I. My ride to work likes to listen to the Christian station in the morning, which plays a ton of (endlessly repetitive and repeated) CCM. I’ve gone through a few different stages in my struggle to deal with this. First, it was annoyance, then denial (changing some words of the songs to other, more amusing words), then finally to analysis. A lot of these songs do have positive ethical messages, but are invariably spoiled by attributing all positive characteristics to God. It’s a mash-up of institutionalized low self-esteem and high-nose snobbery, with a good dose of the pedestrian. Also, musically speaking, utterly boring.

II. My ride has this annoying habit of not setting off the motion sensor when he arrives to pick me up in the morning. Every other car that enters the driveway sets off the chime with no problems. Additionally, he always parks himself in a spot where it is impossible to see him without going outside and walking around the corner. As a result, I am constantly paranoid about whether he is outside waiting for me. I can sometimes hear the engine of his car if I open the door and listen, but it’s not reliable. On the one hand, I am looking forward to moving to Portland where I will have to find someone else to carpool with. On the other hand, well, the devil you know, you know?

III. My favorite work sweater has developed holes in the elbows. The yarn is not exactly sturdy to begin with, so it’ll be a bit of work to weave a supporting matrix around and through the hole. After I do that, I’ll apply either leather or cloth patches to reinforce the pressure points to avoid recurrence. For now, it’s hanging over the back of my guest chair and I’ve resorted to wearing a series of backup sweaters, none of which quite satisfy. On a related note, it may be “summer” outside, but it’s colder than ever in here.

IV. I found this neat site yesterday, which co-worker J insists he told me about months ago: ExRx.

V. I’ve bought my Burning Man tickets. I’m really excited.

VI. We’ll probably be moving July 1.

VII. I’ve been completely tired lately, wanting to go to bed by 8. If I give in, I wake up at 4. WTF?

VIII. I’m re-reading Alan Dean Foster’s Spellsinger, which was one of the first fantasy novels I ever read. It turns out that it completely sucks, but I want to stick it out to the end. On the one hand, I don’t typically go around ruining good childhood memories with inconvenient reality, but on the other hand it bugs me to have wrong information about things, especially about whether a book that I read was *good* or *bad*. On the other hand, I’m not going to re-read Clan of the Cave Bear.

Tags: mishmash, carpooling, burning man, reading, moving, exercise