Situation

Situation: 1. the way in which something is placed in relation to its surroundings b : site c archaic : locality... 5.relative position or combination of circumstances at a certain moment b : a critical, trying, or unusual state of affairs : problem c : a particular or striking complex of affairs at a stage in the action of a narrative or drama.

I have, as my previous post make clear, been considering my situation - in all senses of the word. The effect, on reading back over it, is like a broken record. But today, we consider geography.

I have been poking around Craig's List looking randomly at apartment listings in different cities : Seattle, St. Louis, San Francisco, Boston, etc. I want to move after graduation, even if it's just around this city, but I think it will be good for me obtain a new situation: in location, employment, and health. I have come again to the part of my mood cycle that is intrigued by the future, and excited rather than simply, wholly terrified of all the possibilities. I like this part.

I have broken off my diet, ordering a pizza last night and dinner with my grandparents tonight. I'm taking a week off, and then I want to start cooking for myself. Clean out and restock my fridge, start with some simple recipes, and go from there. I'm tired of putting crap, even diet crap, in my body. Part of improving my situation must be improving the care I take of myself. Groceries tomorrow!

Flexible

Flexible: characterized by a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements

I would like to be more flexible. To that end, I am starting to do some yoga at home and hope to work at least one class a week into my schedule. I would also like to ease up on my invectives against myself and my self-proclaimed cowardice. I would very much like to achieve some sort of calm, rather than a brittle equilibrium, and will work on my flexibility.

Pusillanimous

Pusillanimous: having or showing a shameful lack of courage

There's a challenge floating around online to live with only 100 personal possessions. It sounds marvelous. I feel so constantly weighted down with things and school and books for school and business attire and heavy, heavy things. I'm making a list tonight of the 100 things I would take if I could leave. And of course the "if I could" is a lie, since I choose every day to stay here.

I saw Eat, Pray, Love tonight with J. It was wonderful or awful, depending on how you look at it. If nothing else, it made me want to get in my car and drive away. I've had this urge before, getting stronger and stronger lately, but I'm too much of a weak coward to actually do it. If I could wake up one morning with the courage, I would just be gone. Take my hundred things and a full tank of gas and find out exactly how far I could get and see where I would end up.

I despise the voice in my head that reminds me that this is a cliche, that extent of the idea's unoriginality is as vast as the landscape into which I would escape if I could. I hate that nasty little voice because it's right: this is a cliche, the dream of a college kid younger than I am, the mundane abhorrence of materialism and capitalism and ism-ism and so on and so forth in a long and sustained war of attrition against whatever passes for a "hippie" these days, or a happy person, because the critics are all pusillanimous idiots who must resort to comforting themselves with their own jackassary. So there.

I am making a list of 100 things. I am starting with that. And I know that I will still be here in the morning and the great Something Else will still have to wait for me. But I am starting with this. I'm starting.

Captious

Captious: 1. marked by an often ill-natured inclination to stress faults and raise objections 2. calculated to confuse, entrap, or entangle in argument

There is something missing in my life, and it has nothing to do with my intellect. I have in the past been too cynical or too analytical or too something-twisted and captious to consider that I might require analysis and nourishment beyond the life of the mind. But the cynicism and the biting critique I have always favored are strong now.

I bought a translation of the Dhammapada, one of the fundamental Buddhist texts, and plan to do yoga with a friend. I want to start planning for a future where the captious voices in my head are muzzled and finally flee. I want I desire I need I strive... I am not yet a Buddhist. I don't even know if I'm trying to be one. But I want to go to sleep untroubled and wake feeling rested, after sleeping through the night. I don't remember what that's like, and I will try anything I can that will help me remember and experience it again. Eight hours in a row is surely an attainable goal.

Story

Story: an account of incidents or events b : a statement regarding the facts pertinent to a situation in question c : anecdote; especially : an amusing one

The weekend was amazing.

I have started listening to the podcast "This American Life." Everyone said it was amazing, and so of course I doubted them. But the great They was right, and it's fantastic. I especially like that it's broken into segments that are short enough for my commute to work.

I love stories. The form or genre is almost irrelevant, as long as the format does not interfere with the story itself. I want to be entertained to have related to me the events of other worlds and the feats of heroes. I can think my own thoughts - entertain me. I adore stories. I appreciate them, devour them, absorb them, regurgitate them. They sustain me.

I have a number of stories from this weekend, but they are not all mine to tell. Feed the veggie bears.

Hiatus

Hiatus: 2. an interruption in time or continuity

I am leaving tomorrow for my cousin's bachelorette weekend, and won't be posting until I get back. I love being other places but I generally don't like traveling. At least the flight from here to there is fairly easy, and I don't have a layover. Sometimes I wish I could take a long hiatus from "real life."

