04/08/2003 - 7:41 p.m.

The time is all we've lost.

I returned to Des Moines on Saturday afternoon and will be here for almost the next three weeks, returning to uni on the 22nd. It isn't extremely terrible as of yet, but this is really the last place on earth that I want to be.

Thursday I'm going to the fair with Nathan- he's never been and I'm probably amongst the fair's biggest fans. It will be interesting, but mostly lovely to see him again before he leaves for Texas. In spite of our conversing for a few hours the last few days online, I still miss him. I miss his presence- the sound of his voice, the feel of his hand in mine, his hug, his I love you, the looks in his eyes.

I've never liked Louisa May Alcott, but I've been reading An Old Fashioned Girl, and stumbled across two phrases that actually seem to apply to the real world. The first has to do with an engaged man asking how he ought to look, "As if he learned to love someone more than he loved himself." The second was something to the tune of "Love scenes genuinely described are impossible to relay because those who have been in them find the descriptions totally inadequate, and those who have not find them hopelessly overdone."

I realise that people not in a relationship hate to hear lovers wax on about all this sort of thing, so, pardon me for those of you that I have nauseated.

I have often wondered whether we get ideas about how we are supposed to feel from what we know about feelings. In acting classes, I've been told not to try to decide how I ought to feel, but to admit to myself how I actually feel about a situation. Would we recognise the signs of love as love if we had not been told by the poets that love is indeed what we feel?

Most of this sort of talk comes from my being here basically secluded in my house with perhaps only three days of excitement allotted me in the next three weeks. It's a sad ending to such a really fantastic summer. I won't get another such one for quite a few years.

Next summer, however, I hope I'll be returning for a third and final summer at camp. Last year was so terrible that I want to end it all properly, and there's to be a new director next summer. So, I best get used to missing Nathan, I suppose.

It was my intention, being here all by myself, to get loads of writing done. Unfortunately, the big expensive computer monitor downstairs died, and so my crappy-ass cheap monitor was stolen from the old computer. This means all and any writing I can do is either here, or by hand. I'm not interested in hand writing so very much. Thus, my writing is postponed until I get my computer safely set up in my room in three weeks. Except for this, which I probably will try to do a bit more often than I have before now.

Last week I saw the second Harry Potter movie. The interesting thing here is that, though things are being cut, most of the bits that have to do with future books are being kept. The way to work out whether a tiny detail is important to the rest of the series seems to be to look and see if it appears in the movies.

Another thought about the HP-ness (hehe, P-ness, how juvenile), everyone knows how many hidden little things there are in those books- Diagon Alley and soforth. Well, here's another one I've not seen mentioned anyplace. Harry, Ron, Hermione, HRH: Her Royal Highness. Now, am I completely off on a limb, or did she really write in a tribute to the queen?

And another thing, why on earth do I devote so much time to this stuff when I don't even really like Harry Potter? I think my inner twelve year old must be enjoying it, and I'm being too wise for my years. That's a bit worrying, in my estimation.