Journal of a Sabbatical

July 27, 1999

if it's so much cooler, how come i'm still hot? and how did i forget the coffee?

Today's Starting Pitcher: Bret Saberhagen

Today's Reading: Living on the Wind by Scott Weidensaul, American Nature Writing 1999

I forgot to drink coffee today. All day I wondered why I had a headache. I was so busy doing errands and cleaning house before breakfast that I forgot about breakfast and segued right into lunch.

The big scheduled event of the day was lunch at the Kendall Square Bertucci's with La Madre, Billy, and Thomas. For a lot of families, that would constitute a full-fledged family gathering. For us, it's not even a quorum.

I was spacy all through lunch, partly from lack of caffeine and partly from allergies. My ears clogged up again on the drive to La Madre's house. This is starting to drive me crazy. The clogged ears and spaciness made it a little difficult to carry on a conversation. I felt sort of disconnected.

The heat is making me nuts too. It's supposedly cooler today but I still feel hot and sweaty even in my air conditioned bedroom. I worked up a real drenching sweat just hauling my suitcase out of the closet.

Said suitcase has a rip in it from the Hokkaido trip, which I had forgotten about. I figure if I just put duct tape on both sides of the hole, it'll be fine. I suppose I should buy hard-sided luggage but I just never get to it. Nancy and I pass the Samsonite factory outlet on the way to our favorite haunts in Bristol, so you'd think it would be a simple matter to just stop and buy a new suitcase. I just never think of it when we're in the vicinity.

And of course, all my underwear has decided to self-destruct just as I'm packing for the trip. I pulled three bras out of the drawer and every one of them had a huge hole in it that wasn't there last week. Grrr. Add underwear to shopping list along with film, extra battery for the digital camera, and electrical adapter.

Well, it's too late to go shopping and way too late to make myself some coffee if I'm going to get any sleep, so I'll just have to put this all off 'til tomorrow.