duck-shaped pain

No wonder all I want to do right now is watch TV and hide under a blanket. The 102-degree weather has made the latter less attractive in practice than it sounds, though. There's been a serious lack of hours at my job, which is just my luck. I got a decent raise a few weeks ago. I had been planning to ask for this raise for some time, but then The Employer just sort of announced one day that I would be getting a raise, saving me the trouble of having to justify my existence in some sort of overheated closed-door meeting. But, nothing comes without a price: to go along with the increase in money, there has been a steep decline in the amount of things to do. Oh well.

I could have been writing in here during all the free time I've had, but there are two issues involved. One, I just haven't felt like sharing much, what little there was to share. Plenty has happened: July has been the most social month I've had in some time. Z. was in town, plus, my younger cousin and his wife just moved back to town, and I have slowly been sucked into their social orbit, which consists of a lot of people I already know, but who I rarely see in the same place at the same time. But the whole framing of the things that happen in my life into some sort of narrative is what hasn't happened, at least not without a lot of effort or the sort of ephemeral inspiration that only happens when driving or some other sort of activity where writing is impossible. Then, when it comes time to write, all that comes out is lists. Things To Do. What I Need At The Store. Five Pairs of Shoes I Have My Eye On But Cannot Afford To Buy. The Same, Only With Jackets.

Second, what free time? Really.

I have to drive to Denver tomorrow with someone who I've never ridden in a car with anywhere (save the short distance from the bar to Borders) before, especially not for a four-hour drive. I'm not dreading this -- I can think of many, many people that I would hate to ride in a car with for any amount of time -- but at the same time, it will be odd. This person and I have in common things like school and drinking capacity and fretting over the future. What we do not have in common, at least as far as I know, is musical taste. I have no idea what hers is. She has no idea what mine is. I don't think this will be a problem, but I think it would be best to not pack what my friend S. would refer to as The Advanced Listening: nothing that is mainly clicking or beeping or screaming or recordings of the sound wind makes when it bounces off power lines. [1] Perhaps our rental car tomorrow will not have a CD player. I usually kick and scream (well, not audibly) whenever a rental cat is without one, but in this case, it might be a blessing. Sharing music can kill a nascent friendship like nothing else.

[1] I do not have these CDs, only selected tracks downloaded off the ether somewhere. But I wish I did have them.

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