Summer Doldrums, Over and Over

I started today by failing to kill a mosquito. A sitting duck on the bathroom wall. I slapped at it with my flip-flop, then flailed in anger as it floated away. Two minutes later, it bit my ankle while I brushed my teeth. Spiteful bastard.

I've been traveling all summer. Like, non-stop. First, NYC for PPPCon. Boston. Then Buffalo, to drive to Chicago for brother's commencement. I enjoyed the drive. Always loved driving west on the 90. Always felt like an adventure, a new undertaking -- Go west, young man, and all that. Towards Chicago, City of Industry. This time it felt solidly like a return, which was interesting. Took 10 hours, as usual. We entered Indiana around 5pm, and spent the next few hours eagerly exiting it. The state of Indiana obliged by allowing us to legally drive 5 miles faster per hour, which was thoughtful. Soon enough, the smokestack-skyline of Gary, Indiana loomed before me. We were done. I was back.

It was fun to drive through Chicago again. I love cities planned on grids. My parents have a thorough distaste for city driving, so I was given free reign to drive us all over the place. Evanston, Lincoln Square, Streeterville, the Loop. I took the parentals out on the museum campus one clear night for a photo-op:

Lovely trip. More thoughts on the Midwest, and the theme of Returning, later, perhaps.

(I've fallen in love with commas, a bit. The hesitation, the halting, waffling, a step, forward, back, so on, so forth. It suits my state of mind this summer. It's all crap.)

Long story short: after Chicago, Knoxville for a week. Boston. Then Santa Barbara for three weeks. I'm currently wrapping up my three week stability-grounding phase in Cambridge, soon bound for Buffalo, Cleveland, and finally Yosemite. FINALLY, COMMA, YOSEMITE. To be honest, I am eager to be on the other side of August. Perhaps when the new school year starts, I will regain my inherent stylistic distaste for hesitation, and commas, and waffling, and return to straight, direct prose. Here's hoping.

-R.