Thursday
“Ô, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth.”
Roman Payne
Summer is here in the country that is in a forever summer.
UAE is hot or very hot, and the very hot weather has arrived.
Mid 40’s.
Shell is at another campus today and she is home before me.
When I arrive home she is on the phone to her colleague.
She hangs up and gives me four minutes, not listening, before she calls back.
It annoys me.
We have half a disagreement before I apologise for her bad behaviour.
“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”
Plato
Friday
“Apparently I lack some particular perversion which today’s employer is seeking. ”
John Kennedy Toole
I hit the gym.
After arriving back from Europe five weeks ago I have been working towards getting my weight back under control.
7kg to drop.
A calorie deficit is a tough time, especially for weeks, but it is the only way.
I was close to my goal weight last week, with only a kilogram to go. Yesterday, I had high hopes at the weigh-in and fell 0.4kg short.
One more week before I can get back into a caloric balance.
“Men in fear and hunger destroy their stomachs in the fight to secure certain food, where men hungering for love destroy everything lovable about them.”
John Steinbeck
We have a work commitment tonight. A school Expo. Standard stuff in the International Schools circuit.
3.00-9.00 pm is asking a bit much. I doubt our organisation will be including dinner.
Looming afternoon commitments make for days where you can’t do much but wait.
I read The Road and consider what to read after I finish I’ve Been Thinking.
“There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination.”
Daniel Dennett
We head to the Sharjah Expo centre for a boring six hours.
Sometimes you just do what is required regardless of how futile the idea.
“…it occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility.”
Joseph Conrad
Saturday
Gym and home for the Pies game.
I am having trouble with imagery. There is no paddling this weekend, so the standard, flat, blue nothingness of Dubai shorelines isn’t even getting a call up.
I could throw pictures of what I am reading, but they are the same books as previous weeks.
We are not drinking wine at the moment, and the food we are cooking is fuel not fancy.
I think I might go back through the media files and just post random pictures that seem interestng.
“You must learn one thing.
David Whyte
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
Except the one in which you belong.”
Pies win, just.
We do the weekly shop and head home.
I do not much and read The Road.
Sunday
“Across my life only one word will be written: “waste” – waste of life, waste of talent, waste of enterprise.”
Violet Trefusis
Violet is mentioned in Orlando, by Virginia Woolf. Violet is the Russian Princess, Sasha.
Violet had an affair with the author Vita Sackville-West. Both were married, it was in the early 1900s.
I am thinking of Sasha, Violet, as I spend my weekends reading and doing little else and wonder if my time could be spent doing something more… productive.
I prepare my lunches for the week and read The Road until I am bored and than switch to Dennett until my eyes are tired.
I might have McCarthy fatigue. The last time I read The Road I couldn’t put it down. Ten McCarthy books and counting. Two more to go.
“You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.”
Cormac McCarthy
And the day passes.
School tomorrow. Week 6. The half way mark of the term.
Six weeks until we head to Europe.
After that, one more year in the UAE.
“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.”
Jack Kerouac
Hang in there xxxx
Thank you 🙂