Not all of my email posts are getting through, so I am testing out the blogger dashboard --- I'm sure it works much better. Anyway, I'll need to be able to do email posts in case I don't have access to blogger.

Yesterday (Friday --- the new day doesn't start for me until I go to
bed), I volunteered at the 5th annual Phoenix Film Festival. I was the
Film Forum Coordinator for a group of about 100 middle schoolers. It was
good, I mean, it all came off well, but it was a incredibly stressful 4
hours of my life. I don't want to talk about it much, but there were
quite a few technical difficulties, horse-playing children, etc., etc.
On top of that, I had one of my worst insomniac/no-time-to-sleep
episodes. I almost broke my record - 41 hours vs. 42 hours. I had been
up the day before, stayed up to watch the pope's funeral, couldn't sleep
in the allotted 2 hours after that, went to the festival, came back in
the afternoon, couldn't sleep, hung out with my best friend Sam for a
few hours, went home to find my next door neighbor was having a racous
party, couldn't sleep, and then I was at 41 hours. My 42 hour record
happened back in 2001 when I was giving finals, grading, driving my
ex-boyfriend from Phoenix to Tucson, driving back, grading some more,
flying to LA, waiting for my flight to Sydney, and then somewhere
between California and Hawaii, I fell asleep sprawled out on 4 seats in
economy.

This is the second test post.

Let's see how this looks. Gaue sfdsue vjxf sfsdjloe geosu soue voenn ebvue snvs e souyrn gsig guerht ajshf iehs piueur v. Freaj giwwern fsoau t e. Iguana joe, kor e nciuews. Five hundred miles to the south, amber light, filtered through gnarled glass and the water within it, thick beads of condensation without, seeped onto Astrid's drawing papers. Covered in intricate lines and words and numbers, the papers had a distinct smell, an odor from ages ago. They had been reused many times, for many designs, faithfully storing them all in their memory, transporting the designs to greater machines, faithfully still being the same texture, weight, and feel, of the paper she used in her childhood to scrawl pictures of her parents and siblings, all of whom would be happy for her today, were they still alive.

Astrid stopped drawing for a moment, reached out for the glass and sipped the remaining lukewarm water. "How much we fool ourselves with memories of the past, hanging onto dreams from long ago, frightened of the long dark future ahead." Magellan was speaking. Astrid smiled, and returned the glass to its water ring on the table.