I'm much too white to have been outside all day without any sunscreen. I know this, and yet, I thought each time I was outside would be just a short while, and I didn't bother to dig it out of the medicine cabinet.

I'm paying for it now. Ow.

I lazed around in bed this morning until close to 11am. When I got up, I decided to go for a run right away, as it was kind of warm and felt like it was just going to get hotter. I donned my shorts and a t-shirt, grabbed my Discman and popped in the soundtrack to Run, Lola, Run for inspiration.

The first time around the lake was easy enough. I felt a little dry and wished I had brought a bottle of water with me. Luckily, there are water bubblers around the lake, so I stopped at one of them before starting my second lap.

That one went a little less well. The sun was beating down on me and I ran about another mile and a half before having to stop for more water. I walked a little bit before starting to run again, and did well enough, but then stopped to walk a little more. I walk-ran the rest of the way, feeling kind of crappy about my performance.

When I got home, Mom asked me about the back lawn. It's been growing ever higher each day, and she recently looked out and wondered why Skottie was lying down in the grass. He wasn't actually lying down. I needed to get the mower out and cut through the brush.

Figuring it would be best to get all the sweaty activity done in a clump, I changed my t-shirt and started mowing. Our lawn mower is kind of wimpy, and kept dying as I forced it through the tall grass. I had to stop and start quite a bit because the blades were clumped up and the bag was full.

After that, it was time to help Mom weed. I hate weeding because I have no earthly idea of how to tell the difference between a weed and a newly-growing plant. Unless it's a rose bush, I'm lost.

Still, I pulled out either a good number of weeds or totally removed any chance of a flowering garden and went inside for a little bit. I surfed the web and was thinking of a shower when Chris arrived and said that the pool cover had been just about drained and we should open the pool.

I went back outside where we (and later, Sean) removed the cover and brought it into the driveway for a good scrubbing. All the dead leaves and dirt that got thrown onto the cover through the fall and winter make a big mess, so we took out pushbrooms and dishwashing detergent and scrubbed it down. Sean and I laid the whole thing out on the driveway to dry, and then I went inside to collapse.

That's when I noticed how red I was. My face looked like I'd been running for about ten miles, my arms practically glowed, and when I took off my socks, I noticed that my feet were much lighter in color than the ankles above.

I got into the shower and realized that skipping on the sunscreen was a very, very bad idea. I used cool water, but still I was burning up. I slathered on moisturizer, but the damage had already been done. I was cooked.

"Maybe this will turn into a base tan for Mexico," said Mom when I pointed out how burned I was. She forgets that the "base tan" is a foreign concept to my melanin-depleted body, that I usually burn, lighten, and then burn again.

I saw a commercial tonight for spray-on sunscreen. If it's waterproof, I'm all over it.

I called Laurie to see what she was up to tonight. She didn't have any plans, so I picked her up after work and we got some Chinese food for dinner. It's not really part of my diet plan, but I figure about half my body weight was burned off by sunlight today, I might as well indulge in a spring roll or two.

After dinner, we couldn't really decide on what to do. There weren't any movies either one of us could think of that we really wanted to see (I totally forgot about Crash), so we ended up driving around jabbering away for a couple of hours.

I think I'm going to have to start my house search sooner rather than later, because with both Laurie and me living with our Moms, it feels a little uncomfortable for either one of us to have the other one over. I'm welcome at her Mom's place, and Laurie is always welcome at my house, but we can be loud and obnoxious when we get together, and it's not the same as kicking back in someone's own apartment or house.

The conversation was good, as it usually is when we're on a roll. I'm lucky to have the kind of best friend to whom you can say anything. I have a bunch of strong opinions I don't share with anyone else because I just don't want to debate them, and luckily Laurie usually holds the same opinions. We disagree on some things, but nothing important enough to argue over.

After wasting precious fossil fuel for over an hour, we decided to call it a night. I dropped her off at her car and drove home. I brought my air conditioner down from the attic and it's now churning cold air into my bedroom. It should be just about the temperature of a meat freezer by the time I go to bed.

It's just what I need tonight. A/C, aloe vera, and a reminder to put on sunscreen before going outside tomorrow.