July 1: The Rude Painter

Today i am supposed to be done with the dissertation and filing it with the ruler lady at UCLA. I am not done and it's not happening. It's well under way, but i did not make the deadline. I took the time off to interview for jobs that were a foregone conclusion (by coincidence, the last time the hire was a foregone conclusion, one candidate threatened to sue because this was a tainted process and this was corrupt and bad. Oddly enough, when he was the foregone conclusion, this was not his opinion. hmm.) and got my hopes up, only to end up feeling completely useless, filing for unemployment, and generally alternating between moping, despair and panic.

What i HAVE been doing right is continuing this torturous bootcamp, even if i miss the occasional day at 6 am in favor of hiking later in the day. And yet, as i was telling sam yesterday, the scale is just a digital version of the devil's abacus. it lies. keeping track of calories and food intake (yay, journaling) on the iphone, including the workouts, which would seem to have me some days taking in less calories than i've expended; and yet, per the satan scale, in one day i gained six pounds. i think not. "muscle weighs more than fat," they say. "you drank a lot of water." "it's close to your cycle." All valid points. but we still judge by that number. surely emptying my brain must dump some pounds as i write this chapter!

Today: Chuck's "easy" day. Walked (and sometimes jogged) 1.5 miles, ab work ("every day is ab day!"), high steps (another way to butt blast). Keep in mind that we got there at 6 am. A sign was posted "area closed, filming today." No one there. So we went in and did our work. One lone painter, apparently thinking that painting the rails with primer constitutes the creative endeavors of the Sistine Chapel, was getting antsy although he had plenty more work and rails to do beyond where we were. At the end, when it was apparently safe to confront us, watching us pack up, came over, brusquely, "yes, yes, please pick up your things and go, i have to paint!" Um, jeez, Michelangelo, so sorry to interrupt your "process." DID I MENTION IT'S A STADIUM??? No soup for you!

Dogs are biting at each other like hannibal lechter after some fava beans. Back to peasant land tenure in the 17th century.