Today

Downtown St. Paul. We went to see a show -- and found out that they're showing 99-cent previews on Tuesday! We'll be back!
How much for those monkeys in the window?
F. Scott Fitzgerald statue. Adam took this picture.
Galactic Pizza, where you can have the Paul Bunyan -- morel mushrooms, wild rice, and free-range bison sausage, all toppings native to the Minnesota ecosystem -- delivered by a caped crusader.
Said caped crusader.

And even more Minneapolis

The Book House, Dinkytown. My favorite: the Chuck Norris tell-all autobiography.
Adam on the swing outside the Wales House, where we're staying.
Me on the swing.
Dinkytown, home to U.
Found this hanging over the Hennepin Avenue bridge.

More Minneapolis

At Cummings Books in Dinkytown. This is my new favorite bookstore. They have cats, birds (including one who repeats "Hello" in a high alto), and two Boston Terriers. They also have books, but that's secondary.
A promo pic for a concert.
Mirror shot. Adam's at left in the background.
One of many frat houses near the University of Minnesota campus.
Had Ukranian dinner here before seeing a show at the Guthrie.

Minneapolis

Dinkytown, near where we're staying.
Downtown Minneapolis at half-past six in the morning.
Al's Breakfast, a ten-by-nothing greasy spoon where you wait (and wait) for your hash browns. And are they worth it! I almost clocked Adam after he handed me the salt instead of sugar for my coffee, but the waitresses just laughed, said "That's retarded," and got me a fresh cup.
I have no idea what Dinkydale is, actually.
We saw the goofiest marathoners ever here, including a roller-derby girl wearing fishnets in the rain. And we thought we'd left Berkeley.

Remembrance

I think about
the people
I’ve lost.
Their dust
clings to me,
flakes off
onto my skin.

I didn't marry a writer. Instead I married a geneticist and an editor. I think I got a damn good bargain.

Today's writing

It seemed surreal when I first got the prescription. Having some means of battling my own body. Holding the hope of coming out ahead, hugging it lightly in my moist palm, as if grasping it fully might kill it.

I took them onto my tongue as a sacrament. A rite in which God is uniquely present. A visible sign of an invisible truth. An outward appearance of inward grace. The melting was bitter, biting. I washed it down with tap water and called it holy.