I have a cold, and I want to go outside.

My mother has given me the first camera she ever owned. It came with a hefty trunk of accessories, and it is a complete treasure trove of very pretty things that I don't know how to use yet. It is huge and clumsy and I am in love with it.

re: family members giving me weird presents this July, my brother came back from Hop Farm the other week, and our house was empty apart from me. He looked all mussed and dishevelled and he was grinning a lot, "I got you a present!" So he starts rooting through his bag and drags out this crumpled coffee-coloured towel, and I'm all, "Thanks?" And he's all, "No! No! It's Bob Dylan's! Cool, huh?" ( I realised that this doesn't sound at all like he talks, because he is the chillest bro, owing to smoking copious amounts of pot since he was my age, and always talks in this mumbly stoner drawl; but he did muster up a lot of enthusiasm for him). It didn't smell like Bob Dylan. Or like how I imagine Bob Dylan to smell, anyway. Which was disappointing. He then regailed me with the story of how he got it and how earnest and buzzing he was about the whole thing made me appreciate it a lot more. Even though I doubt Dylan ever used it (though, I like to imagine he's kept it since the 60s, where he and the Band would dry their hands on it, in Woodstock, when they were laying down the Basement Tapes. That would be sweet.)

I think the camera pips the towel though, in terms of weird presents from family members this Summer. Because I know how much my mother adored that camera, and it's a really sweet sentiment that she's given it to me.