I'm having conversations in my head again. No, I'm not crazy (well, not any more than usual); I'm thinking about my novel and the characters are talking to each other in my brain. This is a very good thing. I managed to rewrite a scene that had gone in a wrong direction, and things seem to be flowing. Here's hoping!

We had a beautiful weekend. Friday night we watched House of Sand and Fog which is an excellent movie, especially if you want to bawl your eyes out. Saturday we got up, made our weekly walk to the Farmer's Market (where I bought far too much fruit, nearly killing my back walking back), and had lunch out. Back home we both did housework until the house smelled better than we did, took showers, then had Susan over for a meal of fresh corn on the cob, flash-roasted veggies (my new favorite treat), garlic bread and oil.

We all went into the City to see Writers With Drinks guest-hosted by the amazing Daphne Gottlieb. The line-up was diverse and talented, as always:

Jon Longhi (Wake Up And Smell The Beer, Rise and Fall of Third Leg)
Tamim Ansary (West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story)
Malka Geffen
Jen Collins (Best Fetish Erotica, Best Bi Women's Erotica)
W. Kamau Bell (The Punchline, Get It!?)
Michaela Roessner (The Stars Compel, The Stars Dispose)

We sat with Michaela and Lisa Goldstein, chatted, drank, were well-entertained and generally had a great time. It's nights like these when I don't want to ever move away from the Bay Area...

Sunday we ran errands and had lunch (Tim got a very cool new notebook of which I am very jealous) before going up to Lake Anza in Tilden Park for a swim. Once we were in the water, we realized that this was the first time Tim and I had ever been swimming together! The effect this had on us reduced us to teenagers, holding each other in the water, splashing, cuddling, etc. Tim's not as strong a swimmer as I am, so I mock-rescued him a couple of times, because it was fun. I swam after ducks (not as fun as swimming with dolphins, alas). We did flips. I tried to teach Tim how to tread water more efficiently. We floated and relaxed. It was glorious.

Afterwards we went to Berkeley Espresso (home of free wi-fi!, thanks for the tip, Mary Anne!) where I realized I'd forgotten my notebook with the above-mentioned scene in it, so I surfed instead. By the time we got home we were deliciously drowsy from a day of sun and fun. I indulged Tim in some one-on-one Halo (cursed rocket-launcher!) and watched The Company which had no plot, but some amazing dance sequences. If you're renting it for those, btw, I recommend going to the special features on the DVD and just selecting "watch all dance sequences in film" because you're really not missing anything by not watching the movie. I wish I'd seen that option before I wasted my time.

Anyway, overall a lovely, relaxing weekend. It feels like summer... it feels like summer for the first time in years, honestly. It's a very nice feeling.