Have you ever looked inside your keyboard? It's disgusting. It's like a whole miniature version of me has fallen away, particle by particle, waiting to be reconstituted from its innards.

Well, then…thanks Jordan for that.

Yesterday Erik and my mom and I took a walk at the illustrious Shollenberger Park which has become our favorite place to walk (sans Mom usually; this was her first time). The salt ponds were low and drying up with the August heat, the birds hanging out on the river instead of clustering happily in crowds. But it was still lovely. Near the end of the walk Erik suggested we peel off (mom and I) to take the extended river walk, another half mile, and he would walk to the car and drive around to the end and pick me up. When we got to the end, he was red in the face. Turns out some jerk smashed in our car window (driver's side). Rotten luck! Nothing was taken except for a pack of batteries in the glovebox. The hood had been popped and we think he might have been about to hotwire the sucker…(is that a real term??). Erik talked to a guy on a bike wearing a heavy black coat in the heat, but didn't force the guy to empty his pockets. At any rate, Erik is livid, but I find it interesting that he had an instinct to get back to the car. Perhaps the vandal would have taken the car otherwise.

That stunk majorly. We are cash poor at the present, and this was not good news on the heels of Erik's other not good news, in which he was juked out of hours by his pre-doctoral internship.

But mom made us burgers and for the first time in ages I don't have Sunday night anxiety I'm really not sure why, except that I think it might have to do with the interview for the Reporter position at the Argus on Tuesday. Maybe just the thought of getting to put down the chaos of SEC, of not having to be the one carrying the burden of trying to save it somehow lightens my load. And the idea of working in my community, at what I love, not commuting and generally writing for a living really gets me excited. I know better than to think I have it in the bag, and I know better than to jeopardize my job at SEC over the promise of this, but it sure makes me feel happy when I think about it, not anxious.

However I had the worst case of insomnia ever. I think I stayed awake until 1am. And I rose at 6 am still and I will pay for that today. Though I will likely be exhausted by evening and that will be good. Because I'll need my sleep tonight.

What keeps me up at night? Oh, just my entire writing career. I start envisioning all the things I want to come to fruition, and the ways in which they aren't, and the plans to make them, and I pretty well go a little bonkers. My nighttime herbs didn't even help (yes, legal herbs!).

So there you have it. To be a writer one must be persistent, stubborn, poor and insomniac.

JR