I haven’t written much lately, I apologize…I don’t mean to slack. The weather has been brilliant, even summery, and I’ve been busy with both the dissertation and the end of the semester. I suppose, rather than trying to narrate the last week in linear fashion that a ten bullet post of the highlights would be in order.

1) I’ve been working in the garden a lot lately. Over the weekend I added organic matter to the area I cleared of grass last year. This weekend we’ll plant sunflower seeds and hope a sunflower garden sprouts. I also added groundcover near the garage. Yesterday I cut down the dying honeysuckle vine and replaced it with clematis. I also added bellflowers near the front of the house. I love working in the dirt, but I need to make sure I don’t blow hundreds on the yard, I suppose. On Friday we put in the vegetables, etc. I can’t wait.
2) Yesterday I attended, as part of the end of the year professional development crap at work, a pretty cool workshop on stress management. The guy was so mellow and effective, however, that I don’t think anyone wanted to ask questions. I felt badly for him. Ha. Anyway, I’m going to try a few of the strategies out when I can. Meditation has been powerful lately.
3) This weekend I saw both “Little Children” and “The Science of Sleep”. I thought both were good, although the former was the superior film, and not because Kate Winslet walks around without her clothes. I watched both on fast forward, really, except for the interesting parts. I have “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Volver” coming from Netflix. I’ve seen both before, but I’d like to see both again, and I thought James and Melissa, visiting from Chicago, might want to see them if they haven’t already.
4) T, S, and N are all immersed in soccer and baseball. Tonight we have pictures, then T’s first game. I tend to sit on the side, reading and listening to my mp3 player, during the games and practices. I don’t mind.
5) I finished Murakami’s “After Dark” over the weekend. Great book, although I don’t feel like I entirely understood all the nuances of the tv screen and the like. I think the book tries to address the distance between people, among other things, and I can’t help but feel like the story was intensely personal to the author. I’m nearing the end of “Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”, too. Brilliant.
6) Today I’m working on my dissertation defense. I’m supposed to work through approximately sixty slides in thirty-five minutes. How the hell do you do that?
7) Graduation was boring and stupid. Someday I’m going to have a job where I can’t walk out of meetings and gatherings that don’t interest me. God help me then.
8) I’ve been listening to Fiest a lot lately.
9) I’m looking forward to Memorial Day weekend. I’m going to turn off the computer, email-wise, Thursday evening, and I’m not responding to anything (except from my friends, of course) until Tuesday morning. I need a break.
10) Tristan has discovered some dirt bike trails in the woods behind the house. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him glow as much as when he’s riding on the trails. He looks happy, and that makes me happy.

I’m restless, a little after nine, and if I hadn’t eaten a while back I’d go for a run. I also mean to play basketball in the morning, so I suppose a run wouldn’t be a great idea with that in mind, either, but I’m still restless. Maybe I’ll watch a movie.
The last few days have been ok, I guess. Yesterday the weather was beautiful if almost too hot. I spent the morning mulching and weeding along the side of the house, then over near the fence where the grass bushes are, then in the back where the ants ate the hostas last year. The earth felt clean in my hands. After a shower I drove into work for an afternoon of answering emails and working through student concerns. I didn’t arrive home until after six. The boys and I hung out for a while. They had a hard time falling asleep, since the air was so warm, so I hung out in their room and chatted until they crashed. I was in the mood for a beer, so I sat on the back porch, watching the wind move through the trees and checking out the stars. One beer led to another, and six beers total later, I was very drunk. I stumbled to the couch, sleeping downstairs because I wanted to leave the windows open for the fresh air. At about five I crawled upstairs and slept until close to eight. The hangover wasn’t horrible, so after a shower I returned to mulching until the rain started. We received a much-needed solid rain.
Today was a bit of a weird day at work, providing me an opportunity to practice not caring about work. More later. I’m really too wired to write much right now.

