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Location: Work.
Last Night's Viewing: Good Will Hunting.
Listening: "Sunny Came Home" ~ Shawn Colvin

Looking at the calendar on my desk, I realize that I've been quiet for exactly two weeks. I'm not necessarily sure what brought it on, but when it started, there was more than enough happening to encourage it to persist. The lull that rose from my being assigned to pack boxes in the warehouse continued when one of my best friends flew in from Houston for five days and then ran through yesterday, when I just couldn't be bothered. I'm a little less apathetic today--just trying to kick-start myself by catching up on back-logged calls and searching for new OtR on BearShare.

Yeah. I live on the edge.

My Capricorn moon has been in full effect lately. For those of you who either don't know or don't care much about astrology, I'll just note that Capricorn is the cardinal Earth sign--pragmatic, analytical, thrifty, passionate about progress. The moon sign symbolizes that which is our deepest foundation, what holds us together and keeps us going. I'm a builder at heart, basically. I am rarely as happy as when I have a relatively tranquil home, fast-paced work environment, some sort of creative project in mind and a foothold on world domination. Lately, my environment has been lacking in almost all of these areas, and I've become insular, stressed and generally unpleasant to be around--states that I am currently working to reverse.

I've embarked on several personal projects (which have been prioritized above the other projects that seem to always be in progress) that promise to give me enough to create, direct, and conclude to pull me up out of my hole. Said projects can be summarized as follows:

1. Relocation: As much as I love living two blocks from the water in my quiet little neighborhood in Long Beach, I have this persistent feeling that it's "time". Since leaving Memphis for USC, I've moved at least once per year (twice to three times in certain years). This semi-nomadic lifestyle has allowed me to experience living in South Los Angeles, Hollywood/Hancock Park, Glendale, Houston TX, and Long Beach over the past four years and has been key in my decision to forego significant furniture purchases (couches, heavy bookshelves, etc. are not sufficiently portable--what constitutes "my furniture" in the apartment currently amounts to a full mattress and boxsprings and a clever folding dining room table and chair set that my mother sent via Hammacher Schlemmer years ago). An unfortunate side-effect of this constant movement has been the creeping restlessness that began in May, when I reached the one-year anniversary of moving into 1260. Again, I love my apartment, my neighborhood, and Long Beach in general--and it's been much more than a pretty good year--but I feel that it's time to pick up and go adventuring again. Peter seems to understand this and to not have any problem with it. It's now simply up to me (who knows the area better) to find a suitable spot for us to put down next. Currently, considering that UCLA is my first choice for graduate school, it would make sense to try to go northward into LA proper. Cost being a consideration, much of the "West Side" is out, but I am looking closely at Venice, Palms, and West Hollywood as well as Hollywood, Silverlake, and Downtown on the "East Side". Suggestions are welcome from any of y'all who happen to be local. Also, if anyone has a friend or relative looking to let their place to a couple of young writers who smoke and have a cat, but who eschew drugs and water beds and are willing to confine their bad behavior largely to their living room...by all means, drop a line.

2. Writing: My writing outside of this journal has dropped off drastically in the past year, and it's time to pick up some of that slack and get to it again. I've started the process already by printing out all of the poetry from my C drive at work and determining to give it all a good, hard editing. I've also determined to put my book aside for a little while longer in favor of polishing some ideas for short stories that I've had bouncing around for the past few months. I plan on experimenting with magic realism and various elements of the "Southern Gothic" style of writing for these pieces and so have started researching these; I'm currently reading The Awakening and other stories by Kate Chopin and plan on tackling Faulkner's Absalom! Absalom! next. I'm giving serious consideration to embarking on an independent study of 20th century Southern women writers' approaches to religion (particularly Fundamentalism) as part of my grad school preparation. Of course, I'm also still in love with code and need to finish Between Silk And Cyanide so that I can start on Cryptonomicon. Actually, I really should beg, borrow, or steal a high school Algebra book before moving from theory into practice--which brings us to...

3. Academics: