un Papillon dans La Cite that I borrowed from Camilla because the bookstore is out of it, although they said they'd reorder, that I tried to read last night but gave up on after a few pages because the only thing in it I could understand was the few words for which someone had written translations above. So it didn't make sense to go to class at that point. This stuff is so annoying because it's not really due to any fault of my own, or at least certainly not a conscious fault, but I feel so guilty. Especially on the fourth day of class. And what a way to ruin an otherwise lovely morning; drizzly and grey and muted, not cold but enveloping, the kind of morning that makes reality seem lubricated. Funny thing, when I start writing here, all of that starts to slip away, as though this is free of time, set off from the reality of annoyances and pleasures, where the only responsibility is to recount them.

It's not like I didn't get enough sleep; I was in bed at 1 and fell asleep soon after, and while six and a half hours may not be optimal, it's not terrible. Granted, it was for dumb reasons that I was up that late in the first place. [lovely piano lesson where I sightread three Mozart sonatas, plan to work on sinfonien and allegro barbaro; bookstore and beardsley; sort-of tea and speed-scrabble with Joel and Alyssa did something; african and african (the basics); dinner at Tarble of all places, a grilled chicken and swiss while talking to Ben and Alyssa about record stores; laughy visit to the triple; talk about the Beach Boys on the shuttle back.] When I got home, Joel asked if I wanted to play scrabble, and I agreed rather than just trying some reading and going to bed. Rebecca eventually came to join us, and while Nori switched the couches, we had our first real time of four-way roommate bantering, deliriously loud and declarative and good-humored conversation. Taboo topics come up: screw, the family metaphor. But it's nice. I think it will work. We're respectful. The couch is good even. Oh, that couch. Frost. Air.

take a ride on the west coast highway