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Location: Home.
Listening: "Both Hands" by Ani DiFranco.

Disjointed. Talking at nothing.

It's morning, spring has come to Long Beach, and the air smells like I remember from the day I moved in that weekend in May two years ago. I'm wearing a thin cotton shirt the same color of the fern leaf designs on the first set of sheets I bought for my bed here. The bed possibly stolen for me from the workplace of a former lover two years ago--I've gotten the strangest presents from boys over the years. It's overcast this morning, but yesterday was sunny and warm and one of the most beautiful things I've seen lately.

Friday, I abruptly stopped my antibiotics, after discovering that my doctor had prescribed twice the normal dose for an adult. I had started feeling terrible after several days on the 500 mg four times a day routine (the literature from the makers of the drug stipulate that 500 mg twice a day is normal dosage, even for moderate infections, which this one was labeled). I had terrible stomach cramps, muscle aches, joint pain, fatigue, fevers, and dizziness--all, I discovered after more reading, signs of allergic reaction and overdosage. My poor body simply couldn't handle that much cephalosporin being pumped through it on a regular basis for the better part of ten days. Needless to say, I'm somewhat annoyed at my doctor, but I felt so much better the moment I stopped taking the pills that I mainly feel relief. My cheek has gotten much better, and I have an appointment tomorrow. If I need anything further to complete the healing process, it'll have to be milder and at a much lower dosage. God, but I hate prescription drugs.

Thinking on all of the things I should do today--cleaning my car out, getting my car to Jiffy-Lube, finding my W2's and finishing my taxes...so many things that I need to get finished and out of the way to facilitate moving forward. Now that Daylight Savings Time has come and I'm off the nasty drugs, I feel an almost desperate urge to progress. Part of this is a pull to work more with my writing, as I've been haunted lately by a sense that I've let Peter down in some way. When he met me, I was a writer (at least in my own mind). At this point, I'm so much more a corporate animal that I find myself wondering where the bait-and-switch took place. I'm not a commodity, but I don't believe in false advertising, and I suspect that it's going to come back and bite me in the ass one of these days.

I find myself wanting to go home more often than not these days. "Home" in the sense of the South, specifically New Orleans, although I've never been there. Memphis equates to my parents, which is never a wholly positive thing. I suspect I just need the humidity and the dialect, but I can't be sure. The pull is strong and ever-present and I need to satisfy it soon or fall prey to nostalgia that I don't have. Nothing kills the present quite like nostalgia.

There is a lot that has fallen into disrepair during this past malaise. There is a lot that needs to be put straight before I can go forward. I need to figure out where to start.