After a weekend spent water skiing and dining with Margaret’s ever gracious family, we’re safely back in our ant-infested apartment. We slept in this morning and had a 4 hour drive and have just stayed up later than we probably should have, so it’s about time for some well-deserved sleep. Just wanted everyone to know we’re safe and happy and that I’m setting my alarm to go back to the gym in the morning…I’m not anticipating a pleasant reunion. Very difficult to believe that in less than a week I will have figured out how to pack all of my things for the airplane to Oregon…

Yesterday was lots of good fun. We successfully navigated to the rafting place, a major accomplishment in itself. The river was actually in Gruene, which is maybe pronounced like “green” we’re not entirely sure. We took tubes with nice hard bottoms (to protect us from low water) down the river. I only brought my 15 proof sunscreen, and needless to say we suffered a little for it. I turned out ok except for burns around my swim suit lines, worst in the general arm pit area. Margaret, on the other hand, has incurred what we are calling “chaos zebra” marks, which are very random squiggly burns on her knees, chest, and stomach. Basically every part exposed to the sun (we were reclining in the tubes on our backs, so our tummies were pretty exposed).

After tubing and burning we had the best frozen coffee drinks ever at a little coffee shop in Gruene (I heart little coffee shops) and headed home, running to get into the Alamo for the last 30 minutes it was open. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant on the river walk, and while eating a giant thunder storm broke out. The walkways were really slippery so we bought some more gelato and then walked home barefoot to protect ourselves from slipping. We stayed up talking and planning and went to sleep chilly from sunburns. Hopefully we’ll heal with minimal peelage.

So I’m writing this from a breakfast buffet at our hotel in San Antonio. Yes, the date is right, this is Wednesday morning. Margaret’s ever generous father, concerned that I haven’t experienced enough of Texas, encouraged us to take some time off (still uploading articles from an Internet-enabled hotel, of course) and drive around.

We arrived here yesterday and toured the San Antonio Riverwalk. We ate at a Mexican restaurant down there and had Italian gelato at a little shop. I had watermelon and pineapple. Today the plan is to go float down a river in New Braunfels, which is a little north of here. Hopefully tomorrow morning we’ll take the Alamo tour and then head up to meet an uncle and two aunts at a family cabin in…somewhere. Texas. That should bring us home in time to enjoy my last weekend in Texas! Crazy stuff.

San Antonio has been good fun, though our hotel room is at the far corner of the establishment and just at the fringe of their wireless network. I can’t pick up the signal unless I press myself against the wall in the bathroom, and even then it’s not strong enough to do much of anything with. Thinking if we get bored we should just play WoW in the lobby…

It seems a rather arbitrary detail to include, but weather.com says that it is currently 98 degrees, feels like 103. Honestly, I still can’t feel a difference in the 80-100 range, it’s just hot. It seems like I can feel every single degree between 45-65. Which of my friends was it that liked to talk about how reaction to temperature is actually a learned trait, that we could handle a lot more cold if we grew up in a forest? I think it was Pearl. At any rate, I’m beginning to believe that.

Hot as it may be, I put in my good hour by the pool after my painful hour at the gym. After so much out-of-apartment activity I simply had to return, dehydrated and limp, to turn my speakers on high and read books on the couch, sipping a strawberry milkshake and gazing at my calendar is utter confusion. Is that series of little boxes honestly trying to communicate less than 2 weeks remaining in Texas? One measly weekend and a handful of square little workdays? Sheesh. That’s all I have to say. Goodbye summer.

I’m getting more nostalgic for Astoria every day. I miss walking down the street and recognizing people. Most of all I’m tired of going on to Mapquest every time I want to go anywhere. I’ve found my way to the mall and the grocery store, I even made it downtown last weekend without much trouble (there’s one big expressway that pumps cars from here to there), but everything else is Mapquested. I should not need a map to find a bank.

I am ashamed to admit that I have burned myself. No, not a sunburn. A computer burn. My computer burned my left thigh. I’ve been working in this reclined position, laying on the long couch with my legs kind of crossed at the ankles, left leg on top, computer on the lap…yeah. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it happening, but it’s been all red and splotchy for 2 days now. How embarrassing.

Margaret is supposed to return tonight, but I find it just as likely that she doesn’t. It’s a long drive from Arkansas to Addison. I need to clean the apartment, anyway…

I’m sure blogs all over the country have been tossing this subject around all week, but I’m just now getting to it. I’ve been reading the New York Times approximately every morning since last summer when my boss Ken recommended that we receive the Times emails. I mean, it can’t be much easier, you sign up and they’ll email you a nice selection of articles for free. None of those pretentious inky fingers that the Joss ilk are wont to partake in, I mean really, who has newspapers delivered to their dorm…

Anyway, soon after I began taking my prescribed morning dose of liberal spun news I realized that Vassar folk are not half so smart as they make out to be. Most of what I took for brilliant musings and spontaneous insights were really direct quotations from the morning newsfeed. This revelation necessitated regular Times propaganda consumption. As professors quoted the Times (uncited) in class it transformed from slanted opinion to golden fact right before my very eyes! Now of course, having witnessed both the beginning and end product, I was not fooled, but now I can’t stop. If I don’t read that darned news every day (and to be fair it truly is news, it’s just written and framed in biased language) I might be duped by some professor or peer! So I read the Times.

And what surprised me this morning about reading the Times was their article on Judge Roberts. They really seem to like this guy! They portrayed him as brilliant but accessible and human. The odd details they included had typically ridiculous political undertones like: how could a kid who played Peppermint Patty in a high school production of You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown rule against gay rights? (of course this is my interpretation, the Times is rarely this blatantly crude) At the same time they repeated half a dozen times how Judge Roberts didn’t bring his personal political views into his professional or social life. I am interested to see how this turns out. I mean, if the Times is right and this guy is brilliant and easygoing and holds devout respect for law and precedence, he could be a good man to have on the Supreme Court. That’s the problem with the Times, whether they write wishfully or outrageously, it’s written so well that I want to believe it.

And it’s very difficult to stand where I do, too conservative for the Times and too liberal for the administration. Too liberal for Texas, for that matter. So it could be exciting if the Times supports Judge Roberts, I guess is my point (even though the ad on the site of the article is sponsored by Naral Pro Choice America seems to send a different message). It could be a lot worse. Bush could appoint anybody, and I’d much prefer a smart, well-liked, personally religious judge to some fanatic or puppet. I’m interested to see how it all pans out, but it seems too important an issue to have to cross my fingers over.