Lament of the autoshop coward.

I think the temperature today stayed below the century mark for the first time in quite a while! It was kind of nice to see the thermometer reading just over 90 degrees this afternoon instead of just over 100.

I love the Olympics, but it's really messing with my sleep schedule. I've had a pretty lazy weekend and have caught up on sleep a little bit. I slept in until nearly 11 this morning. I can't remember the last time I did that. It was great! Speaking of the Olympics, have we all seen enough volleyball yet?! I have. Now that swimming is over, I probably won't be watching all night of the coverage, but I wish they'd show less beach volleyball and more of other things. Like badminton? I haven't seen any of that yet. Or table tennis? I haven't seen that, either.

Summer is winding down. I expect there to be a bit more bustle around campus starting this week. Parking will start to get a little tougher to find. Lines in restaurants around downtown will start to get longer. This week is a freebie week at the Rec Center for staff and faculty. I plan to check it out. I haven't truly worked out in months. I do yoga now and again at home, but no real working out has been done for a while. I don't really like trying to work out in the weight machine area at the Rec Center because it's usually filled with kind of scary looking guys that don't appear to be too happy to share the machines. But, maybe I can find a time of day when the scary guys aren't machine-stalking and I could just use one or two and then scurry back to the cross-trainer on the other side of the room? Plus, I might start using the pool a little bit, too. I think it'll be nice to have access to the center again. It's a really nice facility. A few of my co-workers use it and we might be able to motivate each other to actually go and use it once we're all members. That would be good.

I've been looking for little enrichment courses to enroll in. So far, I've seen a lot of possibilities, but have only enrolled in one through a career center in Columbia. It's a car maintenance class for women. Lord knows, I need that sort of knowledge. Did I mention how I freaked out earlier this summer when I had to get an oil change + tire rotation and tried to take it in to the mechanic? I bolted when the mechanic came out to find out what I was doing sitting in the car in the parking lot. I couldn't get the courage to walk in and face the mechanic. Or sound like an idiot when telling them what I wanted done. After discussing this situation with my friends, it was decided that this is probably the real reason women finally throw in the towel and get married: you can get your husband to do this sort of task. Over lunch at Jimmy John's, we decided that's why there are never any women in these lobbies waiting for the cars to be fixed. It's always men, which adds to the intimidation of having to be the only woman in the entire place. Or deal with the condescending 'tude when the mechanics surely find other things wrong with the car that need to be fixed. And the helpless feeling of knowing that you have no knowledge of what the dude behind the counter is telling you. It all boils down to feeling really helpless and nobody likes that. I always feel like an idiot when it comes to car things, and I always feel unprepared to deal with manipulative auto shops.

Anyway, in this case, I just sat in the parking lot, trying to gather the courage to walk in and tell the mechanic what I wanted done. I failed that day, but a few days after fleeing the scene at one mechanic shop, I dropped the car off at Sears, where I could have the mechanic do the work while I wandered around the Mall and ate Chinese food in the food court. Not having to sit in the lobby awkwardly waiting to be told how many things are wrong with my car or why my bill will be a hundred dollars more than I thought was a huge incentive in going this route. Shopping + food makes things less scary and intimidating. But, it obviously galls me how scared I was at the prospect of having to be an adult and handle the car by myself. I gave about ten seconds to the idea of calling my Dad and begging him to take my car in to an auto shop, but couldn't bring myself to do that. I don't like to chicken out on anything and was determined to somehow be an adult about this and get the job done. Clearly, I think this one-night class in Columbia is good for me. Here's to becoming less of a wussie! "Jeah!"

Track is on! I love the name Asafa, by the way. I cheer for Asafa Powell just because I think he's got the coolest first name, ever. It's fun to say. Asafa, Asafa, Asafa. He just got third place in the 100m semi-finals. Justin Gatlin from the USA won the heat. Woot! I think that Jefferson City could do a much better job in trying to cheer on the track stars we have in our midst. Lincoln University has a fantastic track team, and several of the LU track stars are in the Olympics every Summer Games racing down the track. Take tonight, for instance: Dane Hyatt is racing in the 400m semi-finals and he graduated from LU. He runs for Jamaica, which is super impressive, since Jamaica = racing Royalty. But, the track team never competes here at home. I've heard that they don't have a facility good enough to hold the type of track meet that they compete in. If that's really the case, I think JC should help them get one. I'd love to see Olympians coming to my hometown to race! How neat.

