I have to make this quick. Well, I guess quickness is relative since I’ve dived back into these extreme writing sessions. Yeah, you can probably tell it’s going to be another one of those days. And, yeah, I probably shouldn’t be wasting your time by warning you that it’s going to be one of those days. But this is all part of my evil plan to get back to verbose writing so I can apply it to actual writing of the storytelling variety. Wait, what did I want to talk about here? Oh, yeah. I’m leaving work relatively early today to bicycle home. Scott and I rode in his truck with our bikes in the back to allow us to ride home. It’s a bit like cheating because we’re only riding one way, but it’s better than nothing. Today is the first summer day of the year. The thermometer has climbed into the mid-eighties. It’s almost too hot to be outside. Almost.

We’re planning to leave work around four-ish to begin our commute. Tonight is also video game night; although Will sent mail that he might have to ditch us. If he does, I’m going to have to hunt him down. We play as a team or not at all. That’s what I’m saying now, seeing as the antidote to my addiction is only five and a half hours away. Once I’m in front of the computer, all thoughts of Will will disappear and I’ll throw myself into the world. Isn’t that how it always happens?

I’m tired now. I’m afraid if I put off his writing until later tonight, I’m going to be too exhausted to write and might fail. This won’t happen, of course. I’m dedicated, and I’ll pound out the words even if my eyes are closed and my brain is asleep. The words might consist only of vowels (I guess they might not be words in that case), but they’ll get there.

Fourteen tables lined the dining room. The tables were wooden with black columns supported by a black circular floor plate underneath each section. Six seats lined both sides and salt and pepper shakers sat in the middle of the table at intervals.

It’s not happening. My brain is mush. I’m tired and consternated, or is that constipated? I’m not that either—I’m very regular thanks to good genes and jeans. I’m tired and I find myself not having much to say. I thought a story might help move this along. It obviously didn’t. Now I’m pushing out words and trying to get to the halfway mark before calling it a day. It’s getting easier to say nothing. I have to be wary of this nothing-saying. I don’t want to get into a habit of writing words about my habit to write words—circular words that end up saying nothing but moving the word count forward.

“I won’t stand next to you when they start throwing tomatoes.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s just if you keep this up, I’m going over there, and you can give you speech over here. Your touching on sensitive topics. These people have beliefs in what you’re saying. They feel strongly about it, and they’re not going to appreciate your logic games with these beliefs. You know where I’m going with this?”

“I have absolutely no idea. You lost me at tomato.”

It’s late and I’m exhausted from the long bicycle ride and the video games. I told you’d I’d be back (of course, you never knew I was away since I didn’t post the first part separate from this second part), but I’m here. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to write 1,500 more words. This might be shortened entry—even though I promised myself this wasn’t going to happen. Decisions, decisions.

Scott and I started riding back home at around 4:45pm, a bit later than we planned. It was hot, hotter than I expected. In total, the ride took me an hour and a half. Scott did it a bit quicker, since after we crossed the bridge he ditched me for a seven o’clock appointment. While the ride was long, tiring, and hot. As expected, my favorite part was driving past cars stuck in traffic. Sure, they’d get wherever they were going faster than me, but the riding past was one of the reasons I wanted to commute by bicycle. No traffic!

I really slowed down while riding through Bellevue. There are a bunch of street riding with lots of cars and lights, and I was not apt enough to know when to ride on the sidewalk to avoid the traffic, and when to stay in the street. Scott was blocks ahead of me and how to keep slowing down and waiting for me to catch up. It took us way too long to get through the city part. I will have to work on my traffic riding to save us time through that part.

I also need to work on my downhill riding. I’m not confident enough on the bicycle. I tend to use the breaks to slow down my descents, even when I have a perfectly safe and viewable downhill. More things to work on. It’s the same problem I had tryin gto ski. I’ve attempted to ski about five times. Living in upstate New York gives plenty of opportunities. Not one of those times, however, did I make it all the way down a non-bunny slope. I rarely fell because I lost control. Instead, I would begin to build up speed while in the snowplow position, and when I felt myself going to fast, I’d purposefully fall over to slow myself down. It’s a rather silly way of doing it, but I don’t trust myself to control the skis at that speed. I’ll chalk it up to another character weakness.

