07.15.04 - 7:54 a.m.

Dan is back from Houston and already I'm sleeping better. Who would have believed a few years ago that this is who I'd become?

I used his absence to be quite productive, doing such important and life-altering things as cooking clams, adding 500 new songs to Le Pod (including all of Madonna's finest), and watching I Love The 90s, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen and Reality Bites. Ah, girliness. I even managed somehow to fit in an entire Fountains of Wayne concert AND get home in time to buy toilet paper at Target before it closed. I'm especially proud of my time management on that one.

Also productive, and in keeping with my Summer of Things I've Never Done Before, this past weekend I dragged Dad and Carol to the Bronx Zoo and attempted to get a meal at Craft. Next up is Babbo on Sunday and the Philharmonic in the park on Monday. Craft will have to wait. And I still haven't learned how to play the guitar.

Last night I had another dream about losing my Nalgene bottle. The first time, I dreamt I was walking across the George Washington Bridge, which was only a wooden pedestrian bridge with no side rails. I made it to the other side, was handed a cupcake for my troubles, but then realized Dad and Bassett had my water bottle and were still trying to make their way across. I called Dad on his cell as I started back toward them, and he told me Bassett had dropped it over the edge and was about to fall off herself.

The latest dream incident also involved water - I was at the top of a high diving board and before I jumped into the water, I threw my towels and water bottle in ahead of me. Some kid caught them and started swimming off with them before I could jump down and get them back. The dreams are so similar - heights, water, falling in. What does this mean?