Independence day in San Francisco and it's hot. Tyler doing? Woke up like its Monday meditated walked two corners away and got a paper, made breakfast and read. Laid on my bed and read. Got up and started writing (this). Feeling a little bit punky today, spoke with brother and sister who are in Mineral Point for the annual 4th of July race and parade, an event that my dad used to take us to as kids and in recent years my brother, who runs a lot, has been coming back to run the two mile version. Kind of like a ringer, but it doesn't exactly work out like that as he's taken second place to an 18 year old, maybe twenty now, for a number of years in a row.
It would be nice to be there though, instead of here, where my roots stretch no further than October of 2006. Recently a friend said to me: "There's no reason for you to be here [in San Fransico]." I agree. There is no reason for me to be here. Asides from work, teaching, I have no family here, not all that many friends, no car, no money, no in-roads into a particular community aside from where I teach, no connections, no etc. And not to be a boo bird, or a whiner, but when my colleagues skip town to shoot off illegal fireworks with their friends and families I get a little jealous and a little bummed out.
Then again maybe all this angst is actually a stack of student papers, and the thought of getting though them, so I can go watch the fireworks with a clear conscience. I could reframe the discussion of what my problem is, pretty radically, by getting on my bike and riding to the beach, like I did yesterday on my roommates borrowed bike (mine is in the shop), headphones and a sandwich (yesterday's big realization: if you get all the fixings on a sandwich it doesn't matter if you put meat on it). Lie out in the sun and doze, and read:
It would be nice to be there though, instead of here, where my roots stretch no further than October of 2006. Recently a friend said to me: "There's no reason for you to be here [in San Fransico]." I agree. There is no reason for me to be here. Asides from work, teaching, I have no family here, not all that many friends, no car, no money, no in-roads into a particular community aside from where I teach, no connections, no etc. And not to be a boo bird, or a whiner, but when my colleagues skip town to shoot off illegal fireworks with their friends and families I get a little jealous and a little bummed out.
Then again maybe all this angst is actually a stack of student papers, and the thought of getting though them, so I can go watch the fireworks with a clear conscience. I could reframe the discussion of what my problem is, pretty radically, by getting on my bike and riding to the beach, like I did yesterday on my roommates borrowed bike (mine is in the shop), headphones and a sandwich (yesterday's big realization: if you get all the fixings on a sandwich it doesn't matter if you put meat on it). Lie out in the sun and doze, and read:
In almost any experience there's usually a little agony and usually a little pleasure, and the problem is happiness is something else...containing both pleasure and agony, a state that accepts and encompasses and transforms the whole range of experience, and when I called Jane the following afternoon, happiness was what I thought I wanted.____________________________-John Haskell from "Out of My Skin"
