I just ate two eggs, seasoned with hot sauce and salt and pepper, plus two pieces of toast generously slathered with butter -- and I am hungry. Sometimes I amaze myself with how bottomless I am.

Or it could be that I'm bored, or sleep deprived, or depressed, all of which make one inclined to eat more than usual. I am getting adjusted to the 20 hours of daylight, so I'm able to sleep past 4:45 am, but I stayed up late on Wednesday (hanging out with Charm and friends), Thursday (talking with Neener on the phone), and last night (watching "Never Been Kissed" and then "researching" Michael Vartan online -- left to my own devices, I revert to the comfortable state of teen losah-dom). To compensate, I slept 12 hours last night and now feel pretty rested, though I really could stay in bed all day (left to my own devices, I also shift all too easily into my Laziest Human Being On Earth mode).

Seeing as how I spent all last Sunday in bed (which was somewhat justified), I figured I should get up and enjoy solitary pursuits today. Charm and her friends are off in Denali, and Roommate and her visitor are also in Denali (but separately), so I've been alone since Thursday. My landlady had originally planned to go to her Kenai house this weekend, but she changed her plans, which I'm rather glad of -- I just don't sleep as well when I'm the only person in the house. I’ll miss the TV-watching opportunity, though.

On Thursday, with the Ringleted One in mind, I went and mailed her a package I’ve been meaning to mail for weeks, and then sallied forth to the Anchorage Museum of History and Art for a glass of wine and some art appreciatin’ (the Ringleted One insisted that I have a glass of wine a day). I first looked at paintings of Alaska, some of which were done in the grand, Hudson Valley School style, and decided they were somewhat pointless – why look at paintings that try to capture the grandeur of Alaska when you can go outside and look at the real thing? (This is the problem I keep running into with photographing scenes when I go on these weekend jaunts.) I’m sure that for their time, those Hudson Valley style paintings were marvels, but I’m a 21st century gal, and have been anesthetized by National Geographic photos and postcards galore of Mt. McKinley et al.

I liked the more abstract paintings a lot more, and I learned a lot from the history exhibits. I love finding out that the names of places come from the (usually European) discoverers; just that day, for example, I had noticed a mobile home park called Malaspina, and wondered briefly at the origins of that name. I learned at the museum at Malaspina was one of the Spanish explorers of 18th century Alaska.

I was surprised, though, and a little dismayed at the absence of Native Alaskan stories and viewpoints throughout the exhibits. Having worked with the people who created the opening exhibits for the National Museum of the American Indian in DC, maybe I’m more sensitive to it than most (in fact, I’m sure I am), but it was really sad to me that this nice little museum lacked cultural sensitivity – or rather, accuracy in representing Native culture. I learned at the NMAI that Native Americans are a living peoples, and Native “myths” are living religions – not dead and stuffed as traditionally portrayed in museums. So when I saw an exhibit at this museum that read (approximately): “Creation stories were an important part of Native religions, and Raven was a central figure in creation myths,” I was taken aback. To Native people who grew up with those stories, this is tantamount to saying, “Savior stories were an important part of western European monotheistic religions, and Christ was a central figure in savior myths.”

(A side story concerning religion: I recently learned about the animistic religion practiced by some tribal people in Laos. Part of the religion involves asking the deities for approval if anybody besides a family member comes into the home. This involves a sacrifice of a pig or chicken to the gods, who then express their approval or disapproval of the person. Interesting, isn’t it? When the person telling me about it smiled and said, “Sounds weird, huh?” I answered no, it doesn’t. No weirder than anything else about any other religion.)

Anyways, I wrote a long comment on the museum’s comment card about this, while sipping some red wine in the atrium, and it was a jolly good evening.

On Friday, smoke from a forest fire down south of Anchorage blew into town, and you could smell it and feel it in your lungs. I’d been feeling pretty good about the week – went to an agency meeting with a client and talked, went to a hearing in front of a judge where Supervisor used the stuff I got from an interview to annihilate the witness, was praised repeatedly for writing part of and editing a brief that we submitted to the Alaska Supreme Court – but then Supervisor asked me about some research I’d been doing, and said, “You know, it’s not really that hard, you should have been done a while ago.” Oops. And ouch. I hate research.

I was planning to go biking along the coastal trail Friday after work but the smoke made me think better of it. Of course, then I got home and thought, “I feel so disgusting and out of shape – I MUST exercise.” So I set out for a run, despite the smoke hanging over the city, and found myself running along the coastal trail. Which was beautiful. I took the southern route, which I hadn’t seen at all, and fell into kind of a trance: the mud flats stretch out half a mile from the water, but the trail wends it way through trees and wild roses and by the airport at one point. I had intended to jog for only 20 minutes, but for some reason kept on running and running. It was a little crazy. I was out for over an hour and probably covered 4 miles. That’s not that much, but I also hadn’t gone running for months.

As I’d covered two of the Ringleted One’s recommendations in two days (drink a little every day and exercise), I thought I’d try to fulfill the third recommendation: go to a bar by myself. Roommate had gone to a music joint called Blues Central by herself, so it was even easier than spit. But ... I chickened out. Or rather, I tired out. I only wanted to go because I said I would go, not because I particularly wanted to go to the place or hear the music. So I drove up to it and past it, and then went to the video store and rented “Never Been Kissed.” It’s okay. I don’t think I need to prove anything to myself.