Through the port, I can see a sliver of moon. It's right in the most beautiful segment of the sky--where the color makes the transition from pale and colorless at the horizon to midnight at the top, kind of a vivid, greenish blue that sets off the stars like diamonds on velvet.

A soulful shade of blue--there's a song by Neko Case by that name, and I don't think it exactly describes what I'm seeing, but it's in my head anyway.

Racing season has started again, and we went out on the water today, me, Anthony, Kent, and Franklin at the helm. When I got to the boat, the wind was blowing maybe three or four knots, gusting to seven--light airs, which can be challenging in their own way, but certainly no rocket ride.

By the time we guided the boat out of the slip, the wind was at 18 knots in the harbor. When we left the harbor, we sailed into an eddy, with 18 knots from the east, dropping to two knots fifty yards further, then eighteen from the west, fifty yards past that. At the start, which we aced, the winds were 30 knots, and we took off ahead of everyone, hiked way out and laughing with the thrill of it. The swell and wind waves hit our faces, and my hat flew off and out into the water, never to be seen again.

I love the feeling of sitting up on the windward side, looking almost straight down into the water flowing over the leeward rail, then diving for the opposite side when we tack. It's wet and slippery and sometimes dicey, but when I'm up on the rail, I am more relaxed than if I was sitting at home.

The flukey wind meant that we didn't fly a spinnaker, but on the downwind run, we hit 15.6 knots, surfing all the way.

We crossed the finish line first, ahead of Dr. Laura, who races in our fleet, and her hired skipper. Our rating means that she corrected out ahead of us, but I didn't care--it was so much fun.

I feel so good. I don't even mind that I have my [stupid....] annual evaluation at work tomorrow. Wait. I kind of mind. I'm approaching it from a whole Gilbert attitude. Or maybe it was Sullivan. One of them, anyway, said that he really enjoyed reading his reviews because, and here I'm paraphrasing, he knew exactly how good he was, but he had no idea how bad he was. I'll give it a whirl.

But still, I feel so good. It takes a lot to knock me out of myself, and make me stop thinking about well, myself, or my situation, and to just enjoy myself wholly. Today, I enjoyed myself wholly, and even though I was conscious, at times, of marveling at the spray hitting me in the face, or the stomach-turning drop falling down the backside of a wave, I had FUN. I knew it was out there, I just didn't know it would grace me with its presence. For a day that started out by fasting and then having three vials of blood drawn, I'd say I've made out all right.

If I could step outside myself more often, I think I could be the happiest girl in the whole USA.

Star of the day. . .Jack White III