I was talking to a friend about Sleeping Beauty the other day, and explaining why it's one of my favorite Disney movies. First, I think she's the prettiest Disney Princess. Second, sometimes, I think it would be great to take a really long nap and wake up to find that everything has been fixed. Not all the time with every problem, but just a restful hiatus from...everything. I realize this might not be a particularly "feminist" position (though what does feminism really mean? I have no idea), but I also don't think it's a "weak little woman" idea. It's a tired person's idea.

So now I get a long weekend to hang out with a bunch of great women in a huge house we are renting for the occasion, withe no deadlines or schedules. A mini-hiatus, and a good start.

Malaise

Malaise: 2. a vague sense of mental or moral ill-being

Yesterday's word was "malaise" but I felt to icky to post it. August is HOT where I live. And humid. And it is, of course, the humidity that will kill you. Has anyone ever told you that? Of course they have. It's true. This was not helped by the fact that the air conditioning at work was broken. We left at 4 after a day of moving and thinking very, very slowly in the general malaise that is August.

I came home and had dinner and some cold white wine and felt better. I did not, in fact, go to Office Max and I didn't buy another book at Borders even though I had a 33% off coupon. Either my self-control is getting better or it's too damn hot even for consumerism. I'm hoping it's the self control. I think a heat that can conquer capitalism is one of the first signs of the apocalypse. Burn, baby, burn!

Conglomerate

Conglomerate: (v) 2. to gradually form into a layer, pile, or mass

I read a very interesting article recently about the backlash against the consumer-culture tendency to have crap conglomerate in our lives. The article was called "But Will It Make You Happy?" The "solution" is to spend money on leisure activities rather than physical things. I love this idea. I admit, I'm going to Office Max to get school supplies (one of the few great things about going back to school, which I have loved since Crayons were on my list), but I have to have notebooks and...well, yes, crap. But this isn't really an attempt to entertain myself. Cross my heart.

I love going to the movies with my friends, going out to dinner, etc. We rarely go shopping as entertainment. We stay in and have dinner parties. Experiences. My material thing weakness is books. I love buying book, having them, reading them, getting them from the library, and seeing them on my bookcases (note the plural - all full). When I move, which I plan to do after graduation, even if it's to a different part of this town, I am going to try to seriously limit what I take with me. Sometimes I fantasize about getting in my car with nothing but what will fit in the trunk and backseat and just...going.

I think for Christmas / my birthday, I want to ask for money to pay for a great vacation, one fabulous spring break for my last spring break ever. I'll have less stuff to move, and I would love to go somewhere warm, some all-inclusive resort where I can sit by a pool or the ocean and read a book and nice people will bring me drinks with little umbrellas in them. I think that experience would make me happy :)

Quotidian

Quotidian: 1 : occurring every day
2 a : belonging to each day : everyday b : commonplace, ordinary

I am riding out my quotidian routine until the end of the summer. I like the regularity, and the threat of classes and job searching and case books makes the mundane enjoyable rather than tedious.

I'm half way through The Secret of Lost Things, and if the story doesn't start soon, I may drop it. She's hinted at it but has spent most of her time describing an odd bookstore and the odd people who work there, in New York - the oddest city. Yes, very odd. Plot? It's not that I dislike it, but she keeps making suggestions without getting to the point. Something to do with Melville. Don't be a tease.

Almost finished with a draft at work - another round of edits and it may actually be ready to go in. Then the joy that is endnotes...

And now I'm tired, and I'm going to bed. It's nice be able to sleep when you're sleepy.

Somnolent

Somnolent: inclined to or heavy with sleep : drowsy b : sleepy

I can't seem to wake up this morning, which may have something to do with the fact that I couldn't seem to stay asleep last night. I went to the gym yesterday, so I thought I would be in for a good night sleep. I was exhausted, but I still woke up at 5am for no apparent reason. Finally went back to sleep for a couple hours, but it's still a somnolent morning after two cups of coffee. Maybe I'll nap this afternoon... I have to run some errands, but that would require going out, and my bed is right there...

I've been trying to read The Secret of Lost Things before bed, but I've been so tired that I have read the same page over and over. I'm going over to H's for a quiet afternoon, so maybe I'll be able to move on. There are errands I have to do today and things I should do, and the nap I want to take - maybe a Diet Coke will help. Nothing like chemicals to wake you up if you can't sleep!

Surcease

Surcease: (trans. v) to come to an end; to desist from action; cease
(intrans. v) to put to an end; discontinue
(n) cessation, esp. a temporary respite or end

In August comes surcease of summer - and the desire to rip off Edgar Allan Poe: "...vainly I had sought to borrow / from my books surcease of sorrow..." Although in this case, school starting isn't really a "surcease" from summer, in terms of being a respite. But alliteration is fun!

Classes start the last week of the month, and I'm traveling for several weekends (see previous post "Logistics"), so it isn't very restful. I've had a great summer with my work and the fact that a lot of my friends stayed in town. I don't wanna go back to school! Waaaahhhh! I'm such an adult...

Although, to be honest, I'm actually looking forward to my fall classes. They're mostly in the morning, which I think will be better than my all-afternoon schedule last semester. And this is the point where I'm still excited about the concept of the classes I'm taking, especially since I don't have to do the work and readings yet!

