Sunday, June 15, 2003

Everybody's Clean When They Eat at My House

So, food. And visitors. I haven't had much of either recently, but I would welcome them.

Every summer, I start to get excited about food again. The farmers' market helps. The excess free time helps. The warm weather doesn't help, but I seem to end up baking more anyway.

Also every summer, I start trying to convince people they should visit me, travel with me, or do things involving me exhibiting my hospitality. I don't know why, but the prospect of visitors is exciting. Even if the reality is stressful and I am not always entirely sure what to do with all my guests.

So I talk to people and blather for a long time about all the fun we'd have and how we'd do all this cool stuff if only they would take a weekend or so and visit. And they agree that it would be fun and then don't visit. Because travel is a hassle. I know, or I'd travel more, too.

I traveled some last summer. I flew into San Jose twice, once in June and once in September. It was fun. But I didn't do much else besides go to school and go to Olympia.

This summer, I have no travel plans. I don't have much money or time for such things. I'll go to the beach several times, I'm sure, and I might be able to weasel another trip to somewhere nearby, but beyond that, my calendar is full of work, class, and jury duty.

Oh. Yeah. Did I mention I've got federal jury duty in September? I've never had to serve before. I am not sure if I hope to get stuck in an interesting trial or be dismissed more. I think I hope for the latter. I think the jury system is kind of fucked up in a lot of ways, and juries make a lot of bad decisions, especially in non-criminal matters.

I'm here at work. I've been here half an hour. Five and a half hours to go.

We have been Chris-free at the house this weekend. It's kind of odd, I think. This is a very different living arrangement for me. It might be awhile before all the kinks are worked out.

Am I saying anything in here? No. I don't have anything to say. I need a writing project. I keep thinking in half-written paragraphs, parts of stories, fictionalizations in life that don't quite work out the way I'd like, but they're all gone before I can get them out. It's been like this for a long time.

Two years ago, I wanted a DV camera to capture the visual essence of my thoughts. I've since gotten over that, although recently I've been wishing I had a digital camera at my disposal. I see a lot of things. I also think a lot of things, but those seem even harder to capture than what I see. Words in my head can sound so great, so promising, and when I am at a place that pen and paper (or keyboard and computer) are handy, they falter.

I think I'd really like to be a documentary filmmaker. I just need to get started, you know, actually doing something. I want some technical expertise first; my ability to interview and explore a subject can be honed in journalistic writing. I just feel incapable of fully expressing the stories I see in words; I find them inadequate. Sometimes I am torn between fiction and nonfiction and how much crossover can be achieved before one veers into the realm of badness.

Something is always on my mind. Words are constantly flowing and ending up nowhere. When I'm asked what's on my mind, I can't even speak it. Sometimes I wonder if my mind speaks a non-English language and that in trying to release it, I lose something in translation.

I want to be someone who does something. Who and what is the great unknown.

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