And now I'm REALLY home. Back in Virginny, that is, with the dog lying on his pillow behind me and the kids slaughtering aliens on the Gamecube in the other room. There are goldfinches on the feeder and small patches of sunlight, suggesting that we might actually be able to go to the pool later today. I'm in the middle of Glen Duncan's I, Lucifer, a delightfully recounted tale of the Devil's occupation of a human body, provided for him as a test run to see if he's got what it takes to be forgiven and allowed back into Heaven. All this and there's a new Fountains of Wayne album out. Whoo hoo!

Of course, this also means an end to the road-warrior lifestyle I've led over the past eight weeks. (Final score: nights in my own bed, 20 - nights in some other bed, 40.) I've spent waaaay too much time sitting, either in an airplane seat or behind a steering wheel, and waaaay too much time eating in restaurants or behind a steering wheel, with the result that my weight has bubbled upward like a fart in a bathtub, to use an indelicate simile. So: yesterday I got on the bike--the one in the gym, since it was pouring down rain all day--put in about four miles to reintroduce my calves to the whole concept of exercise, did a one-rep run-through of the upper-body machines, slurped down around 96 ounces of water, and started with Kelly on the Atkins diet. My parents have had good luck with it, particularly my dad, and I'm hopeful that it will work for me in a way that Weight Watchers can't. It's my own fault--I'm not good about measuring what I eat, and I'm not good about writing down what I eat. I've long done my best dieting at the grocery store; if I buy something I shouldn't be eating, I'll eventually eat it. My hope is that Atkins can work with my natural laziness in a way that other diets never have--and I fervently hope I can make it work in the toughest spot of all, the Woodberry dining hall. I'll note my progress in here from time to time. Expect bulges around the holidays, though.

One big plus about all the travel: not only did I get to visit face to face with online friends, not only did I get to reconnect with some friends I hadn't seen in years, not only did I get to meet strangers who've enjoyed a book I wrote--a definite charge, though still kind of freaky in many ways--I also got to see one hell of a lot of birds. I picked up two lifers in one day back in the fall of 2001, but since then I'd had a long dry spell. (Too much writing to do, not enough time to bird, methinks.) The drought in birds ended in roughly the same way the real drought in these parts ended, with a veritable flood: since April, I've seen nearly forty new species. The most recent, the Yellow-breasted Chat, turned up near Jordan Lake outside Chapel Hill, leaving me with a life total of 291.

Yes, I'm closing in on 300, just like Roger Clemens. Here's hoping it doesn't take me quite as long to go over the top.
8:42 AM

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