I'm choking on the wood glue fumes, but my bridge is looking pretty bridgelike. It's a mess of glue and wood and clamps right now. I'm scared to see what it will look like without the clamps. I can't touch it; it will probably break if I do. It doesn't look very strong. Tomorrow I will fix the trouble spots, and then this godawful project will be over.

My St. Louis friend is emailing with increasing frequency. I get a kick out of the guy. What can I say? After you skip arm in arm down the fourth floor hallway of a Hilton with someone you've just met, you get kind of attached. He's a really cool guy. I'm glad I met him; I'm very comfortable talking to him.

I made Chantel a valentine today. I like making people valentines, but only when it's not Valentine's Day. It's unexpected that way. She seemed sad when I talked to her on the phone, so I have done my friend duty and will be on call to cheer her up tomorrow.

Her valentine has got blue and yellow polkadots on the front with a little word bubble with a big red heart in it. The inside opens up, and the left side is a little cartoon of a desk, a tray of paper, and a hand grabbing a sheet of paper; it reads "I stole this paper" at the bottom (I did indeed--sorry, art room). The right side is a cartoon of a tiger's face. The words "hang" and "tough" are written in white as reflections in the tiger's eyes, the comma is in black on the nose, and the mouth has the word "tiger" in it. I'm rather proud of it. It's rare that I take on any remotely artistic endeavor, so I enjoy it.

You'll get Chicago pictures tomorrow. I took 78 photos, so before I go to bed, I'm going to go through them and decide which ones to upload.

My bridge beckons.