I’m on the office floor, near 10:30PM, right ear ringing. Yes, you read that correctly, my right ear is ringing. Maybe I have that Pete Townsend condition. I don’t know. About a month ago I tried to clean the wax from my ear and failed miserably. Now I don’t feel as if wax is keeping me from hearing, but I do feel like I can’t hear from my right ear. I find myself saying “what?” over and over again. I don’t want to go to the doctor, however, because I’ve been at the doctor way too much lately, and I feel like a spaz returning to his office so often. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.
Today was a decent day. I drove into work pretty early this morning (traffic on 43 again). I don’t trust many of my colleagues right now. I honestly feel like most of them are in this profession to create as safe and comfortable life for themselves as possible, and even the slightest change to their comfy lives is a threat. A colleague and I talked for a long time this morning. He and I agreed that the personal cost of leadership can outweigh the benefits of doing a good job. For example, I know that shared leadership is good leadership. I also know that shared leadership is not as effective when you don’t trust the people around you. And I don’t trust the people around me. I want to make a real difference with the undergrads next year.
Really, though, right now, I’d really like to think about work less. I don’t know how to do that. I guess I have to practice. Oh, I’ve ran about three miles, maybe a little less, both last night and tonight after the kids fell asleep. Now, I normally wouldn’t think of running at night. I’m more of a morning person. However, I was wired last night, and I didn’t want to sit around all wired, I wanted to clear my head, so on an impulse I threw on my mp3 player and hit the streets. I’m glad I made the decision to run. Last night the fog was rolling in off the lake, I could barely see ahead of me, and I felt like I was in a forest heading into the unknown. I liked the feeling. Good night.

I’m slipping a little, journalwise, but I’m not too badly out of sync. At the moment I’m on my second Corona, and slightly drunk, but I’m not feeling too badly. Today was long but not horrible. What a resounding vote of confidence, eh? N climbed on my head just after midnight, and as soon as I woke, I knew I was up. I thought about taking some melatonin, but I read somewhere that a side effect for some people on melatonin is depression, and I was feeling some of that, thank you very much, so instead I stayed up until about three answering emails and grading lesson plans. I suppose I fell asleep a bit closer to four then slept until seven. I hung out with the boys until they went to the school then, since I had been up all night grading, had a leisurely morning answering a few more emails and taking some phone calls. I also meditated on the front porch. I didn’t meditate for very long, just a few minutes, but I found myself considering a “peace beyond peace” concept that intrigues me. In the past I have considered peace to be the cessation of movement in a scenario where movement could only be paused, like a thumb in a dyke would pause water, but movement would return, relentlessly, probably sooner than later. Today, as I meditated, I considered a peace that’s beyond movement or the lack of movement. I need to develop the idea more, but it has promise. Of course, I was seriously pissed off at work later (thank God I have a cool dean or I would have been fired years ago), so apparently I can’t get to that peace as easily as I would like. Still, I managed to knock out a shitload of paperwork throughout the afternoon and put in about ten hours, all told, counting the middle of the night, I bet. Tomorrow I’m working on my dissertation, at least through the morning, and I should be caught up with just about everything by Friday afternoon.

After I arrived home, about five-thirty, we ate dinner (quesadillas) and played baseball in the back field. T’s hitting is coming along well. Some of the neighbor kids were out on the corner lawn, so we hung out for a while before I snuck inside. T was getting a bit bored, as the oldest, despite his attempts to babysit some of the youngest kids. He asked to go to the library, and I had to pick up ELO’s Greatest Hits from the reserve desk, so we drove downtown for a few minutes. After a brief cut through town we returned home. I answered emails (including one from my dean) and read the atlas with S. I focused on using the index today. Pretty high level skills for a kindergartener, I think, but he can handle it. He’s a smart kid. After that I snuck downstairs, opened a beer, and caught the last two innings of another mighty Brewers win. More tomorrow. Good night.

