sunny

kara and i spent about 6 hours today working together on some legal transcription. three kids testified, as did their mother, regarding a domestic violence situation. kara's boss is defending the husband, and he seems to have a decent case. the kids, aged 8, 6, and 6, were obviously coached prior to their testimonies, and not very thoroughly, and their mother showed herself to be not quite the brightest bulb. but it was fun for us, listening to the testimony and getting it all on paper (or, rather, the computer monitor). and it'll mean another couple hundred bucks for us, probably. a day pretty well spent.

and after that, we took a little walk in the evening and then watched the recent film about the little sparrow, edith piaf, la vie en rose, which i thought was quite good. the actress playing piaf as an adult, who i believe won an oscar for her performance, was indeed wonderful.

anyway. it's about 8 pm now, which totally means bedtime for us. i work tomorrow, and kara has to spend time working on the final for her current course at kaplan. other than that, not too much is going on here today. the cats are a little lonely upstairs and the dogs are generally well behaved. it's been a warm and sunny day in tacoma.

status quo

i'm still coughing. it's been 4 or 5 or 6 weeks now. kara says i should see my doctor, and i probably should. my throat doesn't really hurt, but sometimes during a coughing fit my sternum aches a bit. i'm going to spend the vast majority of this weekend in bed, i do believe.

i saw a new therapist the other day, on tuesday. she seems quite nice. of course, i suppose she's supposed to seem quite nice, and be someone i'm comfortable talking to. but so far it's good. we talked about a great deal of things in that first session - my career goals and ambitions (and lack thereof), my lack of discipline and decision-making skills, my writing, my wife, my father. i'm going back this coming monday, the 23rd, after work. i hope my insurance covers a good chunk of these sessions, as this woman is expensive.

of course, my problems seem rather tame and unimportant in the scheme of things. it's not as if i've suffered such a calamitous life. things are basically good. i have a good marriage and a job i usually like okay and that pays me just fine. i have a fixed-rate mortgage. i'm keeping up on my bills. i have not-insignificant credit card debt but i'm chipping away at that. i'm just a little freaky about a few little emotional things, and confused about some other things, that all. my problems, to me, feel very privileged. but still. things could always be better.

tomorrow is the transcription department's qa manager's last day on the job. as i believe i've said, she's the 3rd qa manager we've had in as many years. we can't seem to keep one happy enough to stay longer than a year. i've been thinking about applying for the position, but now, especially after talking with my therapist the other day, i'm considerably less sure that that's something i want. i don't think i'm really management material. at the moment i'm leaning toward maintaining my current position as a transcriptionist and working on my discipline as far as writing and exercising.

not happening

incidentally, the happening - with marky mark and zooey - which we saw on friday, just wasn't happening for us. we tried to like it. we wanted to like it. we like night. i've liked all his films, except for lady in the water, which wasn't awful but just really not up to his standards. but the happening just plain sucked. bad acting, bad writing. the story didn't come together. it was embarrasing.

i hate to say it, but i recommend staying away.

don and nadine

i pushed my way through this delillo in 2 days, which is quite fast for me. i liked it, i suppose in spite of myself, because i was frequently confused about which character was which - i eventually read it as if differentiating the characters didn't matter, and everyone in it was a sort or everyman or everywoman, suffering aftereffects of the 9/11 attacks.

since then, i started reading this gordimer, someone i haven't read in several years. the conservationist has long been a favorite novel of mine, and it's one of hers. this newer one, about an ecologist with thyroid cancer, quarantined because he's emitting radioactivity after his radiation treatment, is so far very beautiful in its style and tone. it also seems more a novel of ideas than of character or story, but sometimes those sorts of books i like a lot.

this is why i like writers like nicholas mosley. intellectual rather than emotional novelists. curious, perhaps, because that's not the sort of writing i'm interested in attempting myself. yet it's a genre i admire greatly.

it's high time i throw myself back into the fray of writing. i don't quite know what it is i'm waiting for any more.

not my doom

i have determined one more way i don't want to die. the bubonic plague. thanks, really, but no thanks. there are a few ways i can think of in which i wouldn't necessarily mind taking my leave of this life, but the old black death sure ain't one of them.

