Amazing

Nothing amazing happens here, nothing out of the ordinary. I've become comfortable with the doldrums and though it's a part of me I don't like it's a part of me all the same and I have to learn to live with it. I used to dream about moving to LA or Miami or someplace sunny and warm but the realities of a limited income and the costs of living somewhere near downtown eventually convinced me to give up on that. Or maybe it was just the fear of change. Who knows.

The other day I sat on our front porch and listened to a song on repeat and vowed to enjoy summer as much as I could, until endless cloudy greys entered and ruined the ambience. That vow lasted a couple weeks.

There's a place on campus where the students put up hammocks in between trees and lie there and sometimes I see one reading a book the old-fashioned way, not on a tablet or phone or what have you. The large water fountain there gently creates white noise but the setting is isolated enough from traffic that it's not a big deal either way.

If you drive to the west for 45 minutes you can look out over an endless lake and watch the sun dip beneath it as boats in the distance gently bob up and down on the waves that are now covered with the red and orange and purple hues that autumn leaves will possess in several months time.

One friend moved to North Carolina and another moved to Arizona and another is stuck in Indiana which isn't so far from Michigan but might as well be because we haven't talked in almost a decade. None of them.

The other day I made tacos over the stove and the kitchen was already 85F and with the gas burner going I became inundated with epidermal moisture. The tacos turned out alright but the soft tortilla shells were way bigger than the hard ones and when I tried to wrap the hard ones it didn't really fit right.

I think people are good at knowing when someone's laugh is fake but they just sort of accept it because they know they'll do it often too.

They're tearing up the road outside work which makes it hard to have the windows open in the morning when it's not that hot yet because it smells like asphalt and the constant noise can drone out the person on the other end of the phone who has the wrong number.

Some of the grass is dying because we haven't gotten much rain in June. The middle-upper class neighborhoods have green grass because they can afford underground sprinklers or lawn care people. Less dandelions, too. That's all my neighborhood is this year. Dandelions. Even when dead they're not so attractive.

On Saturday night two houses down and across the street they had a party or gathering or get-together or whatever it's called these days that went on past 1am on their front porch. They will have many more this summer just like last summer.

Nothing amazing happens here, nothing out of the ordinary. I drove home listening to the same song I've been listening to for the past two months. I don't know where that time went.