So I now have the leisure to flesh out some of the details from the past days, over which I have glossed because of my rushes in the past few days, even as I'm sitting around the house trying to figure out the best way of flavoring unflavored Stonyfield Farm lowfat yogurt--pouring in guayaba nectar has not quite worked (maybe it's just not thick enough), and I have yet to try the figs, though usually mixing in some honey is more than enough. It's time to get serious about productive weight gain.

As to the Nigerian girl--it was a little odd, as places of mass transit are actually vacuums of silence or familar chatter rather than meetings and smiles, unless of course it's the Hogwarts Express, in which case you'd better pay attention for key plot points. It was odd, too, as we were making fun of her skepticism and lack of trust in my knowledge of the train schedule when I was blurting out the word "Restauranteur" (as one of a long list of possible careers for an apparently Chinaman)! And so this led to talk of Rocco, NBC, the foreign press, my chemistry with my brother (which is apparently quite wingmanny), and eventually to self-identification with the Swedes, about whom I knew so little past Gustavus Adolphus: this odd perkiness and yet sharpness, and me doing my best to femme it up while not going overboard given my brother's presence. But it is at least an odd relationship to one's race, in many ways akin to my own, and apparently the parent-culture is commensurate. It's nice to know I've still got game.

College Min was in town, and somehow unchanged: a strange connection, and perhaps she'll take on Alric's job. That would just be droll, and there were moments, "I want XXXX dollars!" (if you readers were better at Chinese tones, I could try..., but of course no...) that could have been ripped directly from two years ago. I wonder what she made of my and Kenta, who apparently was trying to "butch it up" for their benefit.

I have been careful not to pad the hits on the counter that I have, so I always view the comments through my commenting service rather than the page itself, and this is very droll, as there has been a certain quite welcome though quite forward commentor whose comments are all the more amusing when read completely out of context.

I haven't said all that much about Hanna and Lex--they seem rather fine, given all that further transitions they are going through, though I sense a new and further tiredness from Lex as far as the whole academic shebang goes. I know how he feels.