Eight hours.

THAT, my friends, is how long I have been awake as of noon today. It's been a lovely day but I'm a bit murdered after this week altogether. French test, math test, and French midterm in three consecutive days. That, and my throat is hurting almost as bad as before, and my ears too. I think at the beginning of this year, the health demons made a pact to keep me sick as often as possible. There's no other way to explain it. Mom's dragging me to the doctor again later today. Oy. Anyway - today.

I spent the night at Taylor's house because there was a scheme to get some people together (Taylor, Andrew, one of their friends and me) and go watch the sunrise today. I've never seen the sunrise, officially (watching it through a car window, or noticing the sky simply changing colors, doesn't count.). So we woke up at 4:25, and the four of us met at the pier at just before 5. I've been awake at that time before, obviously, but never walked about at it. It's unbelievably gorgeous at the beach when it's still pitch black. It reminded me of some paintings that I saw at the museum a few weeks ago; the moon was just a little sliver, but it made a sort of pathway of white streaks across the water, leading away towards the horizon line as far as you could see. The lamps on the pier were on and reflected in the water, but aside from that, everything was black. I love streetlamps - I love the concept of people lighting them, like they used to do before everything got smart and electronic. From the pier, the ocean looked oddly dark and milky. It's so quiet there, before anyone else is awake.

In particular, it made me think of a painting by Jean-Francois Millet, called The Sheepfold, Moonlight. About that painting, he said, "Oh, how I wish I could make those who see my work feel the splendors and terrors of the night! One ought to be able to make people hear the songs, the silences and murmurings of the air. They should feel the infinite." When I was at the museum, I stared at that painting for forever. There weren't sheep on the pier, obviously, but somehow it seemed just right.

When we walked back from the beach and finally managed to cross the street (there was a ridiculous train that took an eternity), we walked through town and towards the foothills. It was a long walk to the top (lots of twists and turns, though I prefer that to the shorter, and more cactus-infested way). Every once in a while we'd come to a curve on the road where you could look back and see the ocean and the city, with all its' empty roads and twinkling streetlamps. Somehow it made me get "Feed the birds" stuck in my head. The ocean was like a deep blue satin cloth, with just a few wrinkles that never seemed to go anywhere. When we finally reached the top of the hill, we sat on a brick platform and had been there, watching the sky slowly change colors, for about ten minutes when the sun popped up from behind the mountains. It's interesting that it takes so long to get there, but once it does, it happens quite quickly. Sunrises remind me of the last scene of "Rebel without a cause", which always makes me sort of sad. I don't know why everything that I see reminds me of a song or a book or a movie, but it almost always seems to.

By the by, I'm pretty sure it was colder up on that hill than it's ever been in Truckee, in all it's snowy glory. Maybe it's because I was only wearing a long-sleeved shirt and a light sweater. But it was about 40 degrees DOWN the hill, and ON the hill there was a ridiculous wind that seemed to lower the temperature about the same number of degrees. My bones are still thawing.

A little after 7 we headed back down, and Mom picked me up at the beach about an hour later. I've done pretty much nothing since then, except eat breakfast and win a few games of solitaire, and I'm pretty much wanting to go to sleep. I do have to read some Kafka, though, and then (joy) go to the doctors. I was supposed to go stay with Jon this weekend, but it didn't work out for him so I plan on simply sleeping the whole time. Which, at this point, sounds absolutely lovely.