I've been reading a lot this summer, actually, between research for work and a project to read 52 books in a year - which isn't going well in terms of numbers, but has been fun. And summer movies and Netflix Watch Instantly.... I have successfully borrowed from my books (and movies) surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the loss of summer...

(My most sincere and profound apologies, Edgar. Won't happen again)

Logistics

Logistics: the handling of the details of an operation

Yesterday's (Friday's) word was "logistics" because that's what I was dealing with for a trip to Miami. Coordinating three people for a hotel reservation via email was a little complicated (and frustrating....and by a little, I mean a lot), but we are now all set for what I hope will be a nice room in a hotel in South Beach for the conference at the end of the month.

Not much going on at work in terms of logistics, because we're still in the lull after the primary. I want to do a big push Monday to finish the draft, though - I may even resort to going to the law school. Nothing like being there to feel pressured to get work done.

The day ended with Chinese food - delicious, delicious Chinese food that does not fit into my diet. But...it was Friday! H came over, and we watched The Men Who Stare at Goats. Very strange and hysterical and, I hope, based on a true story. Ask Angela Lansbury.

Quiescent

Quiescent: marked by inactivity or repose : tranquilly at rest

Post-election, my days have been quiescent. The political hoopla is over (until the run up to the election in November), and I'm almost done with a draft of the paper I'm working on for my boss. We had an early happy hour with mimosas today, since P was leaving this afternoon for a long weekend. I only had champagne, since I'm still doing the calorie-counting diet. Cutting out the orange juice makes it healthier. Definitely.

I like long, gently-moving days like this. There's nothing pressing I have to do when I get home today, though my apartment probably needs a cleaning. And the novel I'm reading needs reading. A quiet, quiescent slide into the end of the week...

Meritorious

Meritorious: deserving of honor or esteem

U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker's decision to overturn Proposition 8 is meritorious. The Proposition itself was not; it was unconstitutional.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/prop8-gay-marriage.html

I believe, as many people do, that this case will be appealed up to the Supreme Court, but the decision handed down today is a critical step toward advancing equality for gays and lesbians and strikes a well-deserved blow to a movement that would deny same-sex couples equal protection under the law. I'm too excited to blog more. Thank you, Judge Walker, and everyone who continues to fight for gay rights.

Elect

Elect (v): 1 : to select by vote for an office, position, or membership... 3. to choose (as a course of action) especially by preference

Yesterday's word was "elect," but I didn't have time to post because it was primary day for the state. I voted, unlike 88% of the population. Part of that is because I'm doing some work for a PAC this summer. Otherwise, to be honest, I may have been with the majority of citizens not at the polls. But I do love elections. Without getting to high school civics class about it, they are excellent opportunities to have a direct effect on the government, and make a choice - elect to vote, to have a say.

This is also why the group I'm working for the summer is pro-choice. There is no freedom without choice, and there is no freedom - certainly not equal to that of men - for women who cannot control their reproductive organs.

::climbs down from soap box::

I also like "elect" because it's secondary meaning, "to choose" (not just vote into office), is not as commonly used. I elect to use this word because I like it, and I like the ability to choose that it expresses.

Repercussions

Repercussion: an action or effect given or exerted in return : a reciprocal action or effect b : a widespread, indirect, or unforeseen effect of an act, action, or event —usually used in plural (Merriam-Webster)

Today's word reflects the effects of yesterday's dinner party and the full-body badness that resulted from the punch. Repercussive indeed. We poured champagne over the last of the rum punch. I did not get to work until 2pm. Cause, effect. Thank the Lords of Kobol for flexible hours. And for ginger ale.

Tomorrow is a primary, so I get to work the polls for a candidate in the morning. My shift starts at 6:30am. Is NOW too early to go to bed? Something somewhat longer and less too-much-last-night-today next time.

Comestibles

Comestible (n): food —usually used in plural

So, why not just say "food"? For starters, "food" is such a mundane word. Comestible can also mean "edible" - a two-for-one word, where "food" is just food. On the other hand, using comestibles in a sentence can sound highly snooty. It's like you're trying to be British a hundred years ago. How does one convince others that the use of big words stems from a genuine love of language and not pretension? Well, using "one" as a pronoun is probably a GREAT start...

Comestible is the word of the day because of Jerk Punch Night. My friend J is cooking dinner (jerk chicken and rum punch, hence the title) for The Group. He is a great cook, so I'm EXCITED. And starving. I'm doing a new calorie-counting diet program, and I can only eat 1,612 calories a day. I had to save up a lot for tonight, so I had a small breakfast and lunch. I also went to the gym. I didn't just have excellent intentions; I actually got off my ass and got dressed and went to the gym and burned 300 calories on the elliptical machine! Wooooo!!!

I adore comestibles, but being a gourmand (today's alternate word) is not conducive to weight loss. At least I've saved up enough calories for tonight - YUM!