I am ridiculously sick with Mystery Ailment, and thus my vague plans to descend on Toronto before I head back to California are shelved. My glands! They are the size of…large round things. I’m sorry. My wit fails me in my delirium.

Also, as a result of my delirium, I am incapable of reading anything other than children’s literature because everything else makes my brain hurt. This unfortunately means that my plans to get through a stack of pretentious books (see sidebar) have also been shelved, but I’m really not that disappointed because I’ve worked my way through the Louise Fitzhugh catalog and tomorrow I plan to start on Patricia C. Wrede. Louise Fitzhugh is funny – there are times when her novels definitely come across as products of their time and sometimes there is some weird race/class stuff that makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable (especially in The Long Secret) but I can generally move beyond these issues, because her young, female protagonists, have such genuine character and really manage to speak to my Quirkyalone condition even though they are all around eleven years old. They’re all these quiet, smart girls who don’t fit in anywhere and read books and write a lot, which is kind of what I was like as an eleven year old. I have re-read Harriet the Spy SO MANY TIMES, and for some reason there are parts in it now that make me cry and cry and cry that never used to, and I love it so much and Harriet is my favourite fictional character ever, hands down.

Anyhow, my mother thinks my Mystery Ailment is a result of me doing too much gallivanting about and not enough resting while I’ve been in Canada, so here is my plan for when I come home next summer: I am going to sit in the backyard with a pitcher of margaritas. And you can all come to me. And my dad will make us pizza in his pizza oven and we will get good and shitfaced and it will be amazing.