ten shades of gray

today is intermediate. suspended in time, in space. it's got that gray feeling of not being a peak or a valley but somewhere lost on the slope. in between. i should be doing something but i don't know what it is. i'm trying not to fall asleep. my mother is napping in the den, my father in the master bedroom. my sister is sitting in front of the television snacking. she is very good at this. she's in the middle of her sixth hour today. that's just since she got up at noon. i was up at 8:25 with my dad. walked out to the fence with him and looked at the beach for a while. came back and cooked both of us eggs with some bacon, watermelon, and cantaloupe. did 60 pushups and 100 crunches with some plank time thrown in while they went to the grocery store. read some in my magazine. read some in my book.

i've spent a lot of time out on the porch reading. it's one of my favorite places here. i finished the first magazine and am down to the last 60 pages on the book. it's easy when the pages count down for you. i'm worried where i'll go when it's done, though. just pick up another. had some gazpacho for lunch, which was delicious because my mother adds hotsauce where my grandmother doesn't.

after lunch, my parents and i went out walking on the beach. the wind was stronger than it looked so we turned west to walk. i figured we wouldn't walk as far into it. we got a little over a mile down the beach when we got tired of all the drizzle from the approaching thunderstorm and turned around. i thought i'd pretend this week that i didn't care what anyone else thought about me but the girl in the red/green/yellow/brown bikini reminded me that i probably looked terrible in my cheap blue sunglasses. a single drop hit the back of my ear and made a loud thunking noise. we didn't really talk, any of us.

i sat in the den with my mother flipping channels for a little while before landing on the end of dogma, then braveheart, then the race. i ate a couple scoops of original craisins. went back out and read some more in the rocker chair outside. the sky got darker and little rain spray hit my arms. people started leaving from the pool. i tried real hard to see the rain but i couldn't tell it was falling unless i wasn't looking at it. now i'm holed up in my room waiting for dinner. don't want to go to sleep. don't want to read anymore. don't want to watch television.

i guess i haven't really said anything at all. it's gray. it's intermediate. i can't find whatever destination i'm searching for.

that and i'm still looking for the right words or the courage to walk away.

i want it to rain and storm like it never has before.