For the first time in three weeks, I wasn't eating restaurant food. I wasn't fighting Houston traffic. I wasn't driving 175 miles a day. I wasn't swatting mosquitoes. And I wasn't dealing with @$$hole drivers. Damn, but it's good to be home again.
There are some very definite differences between Houston and Portland. It was 75 degrees and muggy in Houston on Tuesday morning. When I left to go to the gym yesterday morning at 7, it was 45 (this morning, it;s 34)...and don't think that didn't get my attention. I'm still freezing, but I'm liking the change. I think it's the not having an opportunity to acclimate that threw me. After being in a climate where the temperatures hovered around or above 90 and the humidity was often in the 60% range, suddenly I'm looking for the fleece sweatshirts. It's probably going to take a few days for me to readjust to the climate here...just in time for me to turn around and head back to Houston.
I really don't want to go back, but there's still work to be done, I did volunteer for this duty...and so I shall go where I'm sent. It makes it tough to maintain any sort of social life, but this is what I do, and while I don't have to do it often, when I'm called to go, I gotta go. Ain't nobody holdin' a gun to my head, knowwhutimean?? Besides, I've been able to do some good things, and in a way I normally don't in my day to day existence. I'll take that as a good thing.
I honestly have no idea as to what I'm going to be doing with my week off. If yesterday was any indication, though, there will be a lot of resting taking place. I was wide awake at 2.30am (apparently, my body is still on Houston time). This morning, it was 4am. Even in my own bed, sleep seems to be a commodity less and less available to me these days. I seem to remember an old Franz Kafka story, in which the protagonist's is to be able only to sleep for shorter durations as time passes. Eventually he goes mad. Now there's something to look forward to, eh? Of course, the advantage here is that it's very easy to be in the gym at 7am when you're wide awake at 230. Always gotta look on the bright side, don'tchaknow??
After three weeks of 12-15 hours days, I feel as if I'm gone from 60 to 0 in no time flat. I almost don't know what to do with myself...but I'm going to enjoy trying to figure that out. For now, it's going to be another early morning at the gym, there's a book I want to finish, and I'm sure I can find a coffee shop to haunt for awhile. Then there's not one, but TWO hockey games on starting at 4pm. Does it get any better? Well, yeah; it probably does, but I'm going to enjoy what comes my way for now. Hey, it sure beats driving 200 miles in Houston's traffic, heat, and humidity.
