It's been a good Saturday. I meant to go out early and get some things done, but I got stuck to my bed for too long, and then stuck to the radio, so I spent the day getting a lot of at home things done so that I wouldn't have to feel guilty. The Next Big Thing was just right today, and I heard Car Talk one and a half times. I have radios arranged so that I can listen from anywhere without ever having to turn the volume up too high. I recognize that there's a touch of crazy in that, but it makes me too happy to care.

I've got a plastic poncho hiding in my closet. Except that my mind meant to say hanging, but my fingers said hiding. Anyway, it's an incredibly cheap green plastic poncho (one size fits all), and what I want is for it to rain in the middle of the night so that I can put it on and go for an unreasonable walk. It is raining right now, but right now feels more umbrella than poncho, and right now is not night.

Right now I have this feeling that is hard to describe, but essentially what it's like is wanting to live in a country where everyone speaks a language I don't, one that doesn't sound the slightest bit familiar to my ears. Measurement of distances would be metric and degrees would be celcius, and the symbols on the traffic signs would make no sense to me. I would go to stores and be unable to decipher the packaging on products, having to guess at what I'm buying. I would just smile at everyone because the words I'd need don't exist in my head, and the once in a while when I'd meet someone who spoke my language would be a sort of miracle, like suddenly learning how to fly. These are the sort of feelings that come to mind when someone asks, "How are you?" So of course the way I answer is, "Oh, I'm fine." It's just as true.