Yep. So Alex has once again foiled my plans to visit him in the hospital by recovering so quickly. On the whole, though, I’d say that’s a good thing.

So I’ve been off on a whirlwind tour of the Midwest, which is to say, Ohio and Michigan.

In the end, I did not manage to attend the drag ball, although Oberlin was chock full of transvestitism in preparation for the big event, ranging from hastily-donned dresses to week-long, body-shaving, prosthesis-adding feminizations. Kate and I visited the team preparing “Janita Swan”, and it was really very… impressive. The glitter writing of “DIVA” on the back of the underwear was an interesting touch. I hear he got second-place in the judging. Yes, there were judges. You wouldn’t expect the biggest drag ball in the Midwest to not have judges, would you? Fascinating.

Ah, Oberlin: putting the “liberal” back in “liberal arts” as always. They have an environmental science building that can recycle human waste, so of course they had a big event encouraging people to use the toilets there. They were serving free vegan (and regular) brownies. Although after looking at the vegan brownies, I really wonder why they even bother trying. Besides that, I did a little more touring of the campus, visited the art museum with Kate and my family, and saw a piano recital which I nearly fell asleep in, due to a combination of factors.

And then, off to Michigan to visit the relatives for Easter. Of course, we drove up on Sunday morning, so we didn’t get to church. I think that move me officially into “heathen” territory (or “non-practicing” for you politically-correct types). Fairly boring actually, but alright. My grandmother is making me a quilt out of old blue jeans for my graduation, which is sort of a cool concept. Aside from that, I spent probably too much time playing with my cousin Kyle’s X-box. But hey, I can now say I’ve beaten HALO (he did most of the work; I followed and shot the things what turned my crosshairs red).

And so I returned on Tuesday, fully intent on visiting Alex, only to find out Wednesday that he had been out of the hospital since Sunday. Durable bastard. On the whole, it’s probably a good thing. The morphine withdrawal has driven him mad, though. Well, maybe, he was pretty mad to begin with.

And somewhere along the way in the earlier portion of the trip I read Quicker Than the Eye by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury is the man.

The bored amongst you should play 20 Questions against the computer at the new link. It's remarkably good sometimes. It figured out platypus in 13.