Quality Time

Four more days until I get paid. Sigh.

Yesterday and today have both been very hot in ye olde Newton, Kansas. It's barely afternoon now, and it's already 88 degrees. Last night, before I passed out, it was still 84 at 3AM. As I told my mother in an email this morning, I suppose summer's here. Ugh.

Don't get me wrong, I like summer. I do. Usually, it's pretty nice. Kansas summers, however, for the past two years running, have been awful. Any of you who live in the area will recall that last summer it was over 100 degrees for about ninety days in a row or something like that, with most days reaching 110 or so. If I wanted that, I may as well move to Arizona, New Mexico, or Texas.

And people say climate change isn't real, isn't happening. Sure it's not. Suuuure.

Vancouver is nice this time of year, right?

Ahem. Anyway.

I called home yesterday and wished my dad a happy Father's Day. I didn't mention to either of my parents (who both read this blog, actually -- sometimes more frequently than others) what I'd written here yesterday morning. I figured it was already stuff both of them knew anyway, and stuff that they'd either read or gloss over during this coming week regardless.

Tomorrow night, of course, I teach my one-night-a-week summer class. Tomorrow is the halfway point of the summer semester. The class ends on July 24, which is the night they'll turn in their last papers and take the final exam. I like teaching the class, yes, though at times it can be a pain in the ass. My students, for the most part, are incredibly attentive and hardworking. This I was able to discern yesterday morning when, after I finished my blog post here, I spent about two hours or so (since most of them were good, that's all it took) to grade through their first papers. I was impressed, really. Only a few of them weren't that great, but out of a class of 25? That's a great track record.

They'll receive their papers back tomorrow night. In 100-degree weather, in a stuffy room in Maize. Yaaaaay. Can't you just feel my enthusiasm about driving down there to teach in this heat? And I know, of course, it'll only get worse between now and the end of the summer semester.

Luckily, my car is filled with gas, and I was able to put more air in the tires (they're wearing out badly, and obviously I can't afford to replace them right now), so as long as I can keep the thing running and not blow any tires, I should be fine for the time being. My dad suggested I put fix-a-flat in the tire that keeps going low, to see if that helps. It might, but truthfully, it's just worn out. As I've said before, the car is a 1996 model, and as far as I know it may still have its original factory tires on it. They're not bald or anything; they have a decent amount of tread left, but they're really old and starting to dry-rot, I think. This is, of course, not good. I have to hope my luck holds out...and as you folks know, I tend to have fairly shitty luck most of the time.

In other news, OkCupid interactions seem to get more interesting by the day. I have made a few friends on there, but nothing more. There is one woman, however, who has definitely piqued my interest. Just one. I've mentioned her here before, briefly, in my last post. I am intrigued with her. She's one of the most fascinating, multifaceted people I've (n)ever met. Many layers to this one. Many things to observe, many things to get to know, to slowly glean from conversations and interactions. This is a new and very, very interesting situation, to be sure. However, we're not exactly close to one another distance-wise. Like, at all. Which makes the situation even more interesting by limiting it in scope for the time being. Perhaps sometimes, sometimes, normality is overrated. And sometimes, cautiousness must be mostly thrown to the wind in order to see things from all perspectives.

I realize I'm sounding cryptic. That's intentional.

So. That's about all that's going on right now. Looks like I can go back to sweating and drinking lots of ice water in order to keep some semblance of cool as the temperature keeps rising (keeps rising! at 5PM!) as we go into the evening hours.