"He was talking about the theater," said Maladict.
"What's that?"
"An Abomination Unto Nuggan, or course," said the vampire. "It'd take too long to explain, dear child. People pretending to be other people to tell a story in a huge room where the world is a different place. Other people sitting and watching them and eating chocolate. Very, very abominable."
"I would like to eat chocolates in a great big room where the world is a different place," mumbled Lofty sadly.

That's from Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment, which I finished reading last week. I love that excerpt. I love that last line about theater. "I would like to eat chocolates in a great big room where the world is a different place." That's exactly how I feel. I've tried to squeeze in a lot of reading recently while I still have the time. I read a good deal of Terry Pratchett this summer because I love him. I'm also really into Richard Russo right now. I finished the Pulitzer Prize-winning Empire Falls (fabulous) and am now reading Straight Man (which is hilarious).

I can't remember the last time I wrote or what I wrote about. But I haven't written about the beach yet. Last Friday my parents and I drove down to Rehoboth Beach. We stayed there until Tuesday (yesterday). It was nice to spend some time with them. It was nice to eat out every night (even though I'm sure I gained weight). It was nice to have nothing to worry about. It was nice to swim in the ocean. Well, most of the time. On Monday the waves were really, really strong. I got pulled under more than a few times in a very short period of time and got roughed around. I kept trying to make my way out of the ocean and kept getting pulled back under. My mom and I banged our heads together (hard) underwater. I lost my goggles and my mom miraculously found them in the ocean. I scraped the whole back side of one of my thighs on the bottom of the ocean floor; it ended up dripping blood all the way up to the bathroom where I washed it off and stuck some paper towels on it as a temporary bandage. But other than that one bad stretch, I loved the beach.
We also went for a disastrous bike ride that I would rather forget. We rode our bikes to a national park and rode around in there, but it took us a lot longer than we expected to bike there so we decided to try taking a shortcut back. Very bad idea. The "shortcut" was a trail in the national park that led out of the park and back towards town. Except the trail was pure sand. Deep dunes of sand. We couldn't bike, so we walked our bikes, pushing them through the sand. I think it took us about an hour to go one mile. And there were swarms of bugs around us the entire time. It was ridiculous. I was miserable.
Every night at the bandstand there was free live music, which I loved. The bands we saw were great. On Saturday it was The Diamonds, who are a famous group from the 1950's, and they were so much fun. I also enjoyed Jamie McLean, who played the first night we were there, and The Bridge.

Now I'm back in NYC and am being forced back into the real world. Tonight was my first grad school class of the semester. Tomorrow I have another class, and I also go back to my job as a teacher. Teachers start work tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it. The kids start next Tuesday. My summer wasn't long enough; I hardly had any time off (I took classes the entire time) and it flew by. I have to start waking up insanely early and I'm not ready for it.