Negative and Positive

Work has been the recipient of the kind of contempt that I held for high school my last semester. Very little of what was said and done during those final months mattered to me. I could have cared less about what was going on around me. I wanted to move on to something new. I needed to be somewhere else. As to where I needed to be, I had no idea, but I knew that I had to move on to somewhere. Thus is my current frame of mind.

Stages. I seem to live my life in stages. Three month intervals are not uncommon for me, because I can only endure things for a certain length of time. In the span of this project, my interests have covered a variety of topics. Traveling to foreign lands, career moves and now the early part of the American space program have all been of interest to me. What this means to me is that I always need to learn. One might call it self education. Other might call it personal growth. All that I know is that I need to keep moving forward or I succumb to boredom and frustration.

Even though it might sound arrogant, I know that I am not an easy person to please. The idiom simple pleasures for simple minds does not apply to me.

Since the humidity of the past few days had subsided I went to the park this afternoon. For a change of pace I decided to sit on the ground by a tree instead of using a picnic table. The ground is good enough for me. Besides I didn't bring along anything to eat which is why I need a table in the first place.

Next time I'll bring along my large beach towel and use that as a blanket so that I can lie down completely. Lying down will be more comfortable than sitting, but I have to make sure that I don't fall asleep. Time seems to get away from me when I am at the park and the more relaxed that I get the faster it will go. Another problem that I have with time is that I don't wear a watch. The only way that I know what time it is by the clock in my car. Once I am there I donít go back to the car until I am ready to leave.

It just occurred to me that I put more thought into my lunch than what I am going to do at work for the day.

From where I was sitting I was able to watch some park personnel make mulch from piles of branches that had been dumped in a parking lot. They looked as excited by what they were doing as I was watching them.

After the workers had driven away, I started to read some more of the book that I had brought with me. Even though it has been over two years since I last read a book by Camus, the tone of this novel is exactly the same as the last one that I read. His style is unchanged. There is very little dialogue and most of the sentences are simple and declarative in nature. None of this detracts from the story. I do, however, wonder if the style is that way because it has been translated from French.

My knowledge of Camus is very limited. All that I know about him is what I read on the back page of the book. I also know that he was mentioned on the television program Northern Exposure now and again. Well, I am sure that the web has something to say about him.

The other thing that I noticed in the park was that all of the trees have filled out now. The last time that I was at the park, there were still a number of bare branched trees. Now everything is green and full. Summer really does seem to be here.

If my job wasn't so sluggish, I wonder when I would find the time to write the journal entries.