Three Things I've realized about the novel:
Ok, except for the next couple weeks of getting settled and moved in and finding jobs and other such preschool nonsense, summer is over.
I spent the majority of today packing my stuff up (which actually translates into watching a lot of Olympics, getting breakfast, and reasoning myself into sitting some more) and moving it out to the garage. It's now sitting in a meager pile waiting to be loaded onto a trailer and moved to Ann Arbor tomorrow. I'm not sure of what stuff I'm going to need, of what stuff my roommate's have, if my roommates are cool, or even if they are crazy axe murderers and I am only days away from a bloody gruesome worthy of Saw VII death. I just keep telling myself something my dad always says to me.
He likes to tell me, "Nathan, you have the ability to fall into shit and come up smelling like roses." I like to believe that's true, and I like to hope that things are going to work out (because they do always have a tendency to do just that) but it doesn't stop that slight niggling doubt in the back of my mind.
I've decided to fight it by being efficient in my first few days in town. Move in tomorrow and also catch a Men's Soccer game in Ypsi, and then Sunday and Monday start aggressive job hunting/finding loans for school. I've also decided above all else that I am going to put myself into a very aggressive exercise/weight training program. As a UM student I've got access to world class weight facilities, pools, and running paths. Just to see what I can do, I'm going to have my dad take a picture of me tomorrow, and then again in May so I can see the progress of a year. It's something to do, and another goal to shoot for.
Speaking of goals I was looking at an earlier post where I was laying out my plans for summer writing domination. And I'm ashamed to say it hasn't panned out even remotely at all like my original intentions. The only thing I actually finished was one short story, edited and almost ready to go. SO this fall, if my load doesn't prove too daunting (great little caveat I can use as an excuse), I am going to ramp up my writing productivity.
And on that note I've got to crash because I still have so much work to do tomorrow. Pack clothes, load trailer, disassemble Xbox, drive to Ann Arbor and unpack everything... Just remember, I fall into shit and smell like roses.
I'm about a week and a half into my job at McAlister's, and it has confirmed for me, once and for all, that I am not meant to be in the food service industry. Especially in the food service industry that is fast. So on that note, tomorrow I am heading down to Ann Arbor to apply for a job at the Ann Arbor District Library. We shall see how it goes.
The temperature has been wonky in ways that make me look at all the people who deny the existence of global warming like they're telling me that green tinted poodles are falling from the sky. It was a balmy and humid 75 for the past couple weeks, and then just over the last couple of days it skyrocketed into the upper 80s lower 90s. Then tonight we got hit with heavy and hard storms and lightning like so many camera bulbs.
It's funny because right now I'm reading my way through Kim Stanley Robinson's Science in the Capitol Trilogy. I'm at the very end of 40 Signs of Rain, and the characters are going through much the same weather fiasco that we're facing. It's not great fiction, per se, but it's a wonderful medium for his theories on how to best restructure the government to be more apt to face these looming crises.
Next Friday I'm going up to my cottage for our yearly week long vacation. I can't stress enough how excited I am to get away and get to write and run and eat hobo pies and sit in the sun, and generally just decompress one last time before diving in to grad school.