By 3pm, I thought I wasn't really going to make it through yesterday: I had already suffered through 2 hours of stress-filled, circular meetings, 3 hours of rude customers at the quite-busy bakery, a stomachache, and having eaten nothing more than a muffin and cinnamon tea. I was about to either collapse or scream at someone.

Amazingly, that turned out not to be necessary: one of my co-workers came in to work a shift, but neither of the two of us who were on at that time were scheduled to leave at that time. Generally, only two people work at a time on weekdays, which meant that either we could all stay as scheduled and just be overstaffed, or one of us could go home! I jumped at the chance, and got the hell out of there as fast as my little legs could carry me.

From that time on, my day took a dramatically sharp upswing. Liz came by, and dragged me out to enjoy the sunny and relatively warm day. First we stopped at Dunn Bros for some much needed caffeine in the form of a soy mocha, and then we strolled for a mile or so down Grand Avenue until we reached a little imported foods shop. Liz and I both have an permanent and incurable craving for good German chocolate, and this is one of the only places around to stock up on the stuff.

At one point, as we drooled over the tempting stacks of goodness, I mumbled something about how 'all this chocolate's going to make me fat.' Liz just looked at me, wrapped her arms around my waist, and said "You silly; you're the last person on earth who needs to worry about being fat." And you know what? I believed her. I'm not unusually angsty about my body, but I definitely have my fair share of skewed self-perceptions... It's so nice to be with someone who looks at me with less critical eyes than my own.

On the way back to campus, we stopped at a little Mexican salsaria for dinner, and then proceeded on to our main destination of the evening: bell hooks, the feminist black writer, was reading from her new book at Macalester Plymouth church. We got there quite early in order to secure good seats, and spent the 45 minutes until the scheduled start time people watching: About half the audience consisted of lesbians in couples or groups, another 40% of the audience were other various women, and only 10%, at most, were men. I recognized tons of people from Macalester, and Liz caught a few more who had graduated before my time. All in all, it was a fascinating crowd.

bell hooks herself was just amazing. She started out by inviting those who couldn't quite fit into the sanctuary to come up and sit around her near the pulpit, and then turned to the pesky photographer and said to him, in a way that was somehow funny and lighthearted, "you know, I've had enough of that" (referring to the flashes). She was so posessed of life and joy, she seemed to overflow with a sort of personal and intimate fullness. The passages she read reflected an amazing spirit and comprehension of the world, and made some important points regarding gender, race, and sexuality.

The time she allowed for questions afterwards was almost better than the reading- she has a way with people that is inimitable. She's funny, intelligent, respectful, and always made the questioner feel worthwhile. Once in awhile she got a question that was so insightful and well phrased that she would answer with "well... no... I don't think I'll answer that. You did a fine job illuminating it yourself." The second she finished, the audience erupted in applause, a standing ovation for an amazing woman.

Liz and I walked over to the house, and evening continued in a very low-key way. We walked in while Richard and Julia were watching some godawful show on UPN, and then we watched Heathers and Clueless, Richard's absolute favorite two movies, while having a few drinks, knitting, and talking. I lost track of time somewhere in there, and have absolutely no idea when I finally hit the sack. It must have been late, very very late...

Listening to:

Some CD by Happy Rhodes that Patrick left lying around- it's kind of dreamy techno-y stuff, rather nice for a quiet Saturday afternoon.