I probably should stop complaining about my neighbors, since I'm the one who is the big embarrassment to the neighborhood. They may make noise, but I make a big ugly mess, without even doing anything.

In fact, an even better reason for me to move than the vibrating walls caused by my neighbor's apparent hearing disability is the hideous overgrowth in my yard. People who have said they would help me with it haven't done so yet, even to give me an estimate. I don't know how long it'll be before I can't even open the back door because of the weeds. The landlord is moving onto the property within a few weeks, and I can't help thinking he's not going to like the tangled maze nature has woven, under my lax supervision.

I tried using the weed trimmer once, and between the trimmings flying up my nose and the bugs eating me alive, I haven't been able to talk myself into taking another crack at it. The worse the yard gets, the less likely I am to make another attack on it. I wouldn't mind pulling a few weeds now and then, or even keeping a lawn and garden in shape, but I can't seem to get to that point.

Since I'm not solving the problem, I guess the answer is to move. In fact, I could just keep moving whenever the yard needed to have weeds pulled. I'd probably run out of people to help me move before I'd stop finding places to move to.

Mom thinks that I'll never be happy anywhere unless I can buy a house, which I'm thinking will be exactly never. People who make lots more than I do don't qualify for a home loan, especially in Northern California, where anything that goes for under half a million probably isn't fit for habitation.

Home prices in Sonoma County, the local rag is kind enough to inform me, have risen higher than anywhere else in the country. (Apparently the median price is actually $312,500.) The article is replete with well-researched observations. "Demand far exceeds supply." "Many purchases in Sonoma County are by people who have money."

The house where I did most of my growing up was here in Santa Rosa, within walking distance of the elementary, junior high and high schools I attended. My parents paid $12,500 for it in 1958. (Yes, that's the correct number.) It's long gone, though, sold ten years later for $16,000. Who knew that it would end up being worth the original asking price of the Taj Mahal?

I overslept this morning. Sort of. I got up when the alarm went off, and I turned on the phone ringer. Then I went back to bed for an hour. Oh, did that feel good. When it comes to sleeping, I'm a morning person.

It wouldn't have worked out well if the phone had actually rung, but this one time I got away with it. It dawned on me that driving across a time zone two weekends in a row had subjected my body to something it isn't used to. When the time changes for daylight savings, I can always feel it for a week, so I don't know why I didn't think that days of twenty-three and twenty-five hours in the middle of June wouldn't bother me. I should be back to normal in a few more days, or as soon as I can no longer milk the excuse I just dreamed up.

I paid for my self-indulgence tonight, working until eight to make sure I was ready for the weekend. So it was a long, intense day anyway, but I do sleep more soundly in the morning than I ever do at night.