Mumbling in the late hours of the day.

I'm sleepy but also not quite ready to go to sleep yet. The internet is not that interesting. The book I'm supposed to be reading for the Missouri State Book Review Board can't even hold my interest enough to get through the first five pages...and I have to finish it and write a review for it. Not a good sign that I can't even get through the first chapter.

I messed my whole schedule up for the next three weeks. I don't really know what I was thinking. Maybe it will work out better this way, though. I got the days I'm supposed to work/work/practicum mixed up because someone had a conflict and needed me to alter my schedule. I screwed up the whole week's schedule by telling them I normally work that job on Tuesdays, which is completely wrong. I don't really even know what's going on around me. I'm a bit like a robot just making my commute, parking in the garage, walking to a building, working, walking to lunch, walking to another building, working, walking to the other side of the same building, working, walking back to the garage, driving the return commute, eat dinner, read books, go to sleep, replay. I have such a set schedule and no time for anything but that schedule that I don't even think about it any longer. But when someone needs me to change something, I actually don't have a true idea of what it is I'm doing on any given day any more. I'm just on autopilot. And when forced to come out of autopilot today, my entire system failed and I have managed to screw up the schedule for a few weeks. But maybe that's okay. Next week was going to be messed up anyhow, so a little more screwing with it isn't really going to make it worse.

Iris is cuddly tonight. There were a few claps of thunder earlier and some decent bolts of lightning and she started roaming around the living room doing her high pitched crying like she was worried. So she was pulled up on the couch and is in a little ball sleeping next to me now. The rain is gone, though. But she's definitely a cuddler.

I kind of want things to go by faster. I'm ready for school to be done, but the year's been going by so fast anyway, that I'm also kind of wishing it would slow down a little too. Maybe I would get a handle on things better. Life isn't really boring right now, but it kind of is what with being really busy but busy doing the same things over and over and over every week. No real variety right now. Halloween is in a couple of weeks though. I can't decide whether to buy candy for trick or treaters or not. The doorbell scares the hell out of Iris and it's not really worth the hour and a half of trying to pull the cat from her hiding place to calm her down for just a handful of trick or treaters. Also, I don't get the cute little kids who go as little ninjas or princesses. I get the hoardes of teenage boys that just wear a Star Wars shirt and call it a costume. Lame and unimaginative. I'll keep the sour patch kids candy to myself, thankyouverymuch.

The Cards are in the World Series. Last night was a crazy homerun fest. I don't have anything against Milwaukee. I've been to see them play in Wisconsin before. It wasn't very exciting. Milwaukee as a town wasn't all that impressive. Kind of grungy and sad, actually. St. Louis definitely has the upper hand in the cool town category. Somebody's gotta lose. Brewers fans have less to complain about than Phillies fans, in my opinion. And everyone should be happier than Braves fans. Cardinals fans can be kind of brutal to other teams. Generally they will pick on a player who makes the mistake of opening their mouth to a journalist and letting something stupid come out and it goes through the web like a virus and Redbird Nation gets all up in arms about what some young kid you'd never pay any attention to otherwise said about Albert Pujols or the Cardinals in general. The players and the fans are very loyal and very protective about the Cardinals. I am, too. I have a hard time imagining myself rooting for anybody but the Cards. Still, I don't get into the boo-ing of other teams. I did enjoy when Yadier Molina stood up to Brandon Phillips last season, but that got totally out of hand and we ended up the real losers in the whole mix after our back-up catcher's career was ended in the brawl. It's important to learn from things like that. That stuff can get out of hand really quickly and it's detrimental to your own team. This is all to say that I hope both teams and fans are respectful in the World Series and we don't have any players who start to make stupid remarks to create drama. It will be a tense enough situation without booing or fighting or name-calling. Let's play ball (starting Wednesday)!