4/18/01

Tonight, I get my bed back to myself. Ever since last Thursday, my mom and sister have been staying here with me, but they left early this morning, and now life is pretty much back to normal.

That is, life is normal except for the fact that I'm a lot more tired than usual. I went out last night (after my mother and sister went to sleep) to celebrate one of my classmates passing his orals, and I didn't get back until after midnight. After I got home, it took a little while for me to decompress before climbing into my sleeping bag (I volunteered to sleep on the floor after sharing the bed with my mom one night and waking up with her leg draped across me). Then, a bit after 4 a.m., the airport shuttle showed up to take my mother and sister to the airport, so I had to get up and see them off. I tried to sleep for a few more hours after that, but it just wasn't the same as a real night's sleep.

I also felt really physically tired today for some reason. I only ran 4 miles today (I usually run 6-8 miles on a normal weekday) and I felt like my legs were made of cement. The fact that it was raining didn't help either.

And being around other people all the time for a week is kind of emotionally draining, too, especially when you're used to living alone.

So, my mom got in last Thursday afternoon. Her flight was three hours late, because strong headwinds had forced her plane to make an extra refueling stop along the way. I let her in to my apartment and then went back to work for a couple of hours. I went home early, though, because I'd invited Andy and Katie over to have dinner with me and my mom, although it turned out that Katie wasn't able to make it because someone's cat had a stroke (she's a vet). Andy had never met my mom before, but they seemed to hit it off pretty well (causing my mom to ask me twice if Andy had a girlfriend).

After dinner, I made us all watch "Survivor." My mom thinks "Survivor" is dumb, although she's never actually seen it. She didn't see it that night, either, because she fell asleep while Andy and I watched the show. After the show, Andy left, and my sister showed up shortly afterward. My mom barely woke up to greet her, but my sister and I were still awake, and I felt like I needed to get out of the apartment, so my sister and I walked to the grocery store. And then we went to sleep.

Friday was pretty uneventful. I went to work, and my mom and sister went for a marathon walk around the city. We went out to dinner after I got home, and then we rented a movie, but my mom and sister fell asleep in the middle of it. I then spent the next couple of hours sitting around in the dark trying not to make too much noise.

Saturday morning, I went for my long run in the morning. 19 miles. When I came back, I discovered that I'd developed my first black toenail--one of the marks of a real runner. Black toenails are caused by blisters underneath the toenail, and they usually fall off eventually. So far, mine is still attached to my foot. Later that afternoon, we headed over to Berkeley, where my sister used to live just a couple of years ago. Her old neighborhood, the stretch of Telegraph Avenue just South of the UC Berkeley campus, hasn't changed much since then--it's still loud and dirty and crowded and full of aging hippies and Asian teenagers in their Cal t-shirts. We walked around for a while, and my mom bought me some books from Cody's even though I was still working on reading the books I'd bought the week before.

Later that night, we went to see "Stomp" at my mother's suggestion. My sister and I weren't really too psyched about going, but it ended up being pretty good, although it got a bit repetitive towards the end. Pounding on stuff and dancing around is only interesting for so long.

Sunday morning, my mom and sister decided it would be fun to walk from my house to the Golden Gate Bridge and then across the bridge. It wasn't exactly my idea of a good time, especially since I'd just been there for my race a couple of weeks earlier, but I went along anyway. The bridge is a few miles from my house, and it ended up being an even longer walk, because the roads in the area around it are very winding, and we got kind of lost. Anyway, by the time we'd gotten across the bridge, we'd been walking for almost three hours, and my feet were bothering me, and I was anxious to go home and run, so I walked back over the bridge and hailed a cab, while my mom and sister continued on to downtown Sausalito.

As it turned out, I was too tired to run when I got home. My feet were killing me. So I just took a nap.

That evening we went to go see Teatro Zinzanni, which I'd planned after seeing good reviews of it. I didn't really know what to expect--it was this kind of dinner theater/cabaret/circus thing. The audience got to interact with the players quite a bit throughout the show, and at one point, one of them grabbed me by the hand, pulled me out of my seat, and started dancing with me. He then grabbed another guy and made us dance with each other. I think the other guy was a lot more embarrassed than I was, so luckily the song ended just a few seconds later, and we both sat down.

Monday night, we went to dinner at the famed swanky vegetarian restaurant Greens. The food there is so good, but I ate so much I felt like I was going to puke afterwards. Again, my mom and sister had done a lot of walking that day, so as we headed back to catch the bus home, my mom lagged behind us. "You guys are leaving me behind," she complained, "I could get attacked back here, and you wouldn't even notice for weeks!"

"That's not true," countered my sister, "we'd notice it tomorrow night: 'Jennifer, who's going to pay for dinner?'" she deadpanned. I went along with it: "yeah, what happened to that lady who pays for stuff?" I asked. My mom pretended she didn't think it was funny, but I know she knew it was.

Then last night, we went out to dinner with Alvin, and then we went home and I watched "Buffy," and my mom went to sleep, and my sister went book shopping, and then I went out with my classmates, and then I came home, and then my mom and sister left.

This evening, I went out with Katie, and one of our other high school friends, Elaine, who's visiting from New York. Katie told me I looked tired. I felt like a zombie, and felt bad about my temporary lack of conversational skills, since I haven't seen Elaine since Christmas.

And I still feel like a zombie now. Maybe I'll start a forum topic tomorrow. I'm going to bed now.