set the fire to the third bar

I mentioned yesterday that my skin turned slightly pink after driving to Des Moines and sitting in front of a window for a few hours. Today I added to it by spending an hour tanning in the yard. I set an alarm to remind myself to go inside before I really burned myself; now my shoulders just have the light pink color of a medium-cooked steak, which (unlike with steak, where cooking it long enough to remove the redness is an abomination) is what I was aiming for. True, I may be increasing my risk of skin cancer; but I haven't had a tan in ages, and I had the odd thought today that, given that I've never been in the hospital with broken limbs, pulled tendons, etc., maybe I'm not really living life to its fullest. Not that I really want to break anything; the finger and toe that I broke in college were enough to suit me. But if you never get hurt, maybe you're not taking enough risks.

Or maybe I'm just trying to justify my vanity, since I really want a tan to go with my nice, shiny long hair. Either way, it was nice to spend some time outside. Afterwards, I took a shower and then drove my mom to the same cemeteries we went to last week so that we could pick up the flowers she left at the various graves. Had I known that I would run into some rather questionable-looking dude as I was getting out of my car at one of the cemeteries, I wouldn't have worn a shirt that was cut low enough for him to look right down it, but being ogled at a cemetery was interesting nonetheless.

I really need to take some pictures of my home county so that you can visualize what I'm seeing every day. The sadly ridiculous thing about where we drove today is that many of the country gravel roads are in better shape than the 'paved' roads in town, since the town roads are crumbling and the towns don't have enough of a tax base to support fixing any of them. Living here is like living with a beloved family member who has a terminal illness; you can kid yourself that everything's fine, and on days like today, when the sun is shining and everything's a vibrant green, you can even think that maybe the diagnosis was a mistake. But you know deep down that you need to prepare yourself to say goodbye, and that it's going to get really, awfully ugly and brutally hard to watch before the end.

Anyway, no brooding tonight, I need to go to bed so that I can write tomorrow. After the cemeteries, my brother and I made a quick visit to my grandma's house. On the way there, we experienced what my brother said was the definition of a 'scattered thunderstorm' -- I had to use my sunglasses and my visor because the sun was shining directly in my eyes, but I also had to use my windshield wipers because it was raining. The south looked completely clear, the north and east were cloudy, and the sun was shining in the west -- which created perfect conditions for the double rainbow that formed against the eastern clouds. It was lovely! Then we came home for grilled hot dogs and homemade mac and cheese (Michael's request; I prefer Kraft mac and cheese, but Michael hates tenderloins, so I guess Mom felt guilty for making them last night). Then I watched some fine CBS programming, and now it's time for bed!