I came back

into town today after spending four days in San Diego and I'm so happy to be home. The hills are starting to change color to the gold, then yellow, then slightly brown brought on by summer. The cows are laying down in the afternoons - which apparently cows do. I know nothing about cows. My greatest city slicker moment was asking a dairy farmer if she has a season for milking her cows, as though cows are harvested like plants. It's almost summer and the flies are hard to keep out of our homes. The sky right now is unbelievably pink and lilac colored.

The question continues as to whether or not I'm cut out for my current job, and basically, it's all I think about any more. It's really embarrassing, friends. I wish I was interesting, but I'm caught in my job's interpersonal dramas which is ultimately a conversation with myself. I come home thinking about me and go to sleep thinking about me and converse with friends about me. Meanwhile me is boring. I work through scenarios in my head of how a customer could have been more satisfied. Should I smile more? Increase the pitch in my voice? Do I need accent classes to remove the last trace of my retarded deaf-sie accent? Should I rub cream into my forehead to smooth away the frown lines? Slow down when I talk. Eat less during the day for a perkier afternoon. I squeeze and mold my personality like some women mold their body fat into contour fabrics, my bulges of swear words and disdain popping at the sides.

Which is why Rafael's idea to move out and into a trailer sounds pretty swell. I hope to hang in my trailer, write my books, hair piled on top of my head, and smash flies into the ceiling. When we first moved into our apartment in New York, there were dead cockroach bodies stuck to the walls from when the former tenants killed the fuckers but didn't clean them off. I can relate to that; I haven't cleaned my bathroom in weeks. Who has time to clean their bathroom anymore?

In San Diego, I watched TV, transfixed by infomercials for body-fat cures and America's Got Talent featuring Howie Mandel's supposedly "cute and charming" demeanor which was not at all likeable, and Lifetime television movies. As we get older, some of us start to realize that being a genius has nothing to do with whether or not we watch television. Unfortunatly. If being smart and creative were acheivable by following a To-Do list, we'd all be much more smart and creative.