Los Angeles again. The drive down was long but not too bad, made nicer by the fact that I stayed home from work (lack of sleep) and thus we left about 1430 rather than our proposed time of 1800. Thus we got in earlier, and had the chance to go eat yummy food at The Authentic Cafe in West Hollywood. I had a huge salad, and saw many other things I would have enjoyed had we not stopped at McDonald's earlier.

Saturday we had breakfast with Jeremy & Rachel (who were the actual people I drove down with, I note -- they had a wedding to go to Sunday evening) and then wandered aimlessly for a bit. Despite getting somewhere between seven-nine hours of sleep I felt absolutely dead. Eventually we went to Santa Monica, which didn't help my energy level, although I did buy several fine books at Midnight Special (who I will link to as soon as I find the bookmark with their URL on it.) These books included two by Larry Gonick (Cartoon Guide to Physics & Statistics), and Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lenthem (I think).

We also went by Jamba Juice, which was out of soy milk. Tsk. I made do with a banana thing instead.

After Santa Monica we dropped Rachel & Jeremy back off, then went back to the apartment. I was starving, so I ate the bing cherries I'd bought at Casa de Splat on the way up, and drank a coke, and thought about the ice cream in the freezer. I never got past the thinking phase, though, so I was still vaguely hungry when we ran off to pick up Jeremy & Rachel again and then to see the Fabulous Monsters' entirely cross-cast production of The Importance of Being Earnest.

You wouldn't think it'd work, maybe, but it did. It meant all the female characters were physically much bigger than the men, which considering the dynamics of the play makes good sense. We all laughed a lot, especially at Lady Bracknell, who was played by this _tall_ man with an amazing voice. One understood perfectly why everyone cowered in terror from her.

Eventually I got food at Canter's, then went home to finish reading Wildside and sleep curled up next to Earl -- a thing I never seem to get tired of.

Sunday was mostly restful; we had a late breakfast at Caffe Latte and then wandered around the Carole & Barry Kaye Museum of Minatures, which is just an immensely keen place. It features not only minature reconstruction of famous palaces and the like, but also various weird fantastical scenes (monkeys in french court dress at a ball) and historical recreations. I strongly suggest you check it out if you're in the area, since it's nothing like anything else I've seen.

After the museum we all went back to Earl's. I did homework while Jeremy & Rachel got ready (and then left) for the wedding. Earl read the new Douglas Hofstadter book; he had a horrible time restraining himself from reading me the passages he found particularly evocative. Eventually he settled into pinging me when his stack of 'comments to make' got too full, which made for nice breaks between math problems.

You know, I'm flattered that when he reads something cool his immediate response is to share it with me. I really absolutely cannot _wait_ to live with him.

After a lot of math I declared myself homeworked-out, and draped myself over Earl to read The Mote In God's Eye until he was hungry enough for dinner. We went to the Daily Grill, which was yummy and filling; during dinner we talked mostly about books, and how he doesn't read much fantasy. I claimed that I read a lot of random fantasy, but when I tried to get into details I realised that, no, I don't really read that much after all. My taste in books has changed rather a lot in the last few years or so.

We went back to Earl's place. Eventually Jeremy & Rachel showed up, changed into normal clothes, and dragged us out for dessert before packing me into the back of their car and driving the six hours home. It was about 5am when we got into Mountain View; I'd slept the entire way (except for waking up a few times to be confused that Earl wasn't around), so I dissolved pretty immediately into my bed only to get up far too early to come in to work.

Work sucks. Extremely. It can't get much worse; let's hope it manages to get better.

Earl named the rubber duck I bought him (ages ago in Grass Valley) Draco, as the duckie wants to grow up to be a drake, and drakes are of course dragons...