Sunday, August 12, 2012—Long Beach, CA
Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Stupid hot. Angry hot. Several days in a row of blazing heat with at least that many on the horizon. As usual when it gets like this my apartment becomes all but unbearable (people are always commenting on what a great rent I have, but they don’t seem to understand that I get what I pay for—a uncomfortable crumbling one-bedroom place in a ugly, worsening neighborhood that turns into a furnace at least a couple months of the year and has no heat when winter comes around). What’s bumming me out is that I have a lot I need to be doing now—prepping for, school, BSP stuff etc.—and it’s too hot in here for me to think. I think I’m going to head over to the Downtown Branch of the LB Public Library next week and try and get some work done in its air-conditioned environs. The situation in Chez Rob is ridiculous …
The weather is seeming even worse than it is when I compare it to last weekend, when I went up to my cousin’s wedding in the Lompoc area, which was much cooler than it is down here, especially at night (we even got rained on a little bit on Saturday morning, which is really unusual for August in these parts). Speaking of that trip, I enjoyed it. The wedding was one of the nicest I’ve ever been to (no phony religious crap or tedious traditions to be found). I was a little depressed for a day or so after it, though. My life feels so stuck these days: I feel like I’m more than ready to move onto to something else and I can’t quite put things together enough to make it happen. Watching E— and L— get married, watching them so happily moving into the next phase of their lives, got me really thinking about where I’m at at the moment, which is a significantly different place than I want to be.
Like I just said, this bummed me out for a few days, but I’m feeling better now. Things aren’t quite right with me, but when I look at the big picture I know I’m making the right moves, or mostly right moves at least. My days of making stupid decisions are over. The question is now how much can I recover from my previous wrong moves, my formally faulty vision. I think I still can make some big strides; the game's far from over and I can see a lot of interesting times for me on the horizon.
Since I’ve been back I’ve mostly been fighting the heat and trying to get some prep work done for school (I have my first faculty meeting next week). Greg’s been in town the last few days, though, so I’ve been hanging out with him a bunch and getting less done. Besides that I’ve mostly been reading and doing a bit of writing (on the latest Backwaters book, not in the diary obviously). Eric and I also seem to have finally gotten Edgewater ready for printing. We’re looking at paper samples and we should be able to let that rip by the end of next week. Hopefully it will be officially out by the end of this month.
Getting a little worried that gluten might not be what’s causing my health issues. I did an experiment at the wedding last weekend and ate quite a bit of gluten and had no reaction. Since I’ve been back, though, and gluten free my bloating has returned in a pretty big way. I’m very confused by all this.
Realizing that I’m a little weird as far as diarists go. Most diarists seem to be obsessive about their diaries. I’m not. I do it because I enjoy it and learn from it, because informal writing like this helps me as a writer (it keeps my chops up, if nothing else), and because other people seem to find it interesting. But I don’t stress when I’m not writing. Maybe it’s because this is an internet diary and my options as to what I’m comfortable doing are limited; maybe the aspects of my life that I might be obsessive about are the ones I feel the need to eliminate in this endeavor. I do wish I had more time to write here, though. I feel like I lose the deeper threads when I’m away from this diary too long. Once I’m back at work and trapped on the backside of Orange County with time to kill and work to bitch about I’m sure my focus will return.
Keeping up my Greek studies. I’ve hit a point where the learning curve has gotten a little steep, but I’m chugging along—slowly. It’s really hard studying a language when you’re completely divorced from its day-to-day use. None of the schools around here even teach Modern Greek. My goal is to learn as much about the structure of the language, its grammar as I can and build on that once I’m around Greek speakers again—vocabulary and pronunciation can come later.
Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Stupid hot. Angry hot. Several days in a row of blazing heat with at least that many on the horizon. As usual when it gets like this my apartment becomes all but unbearable (people are always commenting on what a great rent I have, but they don’t seem to understand that I get what I pay for—a uncomfortable crumbling one-bedroom place in a ugly, worsening neighborhood that turns into a furnace at least a couple months of the year and has no heat when winter comes around). What’s bumming me out is that I have a lot I need to be doing now—prepping for, school, BSP stuff etc.—and it’s too hot in here for me to think. I think I’m going to head over to the Downtown Branch of the LB Public Library next week and try and get some work done in its air-conditioned environs. The situation in Chez Rob is ridiculous …
The weather is seeming even worse than it is when I compare it to last weekend, when I went up to my cousin’s wedding in the Lompoc area, which was much cooler than it is down here, especially at night (we even got rained on a little bit on Saturday morning, which is really unusual for August in these parts). Speaking of that trip, I enjoyed it. The wedding was one of the nicest I’ve ever been to (no phony religious crap or tedious traditions to be found). I was a little depressed for a day or so after it, though. My life feels so stuck these days: I feel like I’m more than ready to move onto to something else and I can’t quite put things together enough to make it happen. Watching E— and L— get married, watching them so happily moving into the next phase of their lives, got me really thinking about where I’m at at the moment, which is a significantly different place than I want to be.
Like I just said, this bummed me out for a few days, but I’m feeling better now. Things aren’t quite right with me, but when I look at the big picture I know I’m making the right moves, or mostly right moves at least. My days of making stupid decisions are over. The question is now how much can I recover from my previous wrong moves, my formally faulty vision. I think I still can make some big strides; the game's far from over and I can see a lot of interesting times for me on the horizon.
Since I’ve been back I’ve mostly been fighting the heat and trying to get some prep work done for school (I have my first faculty meeting next week). Greg’s been in town the last few days, though, so I’ve been hanging out with him a bunch and getting less done. Besides that I’ve mostly been reading and doing a bit of writing (on the latest Backwaters book, not in the diary obviously). Eric and I also seem to have finally gotten Edgewater ready for printing. We’re looking at paper samples and we should be able to let that rip by the end of next week. Hopefully it will be officially out by the end of this month.
Getting a little worried that gluten might not be what’s causing my health issues. I did an experiment at the wedding last weekend and ate quite a bit of gluten and had no reaction. Since I’ve been back, though, and gluten free my bloating has returned in a pretty big way. I’m very confused by all this.
Realizing that I’m a little weird as far as diarists go. Most diarists seem to be obsessive about their diaries. I’m not. I do it because I enjoy it and learn from it, because informal writing like this helps me as a writer (it keeps my chops up, if nothing else), and because other people seem to find it interesting. But I don’t stress when I’m not writing. Maybe it’s because this is an internet diary and my options as to what I’m comfortable doing are limited; maybe the aspects of my life that I might be obsessive about are the ones I feel the need to eliminate in this endeavor. I do wish I had more time to write here, though. I feel like I lose the deeper threads when I’m away from this diary too long. Once I’m back at work and trapped on the backside of Orange County with time to kill and work to bitch about I’m sure my focus will return.
Keeping up my Greek studies. I’ve hit a point where the learning curve has gotten a little steep, but I’m chugging along—slowly. It’s really hard studying a language when you’re completely divorced from its day-to-day use. None of the schools around here even teach Modern Greek. My goal is to learn as much about the structure of the language, its grammar as I can and build on that once I’m around Greek speakers again—vocabulary and pronunciation can come later.
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