2002-09-29 - 11:22 p.m.

So I'm new to the online version of talking to myself. Hello.

I should be grading papers and reading for class tomorrow, but instead I'm looking up my name on the internet and listening to music too loud for 11:30 on a Sunday night. Some nights are like that.

I watched a bunch of football today--my team finally won--and went for a bike ride. The air, all of a sudden, turned fall-like today. I went out in shorts and I got a little chilly pumping those 21 gears or whatever over bumpy asphalt and cracked sidewalk. Long disused railroad tracks, too. Maybe I was really trying to make them feel needed again.

I talked with my older brother and mom on the phone today. She sent me a $200 check in the mail and I told her she didn't have to do that, and as she always does, she said that she knew she didn't. In her note, she said she knew I might have to put it toward rent or bills, but that she hoped I would use it for something fun. When I said that I've never had a good down comforter for my bed and was thinking of getting one, she sounded a little disappointed and suggested I get myself an easychair. I could use one of those, too. For reading, of course.

I had a new friend tell me he respected my writing. He said he could tell that I was a former journalist because I was careful words, not wasteful. It was a strange kind of compliment, but a compliment nonetheless. Especially considering the source.

Big literary festival this weekend that has lots of big-name writers coming into town to talk about theories of writing and the interplay between painting and poetry. Sounds like I should expect to get very drunk, however. We're playing a basketball game on Friday--Team Fiction versus Team Nonfiction--and I don't think anyone has any idea that I can actually dribble a ball without falling down. We'll see.

previous - next