I’m still awaiting my end-of-the-month paycheck so I can go buy a new modem. My money cushion has evaporated over the last few months. Time to readjust my budgeting, I guess. It’s also time to start doing some substitute teaching work. I’m in no way distressed about my financial situation – instead, I feel energized at times like this because it forces me to get creative (sadly, sometimes I need to be forced).

I’m still modem-less, so once again I’m writing this as a Word document, to be posted later at a public venue with free wireless. This is almost starting to be a routine. It’s interesting to note that I feel more inspired to write when I can’t immediately post it. This also forces me to spend a bit more time than usual revising my writing. Why is that? Why do I need to be forced to write, or forced to spend more time editing my work? I think it’s because, when given the opportunity, I have a tendency to spend too much time compulsively surfing the internet. Maybe this is the first step towards breaking, or at least taming, that habit.

I just noticed that it’s raining. It looks like the forecasters were wrong again. The forecast called for a chance of rain tonight, but here it is, not even 10:30 in the morning, and the ground is wet. I just had to bring Willow’s bike in and dry it off. The sliding glass door is open to let in the smell of the rain. Very nice.

Fast forward. I'm now sitting inside Peet's Coffee, and it's still raining outside. It's just as crowded as it was yesterday, and the pumpkin spice latte is a bit too sweet. Otherwise, not bad. The one benefit of being here is that if affords me the opportunity to be a people watcher. Why is it though that I don't often have much good to report on that front? Take for instance the woman who scolds her toddler for flinging his cereal to the floor, but does nothing to clean up the mess. Who should be being scolded here? Then there's the dad who carries his baby in one of those plastic baby buckets. Great Mystery forbid that he actually have any physical contact with his offspring! Not all is bad, of course. It's just that, for some reason, it's more fun to write about our failings and inconsistencies (and no doubt more fun to read, as well) than it is to write about all of the good cheer. There is good cheer as well, of course. People are being pretty patient, even though the wait for caffeine is a long one.

Black Friday indeed! I just watched a video online of people actually getting into fist fights as they rushed into some big box store to buy electronics or something. Lots of tripping and falling too.

Happy Holidays.