I made it back from the Olympic Peninsula safe and sound ... only to beat myself around the shoulders for overcommitting myself for the weekend. OK, I admit, I should have known that I didn't really have time to stop by Deer Park Dahlias ("in the foothills of the Olympics!") and look at their collection of bearded irises ("in season now!"), but then I thought, when am I going to be here again when their irises are in bloom? (And I also didn't realize that they were five miles in from the freeway ... it was in the fine print.) I didn't spend much time there, but given that I only missed the ferry I was aiming for by five minutes, I guess I spent at least five minutes too long there. Of course, if I hadn't got caught behind some stupid RV for half an hour I probably would have made it ... and they even had room on the ferry if I'd been there on time. Sigh. I called scarlettina from the ferry terminal to apologize for my cloddishness, and our singing expedition was cancelled altogether. Rats. My hope then became that I could reduce the total number of people that I was pissing off due to by scheduling hyperdementia, so I figured rather than coming home and trying to sweet-talk her into going out to dinner, I would just try to pick up the pieces that remained ... after I caught a nap while I waited for the next ferry to pull up.

When I arrived home, I had SIX messages on my answering machine ... more phone calls in 24 hours than I normally get in two weeks! I felt free to not return the call from Nina (call 3, invite to a movie she had doubtlessly already left to) and manage the problem at hand - dealing with my brother (call 4, offer for microwave and family gossip) and Nick (call 2 and 5, "Are we going to game tonight?"). Voila, with two phone calls I was ready for Game Night at my Brother's. This left me with a pile of email to be quickly managed. The first, Bret Fetzer confirming a trip to see Bright Future, became complicated when I realized that I could no longer buy tickets for the movie. Then I got a phone call from my editor at Tablet, who told me a) she did want me to do a story on the Western Bridge art gallery's first exhibit (600 words, due Saturday), b) my new article did get published (a month later than I thought), not canned, and c) it would be great if I'd start dropping some reviews into Tablet's Seattle International Film Festival blog. As she was talking, I clicked on my email and realized ... crap, I had just figured out when and where I was going to game tonight, and vulture23 was outside of reach of my telepathic rays. For crap sake.