Curious to think that less than a week remains before I once again switch coasts and cease to be a government peon, returning to my even less glamorous role as a university peon instead. The semester from hell approaches and I face it armed with a somewhat depleted summer salary and a questionable new old vehicle, on whose account I shall also have to make a small pilgrimage to rural New York before I go. Adventures.
Digression:
Call no man happy until he is dead.
~Herodotus
Now what did he mean by that? That only after death can we finally heave a great sigh of relief and rest for a while, that death is to be preferred to life, or more cheerfully perhaps that the sum of a man's life should not be judged until it is over and all the facts are in? Running on four hours of sleep I'm inclined to empathize with the first, but that irritatingly optimistic side of my cynical brain is telling me that the third might be the more philosophical way to go.
End of digression.
Even after ten weeks I still have not gotten used to the manifest lack of water in this part of the country. Last night, as I was staring out the darkened window with one eye and keeping the other on the game of Hearts on my computer screen, all I could think of was how much I wished it would start raining. Right then, no delay. A bronchial rumble of thunder, and then the spatter and tap of raindrops against the leaves of the tree outside and the vinyl siding. Alas, the powers that be decided not to grant my wish, but it made me think nonetheless. I have also drunk more water since I have been out here, and the banal nature of my work has driven me to resurrect some of my more creative pastimes. I need water in a more than physical sense - the mind needs a good shower before green things will grow again.
I dreamt about Eoh the other night. Of all the things and people at home, at the school, and elsewhere, I dream of a 2000-pound Percheron. However, rationality is not a large part of the subconscious, at least not to the conscious mind, and so it doesn't particularly bother me to have dreamt of riding an iron gray Rock of Ages. With white eyelashes. And a head larger than my torso. The stylish carthorse.
I have to prepare an outline for and put the final touches on my final presentation today, as well as write an abstract for the small War and Peace of a report that goes with it. I pity the poor person who has to read it, though we're told the likelihood of anyone actually picking it up is slim, so perhaps my pity is best spent elsewhere. As a deliverable and proof that I did something this summer it is rather misleading in its heftiness. But don't tell anyone that.
Digression:
Call no man happy until he is dead.
~Herodotus
Now what did he mean by that? That only after death can we finally heave a great sigh of relief and rest for a while, that death is to be preferred to life, or more cheerfully perhaps that the sum of a man's life should not be judged until it is over and all the facts are in? Running on four hours of sleep I'm inclined to empathize with the first, but that irritatingly optimistic side of my cynical brain is telling me that the third might be the more philosophical way to go.
End of digression.
Even after ten weeks I still have not gotten used to the manifest lack of water in this part of the country. Last night, as I was staring out the darkened window with one eye and keeping the other on the game of Hearts on my computer screen, all I could think of was how much I wished it would start raining. Right then, no delay. A bronchial rumble of thunder, and then the spatter and tap of raindrops against the leaves of the tree outside and the vinyl siding. Alas, the powers that be decided not to grant my wish, but it made me think nonetheless. I have also drunk more water since I have been out here, and the banal nature of my work has driven me to resurrect some of my more creative pastimes. I need water in a more than physical sense - the mind needs a good shower before green things will grow again.
I dreamt about Eoh the other night. Of all the things and people at home, at the school, and elsewhere, I dream of a 2000-pound Percheron. However, rationality is not a large part of the subconscious, at least not to the conscious mind, and so it doesn't particularly bother me to have dreamt of riding an iron gray Rock of Ages. With white eyelashes. And a head larger than my torso. The stylish carthorse.
I have to prepare an outline for and put the final touches on my final presentation today, as well as write an abstract for the small War and Peace of a report that goes with it. I pity the poor person who has to read it, though we're told the likelihood of anyone actually picking it up is slim, so perhaps my pity is best spent elsewhere. As a deliverable and proof that I did something this summer it is rather misleading in its heftiness. But don't tell anyone that.
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