I'm with you rain or shine.

It's noon and it's Saturday but it could be any day for me because I woke up at the same time and did the same amount of work in approximately the same proportion -- school, household, writing, etc. Somewhere in there I squeezed in an episode of ALIAS.

Last night I sang karaoke to the largest audience of strangers of my brief karaoke history. My last venture at Hidden Cove was a fairly big crowd, but half of them were my friends so it doesn't count the same. Last night was twice the size and and only a handful of friendly faces, but frankly I didn't really notice once I was up there singing "Don't Pull Your Love" and "Separate Lives", which the latter is hardly a duet since Phil Collins sings 80% of the words but vfc managed to make it work fine. I left after dancing to "don't leave me this way" even though I was having a great time but I was also exhausted and knew I had to get up early to work and if I'd stayed I might have molested 0595 even more. Wait, maybe that's a good thing.

Let's see, what happened before all that? This past week I had two phone interviews as well as phone tag conversations to set up in-person interview next week (in-house mentor in a transitional housing center for homeless youth: Tuesday; tutor for priviliged suburban kids taking standardized tests: Wednesday). I had my first meeting for my youth writing workshop this fall and converations about more planning meetings next week. My new writing group met for the first time, rather successfully, I'm happy to state. I thought about my family a lot and drafted a few e-mails and started a few phone conversations in my head, but in the end did nothing. I did lots of poetry translations but guess what? Next week is the final week of the class and the last assignment is to translate a paragraph of our own writing which fits in nicely with the writing I'm working on now for the packet I'm sending out early next week. I had dinner with someone who's moving away from Chicago and conversations about preparations for my best friend to follow. Oh, and I also got a notice yesterday morning that my research freelance gig which normally gets sent out on the 15th needed me to send out the packet yesterday, so that was my Friday, racing off to finish copies and haggle with librarians in special collections and finding drop-off boxes for international shipping.

I'm not making sense. Let's take a breath and focus. The perils of being a constant journaler and then taking a break and then not knowing when and how exactly to jump back in. The short version is that I'm busy. I'm completely preoccupied and stuck in my head, occasionally peeking out to be present in random conversations. I'm not unhappy. This evening I will go for a jog because I learned that while lifting weights is good for the morning, I run better in the late afternoon. I will go running in one of the free t-shirts from the racetrack that say Saratoga Race Course and I will place bets on myself about whether I'll win, place, or show. I'll come home and cut my hair and probably shave even though lately I'm extremely fond of my scruff and then I'll put on something hopefully dapper and go out to Spin. But before all that, I will eat lunch and watch more ALIAS with Lowenstein and do lots of reading.