I think I had a slight relapse of my wasting disease last night, although during the day, I thought I was almost recovered. I sprung out of bed in the morning feeling fabulous and glowing with post-coital satisfaction.

Okay, so maybe "sprung" is overstating the case a bit. There is a long list of people, including my mother and every boyfriend I've ever had, who would drop dead of shock if I ever actually "sprung" out of bed. I mostly just lay around and say, "Leave me alone! Go away and let me sleep!" But let's just pretend that I spring, okay?

Well, Probst bribed me with an offer of breakfast, so I sprung (or reluctantly rolled, if you prefer) out of bed and we headed to Berkeley to find a place to eat. We ended up at Fatapples, where I have never been, and I had this almond danish that was-- oh my god-- to die for. It was a heated square of flaky crust with sliced almonds on top, filled with almond paste. Mmm. Worth every one of those 15,000 calories.

After dropping him off and bidding him a fond farewell ("Will you miss me?" "Sure I will. Would you like me to pine for you?" "Well, you don't have to pine, but maybe you can be a little wistful." "Okay, we'll both be wistful.") I went home to do something productive and useful, which I can't remember at the moment.

The night was reserved for hanging out with my girls, Joey and Laurie. By the time I return from LA, Laurie will be gone on a seven week trip to see her family. So it was my last chance to see her for two months. Surprisingly traumatizing thought; I will really miss her.

After tossing around some plans to go out, we opted to hang out at Joey's place and have her cook dinner. I hadn't eaten all day (except for that danish) and the food was so delicious, I may have eaten too much. I didn't start to feel sick until I was driving home, though, so my evening was unsullied.

We had chips and salsa, and then Joey cooked this delicious chicken topped with mozzarella, and some ziti pasta, and salad. Then we had a bottle of Rosato wine that I brought, and some banana cream pie and coffee. Lots of food. All delicious.

When Joey's boyfriend came home from work (he's a Catholic school teacher, how adorable) we had the required number of people to play Cranium. I was excited, because I love playing board games, and I never get to play them anymore. Cranium is fun because there are four categories: performance, art, trivia and word puzzles. It's like a bunch of different games in one.

Oh man, did we ever have fun. Joey and I won one game, and Laurie and Joey's boyfriend (let's call him Tarzan) won two games. Some of the charades were so funny, I almost peed my pants laughing. Laurie's rendition of "hypertext" involved her waving maniacally, jumping around on the bed and shaking her head around like a wild woman. We had no idea what she was going for, but damn, she went for it.

I suck at the "Humdinger" category, where you have to guess a song that's being hummed by your partner. How much do I suck? I couldn't even identify "Light My Fire" by the Doors. Somehow, our team kept getting stuck with Humdingers. And the sculpting clay had melted in my car, so it was even more disgusting than usual, and practically impossible to sculpt anything. Everything looked like a penis.

Man, I haven't laughed that hard in a while. A great evening.

Now that I have fallen head over heels in love with San Francisco, I wonder how I am going to feel about Los Angeles as a city.

The things I love about LA-- my favorite bars and restaurants, the movie theaters, the stores, the exciting atmosphere, the constant celebrity sightings-- are all still there. But I can see more clearly now the negative aspects: the superficiality and self-centeredness of the people being first and foremost on that list.

I'll probably spend so much time visiting my favorite people and places that it won't have a chance to bother me. But sometimes I wonder if, having lived here, Los Angeles can ever be "home sweet home" in the same way again.

"I would love to know more about this, but there are some sacrifices I am not prepared to make. Sacrifices in that category include eating live giant caterpillars and voluntarily talking to the Crazy Dog Lady."