this morning i finished reading connie willis's doomsday book and it was excellent. a bit of time travel, a bit of medieval history, a bit of snow and rain, a bit of the academic life, a bit of influenza, and a bit of plague. jolly good fun, and set at christmastime to boot. her descriptions of the agonies of plague victims in the last chapters are almost too vivid, and the book was difficult to put down. i like her stuff a lot, especially this one and passage, which i read a few years back.

anyway. as of this morning i'm onto another doubtlessly cheery book, don delillo's contribution to the 9/11 subgenre, falling man.

years and crimes and help to come

it happens that may is a month of birthdays in my family (my sister, my aunt, my mom, and i were born in may), and june and july are for anniversaries. my parents hit the 42-year mark yesterday, so wild congratulations go out to them. their longevity is admirable, so i have to give them kudos. kara and i have made it to 6 years, as of last sunday. we'll celebrate tomorrow in our low-key way, seeing night's the happening (actually going out to a movie!) and having dinner, probably at the 6 olives (just a coincidence, those 6s). as the traditionally modern gift for 6 years of marriage is wood, i'm getting kara a nice piece of that. (ahem. no sexual innuendo intended.) otherwise i won't be more specific regarding that in this space right now, as i haven't actually given it to her yet. and my sister and her husband celebrate 14 years (i'm pretty sure) on july 1.

and hey - who says life here in tacoma isn't exciting? why, the very nudie bar kara and i (and a friend) patronized just last month has been in the news lately. it was raided by the feds on june 2, on charges including racketeering and prostitution. and in april, the month before we were there, unbeknownst to us, an alleged shooter was arrested on the site. okay, so fox's isn't technically in tacoma; it's in parkland, but still, it's real close. and we were there! how about that?

but that's not all! kara learned yesterday that this alleged shooter is now a client of her boss! her boss is going to defend the guy! kara has met several of her boss's clients, but it's probably not likely that she'll meet this particular one. he's in maximum security lockdown at the moment. still, it will be interesting if we get to hear his side of the story.

incidentally, she really likes her new job. she's getting along well with her boss, whose name is mike. the work is new and challenging and it does seem to suit her. so we're all very happy about that. and i did a little legal transcription for mike over the weekend and enjoyed that, though i haven't been paid for it yet.

alas, no prostitution was solicted from us while we were at fox's (nor were we racketeered), but we did see, back in a vip-looking area, a "dancer" bouncing up and down on the lap a client for an extremely long period of time. from our vantage point, sitting in our cheap chairs around a small round table, we could not tell if the sex was simulated or actual, but it did go on for a good while. the woman had stamina. another "dancer" (i use quotes because these women hardly danced while onstage) squatted before us at our table and chatted with us with some degree of enthusiasm about her work; i wonder if she was one of the prostitutes. none of us bought a lap dance or anything of the kind that evening, probably mostly because the women weren't all that alluring. i wonder if an illicit offer would have been made to me (or us). hm. food for thought.

incidentally, racketeering originally meant "organized conspiracy to commit extortion." now apparently its meaning is more complicated, but before today i didn't know what it meant at all. i just knew it was just something mobsters did.

and i'm not sure what kind of news this is, but i have my first appointment with a shrink next tuesday afternoon. we will discuss my anxiety, depression, social phobias, etc. actually i'm looking forward to this, because when i was in therapy before, good things came from it.

we have a nominee

hooray for the senator from illinois!

(here's a little article from salon. i like salon.)

i say: obama & richardson in 2008!

half-2009

june june june. the year is half done. astonishing. today i learned that our qa manager is leaving. she's only been there for a year. the department is having a hell of a time keeping someone in that position. i wonder if i'll apply for the job. i might just.

i'm not feeling enthusiastic about the biology class i signed up for last week. i'm not saying i'm not going to go through with it, because i haven't made a decision about that yet, but it's certainly a thought that's crossed my mind. i just don't know if i want the hassle.

i saw my doctor again on friday, as it'd been 3 weeks since i started prozac. i feel much better, but he suggested i return to counseling, due to my social phobias, and other things. i'm thinking about that too. i kind of liked being in counseling before, so i'll probably make that call.

otherwise, not too much is going on, other than time rushing by. i'm still coughing, and now kara is too.