30/06/2003 - 3:07 p.m.

If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.

Katharine Hepburn has died: Kate the Great. Had my parents bothered to spell my name correctly, I was supposed to be named for her. As a child, then, I watched any and all of her movies that network television bothered to show. Now, I want to watch those movies again. A quick tour of the local movie rental places in this backwater hick town has confirmed my fears- there aren't any to be had. They're not rented out, they're not lost; they never had any in the first place. What is the world coming to?

I have stopped biting my nails. This is something I have done since I began writing in Kindergarten, and it took me a month to give it up. I do not enjoy having long fingernails- they look absolutely terrible because I can't manage to clean underneath them to any satisfaction and I can't feel things very well with them, but I must admit that they don't hurt anymore.

Yesterday I went to Teri Ann's house to help her move her bed from her house to her apartment here in CF. She has always told me that she her bedroom was a forest, but I did not truly believe her. The girl lives in a forest. The ceiling is painted dark dark blue and dotted with stars, in the corner, the sun is setting and growing up from the head of her bed, next to the door of her closet, and around her corner bookshelf are trees, the leaves changing from green to brown. Teri Ann is an absolute wizard with chicken wire and papier m�che.

As a result, I am busily constructing rooms for my own house (someday, you know). How lucky that I have theatre people in my life- if I can't do it, I'm certain to know someone who does know how to make the effect I want. Didn't "Mad" King Ludwig hire set designers to help in the building of Neuschwanstein Castle?

I'm also beginning to think about sending out some of my writing to magazines, or entering it in contests, or something. The income from that would be extremely helpful. This idea also comes from Teri Ann who has been writing poetry to fill in the gaps to pay her way through school. My only worry is making qualitative compromises for money, but I can spit from that bridge when I come to it.

The Return of the King comes to theatres December 17th. The countdown is started.