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All this talk of autumn and search for changing leaves sent back to my archives and a little over a year ago when I wrote a short poem about all of this. It hasn’t been that cold yet this year, but we’ve definitely put summer behind us. For whatever reason, perhaps inspired by Margaret or perhaps just looking for an excuse to use a microphone that usually just sits there gathering dust, I recorded my poem. I don’t know yet if that was a good idea, but if for some reason you’re desperate to know what I sound like (and don’t already), now is your chance.

Some photographs for my friend Sharon, who wishes to experience autumn vicariously through others. It’s been surprisingly difficult to find trees whose leaves are changing, and I can only promise that other places will be visited and more photographs will follow. There’s also this one, which I happen to like quite a bit, and which I’ve just submitted to the Mirror Project. Brownie points to anyone who recognizes the painting.

And, would you look at at that? It was just accepted by the Mirror Project. Thanks, Heather!

Of course, there I give away what I’m reflected in.

I dreamt last night that I had an infant son who either was, or was mistaken for, a large ball of yarn. It doesn’t make much sense, or sound particularly interesting, I know, but…

I’m not exactly sure why I’m even sharing it, except that every now and then one has a dream that one feels the need to remember, even as the details of it fade and fall away — perhaps because the details of it are fading away. Last night’s was that kind of dream. It’s strange how much it unsettled me this morning; I awoke with a genuine sense of loss for a son that wasn’t real and that I will never have. Even now, two hours later, it has stuck with me, and I’m writing about it even though I am at a loss to understand or explain it.

Dreams are very, very odd.

Too many things to do, too little incentive to do them. Do I:

  • revise my boss’ CV, parts of which haven’t been substantially updated since 1999, and which I may not have all the necessary information to properly update now?
  • finish drafting a biographical sketch of my boss for his upcoming performance review, even though I may not have enough information to substantially alter that either?
  • fill out close to seventy-five US Mail customs forms so that I can prepare over one hundred books for shipping, no small feat when they all need to be put in separate envelopes going to different addresses, I have only two hands, and it’s raining?
  • finish scanning the program manual that will not scan and whose equation-filled tables I have been slowly recreating piece by piece, going half-blind, half-mad in the process?
  • sign up for any number of professional development programs, including “Telephone Skills that Will ‘WOW’ Your Customers” and “What a Team, You and Your Supervisor”, just because I received a flyer and because it will get me out of the office?
  • go to Kinko’s to pick up the copies that will be mailed with the books?
  • bitch and moan about the work I have to do, how none of its particularly difficult, but how it all piles up and gets on my nerves?

I think it’s pretty obvious which one I chose. The books are going to have to wait. I don’t want to do this in the rain, and the customs forms are going to take quite some time to fill out. I know I said it feels like Thursday, but doesn’t the universe know it’s Friday? Why do I have all this work now?

It feels like Thursday, but, then again, I didn’t come to work on Monday so that’s thrown my whole week out of whack. Nevertheless, it’s time again for the Friday Five:

1. What are your favorite ways to relax and unwind? I caption, I read, I act silly with the Penn State Monty Python Society, I hide the bodies of people who get in my way and cause me stress. Just kidding.

2. What do you do the moment you get home from work/school/errands? Turn on my computer, change into something more comfortable, decide what I’m going to have for dinner.

3. What are your favorite aromatherapeutic smells? I have no idea.

4. Do you feel more relaxed with a group of friends or hanging out by yourself? I feel more relaxed by myself, but that’s boring and lonely.

5. What is something that you feel is relaxing but most people don’t? Captioning, reading, acting silly with the Monty Python Society, making lame jokes about hiding dead bodies. You know, that sort of thing.