* Vandy has two quarterbacks. Which means they have no quarterback. I think that’s in the commandments somewhere after “thou shalt not kill” and coveting they neighbor’s ass but before don’t put metal in the microwave and don’t serve red wine with fish.
* I’m sort of torn…the iPhone isn’t a complete laptop replacement, but it almost seems like I should have gone with a MacBook Pro. The step up to the MacBook isn’t quite enough, but it’s still the blogger’s delight as far as battery life and wi-fi performance. And yet I still need to have a pen and a pad for some reason.
* I have struggled through a couple of different 0.38mm gel pens recently (0.38? Really? We need to get down to HUNDREDTHS OF A MILLIMETER? We can get down to hundredths of a millimeter?) but am not really satisfied. For some reason, gel ink has never worked as well for me as the plain old roller ball ink from the classic Pilot VBall in Extra Fine 0.5mm, which carried me through most if not all of my college education and several years after. The problem with me and retractable gel pens is obscure and weird, but there it is: ever since seventh grade, I carry my pen in my right hip pocket next to my wallet. Have done so for well over twenty years now and no plans to change. However, a retractable just doesn’t fly there, because if you push the button at the wrong time, boom, leaky pen point in your hip and a big black smudge in your 501s.
The practical upshot of this is that I have long coveted the telescoping Fisher Space Pen. I have bought three. I have lost all three. This is what is known as “bad arithmetic.” Until I can be assured of not losing it, I am reluctant to splash out money that would buy me two whole boxes of extra-fine Pilot G2s, which most people seem to think is the god of pens. For the first time, it occurs to me that the caliber of paper on which I am writing could be making an impact. Something to think about. Damn, I wish I could find that third retractable space pen. (The reason it works is because to extend the pen point you have to pull out on the end rather than pushing a button, making it basically impossible to open accidentally while preserving the efficacy of one-handed operation.)
* The new job has cut into my blogging time. Not because I was blogging at work at the old place, but because, oddly enough, I had a little more clarity of mind after work when I was there. Three months ago, I would leave the office and come home, and before I could even get on the freeway, I had shut off the work portion of my brain and was dedicated to something else. Now, with a new job and having not yet proven myself (and still trying to get my feet under me two weeks in, thanks to the paperwork and byzantine complexities of this particular contract), I find that even though I’m not thinking about work after hours, there is a low-grade fug that’s probably a by-product of the anxieties that go along with being back in ramp-up mode. It’s comforting to see that I was writing the same things three years ago, though – and as it stands at the moment, I have one built-in upcoming disaster to help weather and then a built-in two-week break from same, which means I have an excellent opportunity to prove my chops without getting burnt out early in the process. Always good to hope.
* It’s finally autumnal and crispy at night, and the days have been heavy and leaden and overcast and not warm at all. PERFECT. I could take 360 days a year like this. Maybe I really should consider a transfer to Scotland…