Not much to say of late it seems. I've been head-down trying to clear the decks so I can take off next week for a little Black Rock vacation.

Things to report briefly:

• I got a haircut. Less tangles, more angles. The barber is a local fixture in Eureka: a half-Yurok half-Irish man named Rockey who's been cutting hair in the same downtown spot for more than 35 years. He's up in everybody's business.
• Visit from The Big Irish on her long-awaited tour of California cheeses. People always think we're related or dating (hopefully not both), though neither have ever been true. She is my best female friend, and something of a confidant though, so it was well-timed for her to arrive what with all my Sturm und Drang of late.
• Also had a good talk with the moms about life in general. I'm feeling lighter about things this week as compared to last, but generally increasingly aware that I need to shake things up to get my life to be where I want it -- the lack of creative outlets and physical exercise is causing some serious moldering of the soul.
• Politics is a drag again. "Obama leads 20 points with 18-34s, McCain leads by 1 with everyone else." WTF? Hopefully the buzz will return post-convention.
• This music my blow your mind.

Things seem to be coming together slowly but surely. Life is a two-steps-forward/one-step-back affair most of the time. That's frustrating for a guy like me, especially when I make the mistake(?) of extending my sense of responsibility to include a lot of things outside my control.

Judges. I'm reminded again of the "I Am One Who Is" exercise in ETW, which involves exposing your inner psychic process as much as possible, outing the cops in your head and the shadows they suppress. Why is it that some people seem to have no problem thinking they're the beez neez, and others constantly beat themselves up over every little thing? Why is is that the latter tend to suck, and the former -- when not too depressed -- tend to be The Good People?

C'est la vie, I suppose. There aren't many ways to angle out of that which don't sound cliched or milk-curdlingly saccharine when you express them straight up, but I suppose my lesson of August is "don't be so damn hard on yourself, Josh. It gets to the point where it doesn't help."