You know, hiking up Mount Lassen in the snow and burning sun and carrying a 20-pound duffel bag made my back better. There was nothing wrong with it after the hike. Everything wrong with my back and neck apparently comes from using the computer. Clearly I can save money on the chiropractor by climbing more mountains. I've sort of meant to hit up Tamalpais and Diablo anyway, and now I have a reason.

I fly out tomorrow night for my first college reunion, five years. In a suitably surreal start to the weekend, my ex-girlfriend's plane comes in ten minutes before mine, so I'm hitching a ride with her and her mom. We've kept in touch, more or less, but when we were dating I was a different person, and I'm imagining this to be a more extreme example of what I'll find with others. I think it doesn't matter...this is a sort of re-connecting based on shared experience. I'm more Myself now, more aware of myself and the world, more able and willing to connect and engage with people. It'll be fine.

I finished another necklace last night. It's nice enough, and I certainly turn out higher-quality pieces every time, which is gratifying, but my design skills need some work: I keep making pieces as experiments, not thought out in advance, which is fun but leaves me with work that feels lumpy and awkward in its aesthetics. I should have the pictures up tomorrow, you'll see what I mean.

My sunburn is finally peeling, so I look frightening but I feel much, much better.