the thinking game.

Since the weather is going to hang out in the 90s this week, and since the humidity will be that wet, sticky mess--as though the state is one giant locker room--I've decided to start my four-miles-a-day running routine. Eating whatever I've wanted all summer hasn't gone so well in losing weight, really. 3 miles a day gave me great calves, though.

But wouldn't it be great if I'd had this idea any other week of the summer? Those weeks of 60s and 70s and gentle breeze? That's not how life works, though. The best ideas come at the least opportune times. How many poems I've written while in that lucid stage between sleep and awake, poems that are forgotten by the next morning.

Well, I'm crabby today. I got my haircut yesterday and the woman thought I was in high school. And it's my fault: I went with my mom and let her pay for it. I'm waiting for the government to send me the money they owe so I can buy school supplies. This house stinks. I sleep too much and watch too much TV and I have no desire to prep anything for school. All summer, I just look at apartments I might get when I finally move to Hutchinson. They're more expensive than they should be. I asked my mom to go car shopping with me next weekend, and she responded with YOUR STUDENT LOANS ARE GOING TO BE $600 A MONTH! and now I can't stop freaking out about money, again, even though she really has no real source for any of this information.

I just want all of my fucking stuff in one fucking place. That's all I want. I would like to sleep in my own bed, please. I would like a car that doesn't drain itself of power steering fluid every five hours and sound like it makes whale sounds when I turn the wheel. Summer, summer, summer, please, please end.

Tomorrow I go to Hutchinson to take a couple of prep courses--for technology I can use in the classroom. They pay me to come. Not much, but they do. It will technically be the first time I've earned my own money since May 2008. That's 15 months. If you've been wondering how someone could be so broke, that's why. If you're wondering why someone would give up any sort of living to go to school, to get a teaching license, to work fulltime for free, all I can tell you is I'd still do it again. I'd do it so again.

And without money all I've been able to do is think about things. I just think, and think, and think all fucking day, and never, ever do. I think about what I'll do when the time comes to do something. Think about it, stress about it, sleep so I stop thinking for awhile. What will I buy when I finally get to go grocery shopping? What clothes will I give away and replace? What will I buy for my classroom? What will I wear the first day of school? What will I say in my introduction to all the teachers in this district? Where will I live? What will I drive? How much can I afford, and when does my pay start? What will I bring for lunch everyday? Will I have to eat in the teacher's lounge? Does Hutchinson have a bell that rings, or a long-note tone?

I want to wake up and I want it to be October.

*

On the lighter side of things, my good friend Lance is now a husband and a father, the father part of him known as: Papa Lance. His "wedding of the century" was one hell of a party, full of nostalgia from Winona undergraduate days. The pushing reminder that I most certainly do not see Lance enough, which is ridiculous. Certainly the most fun I've ever, ever had in Fargo. It just feels so good to see friends so happy. Lance is married! And years ago, he was just a swinging bachelor with a hammock in his living room.