The general state of things

The weather of each day is generally starting to improve; we've got upwards of 70 degree weather and all that snow that Mount Timpanogas was showing has already melted away--though it did take a week or so. I've got this glassy office window view, right there looking up at the mountain, but I'm all climate-controlled and barricaded by double-paned windows, and so it seems sort of alien to me to even look out there at all the cars passing by and flocks of women with their single, double, and triple joggers as they speedwalk right past me, right before my eyes, up the slight little hill and onto somewhere else. And I've got work to do. And writing to do. And I'm behind on all my schoolwork. And readings. I had to ask my fiction teacher--Dr. Bruce Jorgensen, an amazingly intellectual older man with a large head and these staring spells where he lectures while apparently studying the clock--for an extension for a story. It's just brief extension, only until tomorrow morning before 9 AM. I have this story idea about a tomato trucker and a deer, but I don't know if it will work.

I'm so self-centered lately--that is, I suppose I'm alway self-centered, but with school and work and all this stuff, I'm just beyond reach. It's so awful, coming home multiple nights each week where Amy has already put Jarom and Bella to bed--and not to mention how to rarely I even get to see Amy. Tonite she's going to Kathy's house and she and Kathy and Carrie and (?) are going to engage in a fun-filled all-nighter girls' night of scrapbooking. So that leaves me with Jarom and Bella; we're going to get some time. Not sure yet what we'll do.

Jarom and Bella both have night terrors. It's a very interesting problem. Jarom's are worse than Bella's, and seemingly more traumatizing. He wakes up crying and shouting things--last night's were "I don't want to!" and "But I love you Daddy!"--and can't be woken up. So last night I take him into the kitchen to try and wake him up with pots and pans (sounds brutal I know, but I was desperate, and I now know that trying to wake him up is worthless, so I won't try anymore), and nothing works. It wasn't his worst. The poor kid. He's so smart; he's in preschool now; he went this morning. It's twice a week. He's got homework, and he comes home all boisterous and excitable. We might get Bella to go too, to a different class. I know she would love it.

I just finished reading Frankenstein. Sure, I read it for class, but sometimes being prompted to read something is good motivation. It's fascinating. Written by an eighteen year old girl, daughter of writers, acquainted with writers, married to a writer. It's profound and thought-provoking, and entertaining. I could associate with the monster, for some strange reason. I felt for him. I would be his protector. There are many other things I need to catch up on reading.

Today is Friday. Tomorrow is Saturday. I will be productive.

Audio: Lover, The Lord Has Left Us | The Sound Of Animals Fighting
Video: Point Break [1991 | Kathryn Bigelow]
Text: The Wine Of Youth: Selected Stories | John Fante

My word of the day:
cabal
: the artifices and intrigues of a group of persons secretly united in a plot (as to overturn a government); also : a group engaged in such artifices and intrigues

[why: I read it in a short story, Gryphon by Charles Baxter, in my Writing Fiction book.]