I feel like I haven’t written in the journal for a long time, although apparently only a few days have passed. Today was a good day. I woke early, by 5:30AM, after a decent night’s sleep, then played basketball and lifted weights. After that I hung out with the boys for a while before they left for school. I dug the lawn mower out of the garage and cut the grass for the first time this year. The yard isn’t anywhere close to presentable, but well, I guess we’re on our way. I had to fuck around with the edger for a while before I got the device running, but eventually that sucker worked as well. Oh, I also drove to Home Depot and bought new solar lights. I installed four along the side of the house and two near the front. They look great, a bright white glow as opposed to the previous lights’ (all of which are broken) yellow. I had planned on working on my dissertation’s last chapter, but my advisor didn’t reply to a couple of my questions until mid-afternoon, and what the hell, I’m mainly in the revision stage, so fuck it, I blew off the work for the day. A colleague and I conducted a conference call in the early afternoon before I graded some lesson plans. After the boys arrived home I ate dinner (pizza, but I didn’t scarf as much as usual) while they played with some friends out back. Since nothing much was happening I drove my bike over to the bike shop for a tune-up. Later M and I watched “Scrubs” and earlier we watched “The Office”. Oh, N and I read books together while I let the older boys stay up to watch some high school musical special concert on Disney. N and I had fun. His learning is coming along well, too. Tonight he read off the letters in “not” and asked what they spelled. Nice work. I was pissed off, after the other boys were asleep, because I can’t find my copy of “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”. Where the fuck is it? I’ve been losing things a lot lately. I’m not sure why.
James sent an email earlier in the week with a message, simply put, that “Your friends at work are not your friends”. I find this concept intriguing and promising. I’ve been working (pun intended) hard to separate myself from work while I’m at home. I’m not checking email as often. A colleague of mine also worked through a graphic through which I can decide, consciously, to make other’s opinions less important. I’m practicing. It’s working. Now, I have one, maybe two good friends at work, but other than that, no, those people aren’t important. I also understand that I have what a friend and I call the “sweet deal” at my job, e.g. I can take Fridays off with impunity, but none of that matters if I’m not happy or I’m over-invested. I worry about quitting, though, because the education field is so tight. I’d hate to move my children, since they’re doing so well in their schools at the moment, and my wife seems happy here. If I can reframe work as less important then I won’t need to worry about that as much. See what I mean? I’m not interested in looking back at my life in thirty years and thinking I worked a lot.
Ok, this should be a good weekend. More later. Good night.

I’m up early, very early, for the second day in a row. Well, actually, no, let me take that back, I was up late last night, as opposed to up early this morning. I’m not sure why I woke just before two and couldn’t get back to sleep. I needed the rest. Last night a significant storm rolled in at about eight. T crashed next to me, claiming he didn’t like thunder and lightning, although this was the first I heard of that potential fear. I didn’t mind. We chatted for a while before falling asleep. I woke for no apparent reason, a few hours later, and couldn’t get back to sleep. I considered going into work very early, but I opted against that plan, hoping I would fall asleep again by three or four. No dice. Another huge storm is due, well, right this minute, actually, according to the weather report. I can see lightning from the west as I write. Maybe I’ll stand on the front porch and watch a bit.
Ok, five bullet post:

1. I want to buy a sleeping bag. I realize a sleeping bag is a somewhat frivolous purchase, as I have not camped since I dropped acid at a Grateful Dead concert in I’m going to say 1988 or so. I could use the sleeping bag on the front porch, though, in the summer. They’re not that expensive. We’ll see.


2. I’m still cruising along with Murakami’s “Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”. This might be one of the most important books I’ve ever read. I worked through a remarkable passage last night that equated the main character’s sitting in the well with going deeper inside his soul. Brilliant.

3. I’ve jogged the last three days, just through the alleys and sidewalks in the immediate neighborhood. I don’t go fast or particularly far, and I’m only out for about thirty minutes, but the exercise has been beneficial. I run a bit and jog a bit, run a bit and jog a bit, rotating the downhill route east and the uphill route west. I thought about jogging this morning, but I’m taking the day off due to rain and exhaustion.

4. I’ve been listening to Camera Obscura, Sparklehorse, and Magnetic Fields. I also downloaded some Cardigans last night.

5. Huge thunder…better turn off the computer. More later.