the block is hot

If the bedroom temperature is kept warmer, than the dog usually stays on the ground and my bedmate usually stays on her side of the bed. But it doesn't matter because I'm usually lying there awake, unable to sleep in the 'heat' (even if the air conditioner is on, just not on full blast). However, when I have it cranked up, plus a box fan going to aid in circulation, I have two bodies, one with two legs & one with four, pressed up next to me for the entire 8 hour duration. When I finally wake up and get out of bed, I feel like I've just been released from a hostage situation, and I finally have the ability to freely move my arms and stretch my back out flat and extend my knees. I feel skittish and suspicious and unwilling to be touched, even by clothes or the wall -- I probably had all night dreams of solitary confinement and strait jackets.

Tonight I might sleep on the futon.

I used to care, but things have changed.

A worried man with a worried mind

My horoscope for the week informed me that money’s tighter than Rah Digga and now’s the time to make those financial changes. Remember that goal to procure a DJ gig by the end of the summer? Well, the interns are heading home in a couple weeks, which means summer is almost over. At least in terms of the Snoopy back-to-school flag hanging outside of the houses. For some reason, I hate summer.

This place ain't doing me any good

I’m not sure why I hate summer. I never go into the season hating it, even though it’s filled with many things I hate like heat and humidity and large-scale sporting events and crowds and patriotic holidays. There plenty of nice things about summer that almost counteract all the negative associations. But what really ruins summer for me is my bright-eyed optimism in the beginning with my high ambitions to complete certain tasks and projects that never seem to happen.

I've been trying to get as far away from myself as I can

The same way that New Year’s resolutions get formed in a vacuum, only to die once the real air hits them, my summer plans always get pre-empted by other people’s plans or my own lazyness – usually because I keep telling myself “I have the whole summer”. It’s this 3-month block of time where nothing is happening, in my head. The same thinking I had in school. My parents rarely forced me to take on time-consuming work projects – I usually babysat enough to pay my own bills (i.e. all spending money and anything not related to room and board) and did random volunteer projects on the side and attended church youth group trips. But I’d always have high ambitions with my free time: “this summer I will become fluent in French” or “this summer I will exercise 5 times a week and lose weight” or “this summer I will learn to play tennis”. I did actually achieve the latter goal, but it was purely by accident. Or rather, it was my best friend’s ambition rather than my own, but I went along with it and ended up learning how to play despite myself.

Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet

I’m not exactly a starry-eyed dreamer of the Kenny Rogers/ Kim Carnes songwriting variety, but my brain has always been bigger than my commitment. This is not to say I’ve been some life-failure who’s never been able to finish a project – it’s just that I always plan on finishing about 15 projects, but only two get done, which is about average with my fellow human, and sometimes even above average, depending on the projects and in what time period they were happening. The accomplishments of my youth don’t bring as much attention and positive reinforcement these days.

I hurt easy, I just don't show it You can hurt someone and not even know it

I’m always my toughest critic, of course. At least that’s what I thought until I became ‘estranged’ from the parents. I don’t think any of my accomplishments would impress them, at least not in a way they would show me. I’m not saying this in a ‘poor me’ sort of way - it’s more that I’m realizing how much this is shaping my relationship with them. Obviously I care about what they think of me, but I don’t really make any effort to make them like me anymore. It just doesn’t seem worth it.

I'm love with a woman who don't even appeal to me

So now I’m more concerned this is starting to rub off on myself. My typical end-of-summer letdown might drop me into a rut, where I don’t even try hard to appease my inner critic, because why bother? Eh, I’m not really feeling this negative or cynical. But I am feeling this tired.

I used to care, but things have changed

Which is why I really need to make some progress very soon, before my music slips into the closet of another unfinished hobby. It’s not a hobby. It’s my life, my soon-to-be career. I need to treat it as such and not let it get pushed to the backburner. My life is like the summer – there IS a lot of time available to me, huge stretches and blocks of it. I just need to stop wasting it.

lots and lots of typing

I never realized how overly verbose I get online when cranky. Apparently I need to simma down.

I'm really a nice guy. Really.