I feel absolutely parboiled.

Today (Saturday) could have been swell, if it weren't for the fact that my skin color is now #FF3366. People don't associate the PNW with sunshine, but I have the first serious sunburn of the year. Must be summer.

It's been a year since we last hauled my motorcycle out of the cobwebs and parked my fanny on it. S promised to re-teach me to ride, starting from scratch. We were out in the sun for a good four hours, me in short sleeves (doh!). I rode around and around and around and around and around the Park & Ride lot, and then I switched directions and did it again. Except for a few tense moments when the bike and I were a little unsure who was supposed to be on top, there were no mishaps.

My biggest difficulty is making a right-hand turn into traffic from a stop. At the very end of the day, S gave me some pointers that should help, unless I wait another year to put them into practice. Now we are both too sunburned to go out riding. I repeat: Doh! S was very sweet and patient and I didn't burst into tears or threaten to sell the bike.

My FMB's arrived from eBay today. They too would be swell except for a significant manufacturing defect, so I will insist that the seller accept them for a refund. I need to get a job, pay down some debt, and just have some custom-made.

Spent the rest of the painful evening watching two very different versions of Romeo and Juliet, one by Baz Luhrmann and the original Zeffirelli version. The Luhrmann one is brilliant, spectacular, breathtaking. The Zeffirelli one features Michael York and offers Leonard Whiting's gorgeous (if somewhat pasty) backside. Decisions, decisions. Why didn't we get to see Leo's backside? Bet it's not pasty.

Off to bed, so I can spend eight hours screeching like a howler monkey every time the blanket brushes my flaming skin.

I will never eat again.

Better get a bucket. Today had many aspects of swellness, accent on the swelling. It was Brilliant Chef D's birthday, and he celebrated by inviting some lucky souls to a feijoada completa, which is a Brazilian meat fest sort of thing. We had pork chops and sausages and some dark red bean stuff with sausage and some sandy grain stuff with sausage and collard greens and rice and orange and yellow peppers and apricots and flan and guava paste. And then we had seconds. Then we lay around like Night of the Walrus People. Those wacky Brazilians! How they stay skinny enough to frequent topless beaches and flaunt their waxed crotches is a mystery to me.

I got 12 hours of sleep more or less in a row, nightmare-plagued though it was, and feel almost normal. Except for the grotesque belly distension and the sunburn, that is.