Wow, you all have some strong opinions about Europe, huh? Thank you, thank you, thank you for those great comments and votes and suggestions; we were tickled pink to hear your thoughts, although REALLY, ARE YOU KIDDING ME, 48 to 52 percent? As Janet so eloquently said in the comments, "it's like a presidential election around here." Oh, I know: 52 trumps 48, but still, I was kind of hoping it might be more like 78 to 22 or something, so that we'd be forced to confront some sort of really clear-cut answer.

So do you ever do this thing where you picture something---a place, a person---for a really long time before you see it in real life, and then the time comes where you do see it in real life, and when you do, it's nothing at all like you thought you it was going to be?

On the pavement last night on the way to dinner. The Universe is definitely trying to tell me something.

(PS: Happy Fourth of July! Sean is 32 today and we are celebrating with some eight dollar beers at the baseball stadium while watching a bunch of grown men run around in circles chasing after a ball. I bet you can't guess which one of us thought that would be a really super awesome fun thing to do.)

This is ridiculous, since I'm not even American, but the Star Spangled Banner always makes me teary. It's something about the pomp and ceremony, the earnestness, the way people take off their hats and put their hands over their hearts and stare straight ahead, and when it's played by a lone violinist flanked by a fully-uniformed representative of each branch of the U.S. armed forces, like it was at the baseball game we went to on the Fourth of July......well, let's just say it's a good thing I was wearing the biggest sunglasses I own.

There's very little I like more in the world than slipping between clean sheets. They can't just be clean, though, they have to smell clean: you know, that perfect fresh-from-the-dryer smell that means all is right with the world. 

Right now I'm using Tide laundry detergent in Mountain Spring, and Bounce dryer sheets. This combination produces a pretty clean-smelling set of sheets, but I'm wondering if I can do better.

Something is happening to me. Correction: something has happened to me. Two years ago, I distinctly remember feeling utter revulsion at the thought of owning a house. I believe I may have recoiled at the mere mention of ever having a mortgage. If you owned a house, I thought, you couldn't do anything: all your money went to roof repairs and broken plumbing and god forbid you ever wanted to just pick up and go traveling for six months and start all over again somewhere else when you were done. You couldn't.

So it hasn't escaped my notice that the BlogHer conference is coming to San Francisco next week, which means ONE THOUSAND BLOGGERS will be descending on my city and some of them might be wondering where to get some good falafel. Or some good Thai food. Or just good and drunk.

When we left off last time, I'd just deleted my entire list of suggestions and recommendations for San Francisco, and I'm sure you could hear me screaming from here. Remember that eardrum-shattering shriek you heard while watering your backyard in New Jersey or vacuuming your living room in Minneapolis last week? Yeah, that was me. Sorry about that. And please apologize to your neighbors.

Jemima and Moose hug it out

On Friday night, we went to a bar in the Tenderloin to celebrate Moose's 30th birthday. When I first moved to the city last year, Moose emailed me out of the blue and asked me if I wanted to meet up for a drink, and after we had agreed on a well-lit public space where neither of us could chop the other into tiny pieces without someone noticing, we did just that.

This past weekend was the Weekend of Socializing, which was only fitting, given that this week is destined to be the Week of Socializing, thanks to the fact that BlogHer is popping into town in about, oh, 24 hours, bringing with it a whole bunch of people I haven't seen in a really long time and whose presence in my city I fully intend to celebrate. And if that celebration happens to take the form of doing shots in a hotel room at 2am, then hell, it only happens once a year, SIGN ME UP.

You know when you go to a party and you're thinking "Oh man, is so-and-so going to be there?

The favors given out at the Mighty Haus launch party on Friday night were some of the cleverest and most creative party favors I've ever seen, and please remember that you're talking to a girl who used to attend copious social events in Charleston, South Carolina, where "How To Give The Best Party Favors On The Block" is pretty much one of the required classes in middle school, right alongside "How To Match Your Purse To Your Shoes" and "Manners: When Is It Not Okay To Send A Thank You Card?

I WOULDN'T:

* Start using a new moisturizer three days before the conference. I hate you Mario Badescu Bee Pollen Night Cream! Why are you continuing to make me break out like a teenage boy? (Come back to me, Mario Badescu Seaweed Night Cream! All is forgiven! You don't actually smell that funny after all, I swear!)

* Talk about crack whores in my panel. Do I never learn?

Alright, I know what you're thinking: "JC Penney?Really?" I mean, I admit it, that's kind of what I was thinking too. I haven't been in a JC Penney since 1996, when a boy I met in an Internet chatroom told me he used to be a JC Penney catalog model, and I made my mother drive me to the JC Penney in the Stamford mall in Stamford, Connecticut so I could flip through all the back catalogs in the hopes of spying his picture. (True story! Call me, TJ Piciullo from Islip, Long Island!

A decision has been made. And since I am me, it is hardly surprising that this decision has been made a full month after it first came up. Seriously, you should try choosing breakfast cereal with me in the grocery store one day. But make sure to Tivo your favorite shows first because we're probably going to be there until they kick us out. Unless it's a 24-hour grocery store, of course, in which case we'll be there until you give up around 2am, shove a box of Bran Flakes into my basket, and shout THEY ALL TASTE THE SAME, WHO CARES.

I'm not sure how, but on Friday night, I was coerced into going to see The Dark Knight. Sean has been looking forward to it for months, and since I've dragged him along to such cinematic masterpieces as Legally Blonde and Legally Blonde 2, I figured I probably owed him a favor or five.

So we're sitting at home on a Monday night, the promise of our pot of almost-brewed tea the most exciting thing on the horizon, when we suddenly hear all this shouting outside.

Trying to find an apartment in Rome for three days in October is like trying to....well, huh, I don't even know. The vastly frustrating act of trying to find an apartment in Rome for three days in October has left me so mentally exhausted that I can't even think of any clever analogies. 

Thank you all for your great suggestions about where to stay in Rome. I cannot tell you how it warmed the cockles of my tiny, scrunched-up, cranky little heart to have someone say "hey, I entered your dates on this Italy website and look what I found you! And it has windows!

Hey, remember how back in March I was on the lookout for the perfect trench coat? That was five months ago and I think I've finally found it! Thank goodness this wasn't a Severe Trench Coat Emergency or anything, eh?