I’m not sure if I drank enough water during my ride. I finished my first of two water bottles before I left from the office, and drank the second one on the way home. I bought a Camelback backpack, but left it in Newport Beach, where it’s not doing me much good on my rides. Doolies, when she visits this weekend—yeah—promises to bring it. When I finally made it back home, I finished a Brita water container. I was also ravenous. I went to get chocolate that I had left on the counter by the sink. What I didn’t realize, however, was that the chocolate had melted thanks to the sun and hot day. Being too hungry to care, I used a spoon and scooped up the chocolate in a kind of chocolate soup.

Video games tonight was rather fun. Will did make it to the game, although he was a bit late in coming. We played until around 11:30pm, which was way too late for me, particularly since I hadn’t finished writing yet. (These sentences sound horrible in my brain’s voice. The fatigue is taking a toll on my ability to form full, interesting sentences—wait, it’s not necessarily the fatigue; fill in obvious self-deprecating sentence about how I’m a pathetic writer here.) Even with the late start, we had a good time adventuring, gained levels, collected nick-nacks and gold pieces, my normal night.

Randy went food shopping at the organic PCC, and then took a ride down to the lake. I’m not sure what she was doing there—she claims she spent her time at the lake sitting near the beach and staring at the water—but when I took a break from video gaming at 10:15pm, she still wasn’t home. If you hadn’t figured out yet, I’m a rather anxious person. For example, last night, I couldn’t find Doolies. I had it stuck in my mind that she was in the shower or blowing her hair and couldn’t find the phone. I called every ten minutes, until she finally called me from the hospital. One of her patients was delivering, something she had already told me but I had forgotten. Getting back to Randy, I began frantically calling Randy’s cell phone looking for her tonight. After the third call, she finally picked up and told me she was still by the lake, but she was heading home. I know she’s a grown woman, but I worry about her. She’s my little sister, after all.

What else can I tell you about to eat up the last 600 or so words? Tomorrow should be an early day. I have a few things to finish up at work, and then it’s three day weekend, baby. It’s Memorial Day weekend, and it should be a dozy. Randy stays until Sunday, my mother flies in tomorrow night and stays through Monday morning, and Doolies (finally) flies in on Saturday morning and leaves Monday evening. I have to remember to make reservations for Saturday night, and figure out where I’m taking everyone on Saturday.

I haven’t been this tired in a long time. It’s not just brain fatigue. I know I think too much (and most of it is circular, relating to my anxiety), but tonight the fatigue is more related to my bicycle ride. My legs feel tight and I have a dull pain running up and down them. Too many hours on the seat. My head hurts a bit, but I think it’s from needing to sleep, and fighting it by writing instead. I left my work computer at work today, and I’m typing this entry on my Mac. I haven’t used this computer in a while, and I feel slower at the keyboard. The only benefit it has is that the MS Word has a built-in word counter at the bottom of the screen. I wonder if MS Word for Windows has the same word count option for the status bar. It is rather handy, as I watch the words increase as I type. I’m at 1657, as it catches up to my last paragraph.

For my final trick of the evening, I’ll talk about nothing and succeed where I feared I’d fail tonight. I had hopes of writing more during work, but there were a few work-related things I had to get done, and I wasn’t able to find the time before it was bicycle time. Our week of conferences is just about over. I’ve skipped many of the final conferences during the last couple of days. I’ve realized that there is only so much being talked at that I an take. It’s not that I like to hear myself talk all the time (most of the time is more than plenty), it’s just that I can only listen to someone else talk when they’re either conveying important information to me, or teaching me something I don’t know and care about. Both of those conditions must be satisfied (the not knowing and the caring about) for me to listen. Most of the conferences this week has not fallen into either category. There have been some happy exceptions, including that great talent night—which, I guess, wasn’t so much part of the conference as entertainment to escape the conference.

Okay. My babbling has reached new heights. Sorry about this today, but I was desperate when I finished playing video games and realized that I had only written about 600 words during work. I know I have to stop wasting everyone’s time with these consternated diary entries, and start wasting everyone’s time with my stories. How many times do I have tos ay that before it happens?

I’m getting to the end, so I’ll share the count, and maybe (doubtfully) go back and try to clean up this mess. On second thought, I might post it unedited and leave it at that. There’s not much in the way of useful tidbits of writing here, so I think you’ll forgive me if I don’t reread and make sure my spelling and thoughts are in order. Word count as of here: 2000.