2 August 2001

We're leaving the house tomorrow at 5:30 in the morning. Eeeeew. That's early for me. But it takes that kind of a flight time to get into Washington, DC, at a reasonable time, so that we can go to Chez Spande in the evening and See People.

I got the coolest e-mail yesterday. It was from a mom who'd read my checklist of stuff to consider if your kid is thinking about skipping a grade. (It's reprinted from its original here.) They'd fought to get their kid skipped when she wanted to, in part because they checked out my checklist and read about my experiences, and now the kid is happy! They had to fight the school district for months, but still. It worked. So the kid is happy and the mom is happy and I'm happy, too. It's a pretty concrete way for my writing to affect someone's life, and I hope it works out for her.

Skipping my junior year of high school was one of the best decisions I ever made. I don't know what I'd be like if I'd had to put up with another year worth of high school. Embittered, to be sure. Probably lonelier, as well. It's impossible to change just one thing and know the outcome, but I believe pretty strongly that it was much better for me to be out of there, fast. But some of my parents' friends were convinced they were making a huge mistake in letting me do it. People kept asking me, "Aren't you sad that you're missing your senior year?" I kept saying, "Well, I'm doing senior stuff. I'm getting senior pictures, I'm going to senior prom, I'm skipping on senior skip day." But honestly. Prom vs. college? No contest. Absolutely none. I mean, maybe that's because Mandy's date was a really big jerk, but I don't think so.

Tim came down to hang out with us today. My mother, concerned by yesterday's illness (I know, I didn't tell you about that), wanted me to spend the day taking it easy. What could I do but obey my mother?

I got a moose in the mail. He's a very small moose and, like Michelle, in no way could make off with a whole leg. He is pewter and gold and holds one's keys and came from Kev for my birthday. His legs swing around (the moose's, not Kev's).

I like moose. I love birthdays.

And speaking of birthdays, I finally got the party pictures up. You notice that wasn't a link. That's because you have to read the disclaimers. We're still getting used to this digital camera stuff, and I just now started playing with the photo sizes. So they are rather small, because that's how I know to make the files manageable. (I can also do things like changing the resolution, but. Well.) If nobody thinks any of the files are unmanageably large, I'll probably use larger ones. Let me know what you think about download speeds. The second disclaimer is that the HTML book we have is currently unavailable to me, and so the format is somewhat less than art. I'll work on it for Lars and Krissie's wedding weekend photos. I promise.

And, for those of you who read Zak's journal, you will note that he got not one single element of the party right. Not one. There were not even any bushes at the picnic site.

Oh, okay, go ahead and look.