Mom was uncharacteristically resourceful today. She used half of a massize zucchini to make zucchini bread and zucchini "pancakes," which are really just healthy omelettes. Healthy to the point of disgusting, I'd like to add.

I finished Maggie Nelson's "Bluets" this morning. I don't think I am smart enough to comprehend much of anything anymore. Her words, while intelligent and poetic, ran through me like gogurt: a formless, pointless consumption. But it's fine. I will read more things by smart people and maybe get smarter in the process. For the last few weeks I've felt I've been living in something of a fog. I thought at first it was maybe PMS, but this sense has persisted far past what biology might dictate, and now I feel like I am floating along in a tube on a river. I hope this will pass. I think my toothlessache is exacerbating my dimwittedness, beacuse I can't think very clearly when my mind is so preoccupied with the beat of my heart in my gums.

So I napped for most of the day after I finished my book (by accident), and then I worked more on this website. It's coming along, slowly but surely. I went to Noodles with Brian. I think I saw Tanner Steen there, an old acquaintance from 7th grade who (apparently) left the district for a private Christian school, but I guess he's still here in the city. It was strange seeing him — I think he might have recognized me as well, because I saw him take a second glance, and I felt embarrassed that I was swollen. "This isn't what I look like normally! I'm usually much cuter, much less puffy, both in my face and body."

After that Brian and I watched "The Babadook," which I really liked but he only sort of liked. I enjoy much more watching movies with other people, especially Brian. After, Carlos and Katie came over and we played...charades. Charades is terrible, especially when liveliness is the enemy — with liveliness comes a higher blood pressure, and with high blood pressure comes a greater chance of popping a clot and spewing, like a sprinkler, blood from your jaw.

Well, actually, just before Katie arrived, the three of us made a very short, very stupid Twine about Nicolas Cage, Spongebob, and rice krispies (because I was eating one at the time). I really enjoyed that. I enjoyed that more than playing charades for an hour and a half. As we were playing, I wondered if there exists competitive charades. Something officiated and winnable. I hope that exists in the world. I wonder how good one would have to be at charades — because of course there must first be a natural talent, however uncultivated — before they might start thinking of joining a competitive team. Would there be family dynasties in a charades competition? Children always fare better when they learn whatever skill at a very young age, and what better way to groom future world charades champions than to have practice start right out of the womb? Is there a genetic component to charades success? What characteristics must a person have to be successful at charades? Wit? Cunning? Athleticism? A comprehensive knowledge of pop culture? A large vocabulary, an innante interest in idioms, a flexible, freely-associating mind?