At my desk

Today I checked out the Collected Stories of Wallace Stegner from the library. I also have with me a grammar review book of Spanish because my Spanish grammar is terrible. My English grammar isn't too hot either. It's a problem. I read the introduction to the Wallace Stegner book and I shuffled through the grammar book. But I can't seem to dedicate my attention to either of them. It is 2:36pm. Work is slo-o-o-w. Other than the occasional lost student or mail service employee, no one is coming in the office. There's a spreadsheet on the right side of my desk. It is striped with pale green. When I look at it for even a second or two, it starts to blur. I can hear the shrill, pre-adolescent cheers and conversations of the masses involved in summer sports camps. I got a drink from the water fountain a few minutes ago to keep myself awake. It would be fair to say that I've hit the afternoon slump.

I would like to lie in a hammock in the shade and sip cold, not-too-sour lemonade from a straw and take a long, lazy nap. Instead I will try to stay awake for 2.25 more hours. Then I'll walk home and put some rice in the rice cooker. Then I'll clean. People are coming over tonight. Jake is coming for dinner, and Lance and Andrea and possibly (hopefully/probably) Katie and Bryan are coming over to play games afterward.

I like playing games. I also like having a clean house. So, I guess I'm really getting what I want. Except the whole part about having 2.25 hours of dullness before me. I still want the hammock and the lemonade.

"If art is a by-product of living, and I believe it is, then I want my own efforts to stay as close to earth and human experience as possible--and the only earth I know is the one I have lived on, the only human experience I am at all sure of is my own." -W.S.