It is 8:15 PM and tonight there is no baseball on the tube since it is the day after the All Star Game. It is the proverbial All Star Break, which means the baseball addicts cannot watch professional baseball.

It’s okay.

This evening, the sky over the mountains to the east coalesced into a swirl of thick dark clouds. After that, the wind came up a bit. And after that, after I went outside and took a photo of the oppressive stratus bank gathering to the east, I came inside and the rain began to fall, plinking solidly off of the metal awning over the bulk of my backyard.

Sitting in front of a table that is in the pathway between an open front door and an open back door, I am periodically combed by cool air pushing around my body. The temperature of the breeze is delicious and such a welcome visitor outside of all the heat I house here.

Welcome, monsoons. Feel free to kick your rainy feet up and to stay around for a bit. You will be greeted warmly.

After work, I stopped at Dion’s for a chef salad, since I am in a “no cooking, blow your money” mode of living right now. Too often I ask, “What is wrong with me?” How hard is it to go to the store and get 20 items? How hard is it to make a sandwich, to boil some eggs, to pour a bowl of cereal, to bake some chicken breasts?

Well, maybe it is hard. But be productive elsewhere, then, son.

After last night’s screenwriting class, I thought I would do well to try and pick up working on the de Anza project. There’s a lot of research that can be done. And working on it is considered productive, if I determine I must and will finish it. I hope sometime that determination and resolve kicks in, for my sake. Just so I can be cheered by finishing something I set out to do. Something sizable and worthwhile. If for no one else, at least for myself.

I’ll spend another hour or so tonight at this table, in the cool cross-flow, trying to collect some basic information on the Comanches and the Apaches in the 17 and 18th centuries.