It's finally starting to feel like autumn. It was sunny, but cool and breezy today. Leaves are starting to leave trees and drift downward with graceful ease.

The kids this week are sixth graders, with all of the almost-teenager drama that this entails. There are lots of autistic and other special day class kids at camp too, although none of them are in my field group. I had a good time today, even though we got a late start. I got everybody to crawl around in the dirt with their eyes closed just for the hell of it. Most of them thought it was pretty cool too, even though it meant getting dirty. Things kept going like that, with an energy that I like to attribute to the changing of the seasons, for the duration of the class.

It all wore off by the time I got home. I'm a little sore from the extensive hike we took yesterday. I never get quite enough sleep because I stubbornly stay up too late. We're always worrying about the details of existence here in this prohibitively expensive region. Sounds like a good time to go immerse myself in a book. I just finished "Fire on the Mountain" by Edward Abbey, and am starting a new one called "Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It's quite promising so far. The Abbey book was great too. Let's hear it for crusty old-timers stubbornly resisting the U.S. government!

Time to go before the monitor shorts out again. Sleep well, live long.