Spent the weekend in Tahoe at a departmental retreat. Quiet and cold up there. I miss the mountains. Some good conversations with friends, a little too much wine, far too much science. Took Tom’s Yashica with me and finished off the roll on Saturday afternoon. One of the few times I’ve really wished for color film. Fall is so utterly transcendent up there. Some crappy pictures from my phone at the end of this entry. Some hours on the cold, deserted beach which I find hard to describe. I understand at last, I think, a passage from Gene Wolfe about the holiness of all reality.

Back on Sunday in time for Mass. I was going with Tom to St. Albert’s but since I’ll be baptized at Newman I’ve started going there. Beautiful to see the office of Christ filled by such different people. Weird not to take communion when I’ve been doing it my whole life. I’ve been thinking about sacraments ever since that afternoon on the beach, and today I wrote this.