paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- hotter than a stucco bathtub Families say strange things. In my family when the lake where my grandparents lived was choppy from boat traffic we said it was rougher than a stucco bathtub. And because it is the heat of summer, the last hurrah before school that I associate most with lake life, I think of heat. And so for some reason I say "it's hotter than a stucco bathtub" and it is completely meaningless and without even a lick of wisdom. But it so expresses how I feel about the end of August. Quinn is outside working on a piece of stained glass. I have done nothing but read all morning. For some reason, I feel guilty about reading, as though I should not do it unless the house and grounds are spotless. This is not something Quinn imposes, I should mention, because she is also a big reader and shares this same tendency. That said, really just a quick update before I get to dealing with the piles of the week. Work has been completely ridiculous as usual. The other day began with the community liaison crying in my office and ended with the community liaison doing a funny interpretive dance exploring the difficulties of working with administration and faculty in a higher ed setting. Moving through this wild range of emotions and intensity at work can be weirdly tiring. At the same time, I�ve been enjoying less stress and torment around the office simply because I�m too busy to care and our office is drowning and we all know it. No time to play games, we have to just keep bailing. Unlikely allies united in an imagined crisis � this may be the new wave of work trends. Nothing outside wants to grow this year and everything looks as though it is being intentionally neglected. Our neighbor across the street asked us why we were killing our plants. It hurt, because we�ve both been dragging the hose around, trying to overcome the big, hideous drought with no water pressure and really long hose, all the while swatting at bugs. Seems so different from the garden oasis of just a few weeks ago, where we were so proud over how much work we�d done outside and how things were just beginning to click. I don�t think we are prepared for what needs to be done in our yard. Without a driveway, big yard changes become difficult � how can we get a big load of soil delivered, for example? Or a big load of bricks to just pave the whole mess over and create an oven effect? But I�m feeling really guilty for having this nice house that needs to have some drastic soil transformation, or something, and feeling like it is all beyond my grasp. Seriously, for my birthday, I got a set of nice hand garden tools. It felt a bit like deodorant in a stocking might feel. Should I read less and work on the house more? I�m back to this instilled guilt � reading as reward for taking care things. The irony is that reading takes care of my mind. It helps me get up out of these little things over which I could obsess and think about issues outside of myself. Sometimes when the summer gets blistering hot like this without relief, the AC cannot keep up and life is hot and humid, only reading can lift me up. The question I asked Quinn the other day � when is the best time for reading a thick novel � the dead of winter or the dead of summer? 1:34 p.m. - 2003-08-16 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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