I'm doing my level best to keep it in the power curve. Things are popping and there are too many worthwhile ways to spend time and not enough time to be spent. It's a carnival atmosphere already; mass distraction. The old desire/truth two-stroke is starting to kick in, but I'm rusty. The summer has been one marked by loss and despondency, a lot of downtime and curling up into a fetal position. Kicking the habit of melancholy is rough, but the world doesn't wait for your sorrow. Get on the bus. Rumble, young man, rumble.

Things are looking up. The rent will be paid. Women, though about them I fumble, are looking beautiful and attractive again; dazzle all around, and sometimes in inappropriate places. Sometimes it's catching the talented designer girl who works for my mom in the corner of my eye -- now there's a well-worn trope of sleeze: the lecherous boss's son -- sometimes it's bright-eyed newbies from Florida who really just want to dance, sometimes it's the nameless stranger across the street. They all move too fast for me. I'm almost there, but at the moment I lack the ease and guile one needs when approaching the unknown. I don't have a lot of confidence in my self yet, so there's little reason for anyone else to believe in me. I know this, and while it's something to overcome it's also a step up from where I was not too long ago.

In a moment of caffinated reflection, my circumstances feel like Voltron forming up; the pieces starting to come together, but not quite ready for action. I imagine the various elements scattered by the Summer of the Hassle honing in on their magnetic contact points, rotating on their bearings and sliding into their purpose-built rail guides. The rush of wind and the whine of powerful servos; ca-chunk; ca-chunk ca-chunk; the robot comes alive. Be in love with yr life.