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10:41 p.m. - July 02, 2002
Aloha
Today met with my editor and the president of the company publishing my books, signed contracts that commit my life to writing for the next three years, and was plushly feted, coming away with a carton of free books. It is foreign to me, the attention and excitement and gleeful hand clapping, and it does make me feel rather good in a shallow way. I'm not going to become rich off the textbooks though I certainly expect to take my Peruvian vacation in two years, courtesy of royalties, but what I like most is the feeling of leaving something permanent behind, something more concrete and substantial than a footprint to say that I was here and I lived and this is what I did. Of course in the bigger picture this work of mine is meaningless, but for the here and now it is what I want and I enjoy it.

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Very hot and humid, the back sweat type, made worse by the crowds that suddenly appeared in Union Station, on the metro, on the buses, as if these people were on holiday together and have returned back to work. Maybe they're tourists for the 4th festivities, and this morning I was able to help one family determine which metro line to take from their abode to the Mall, only to find out afterwards as I left the station that the feds will close down Smithsonian station. Oops. They can walk--everybody else will, too.

I have no plans as of yet for the Fourth of July; my conference begins Wednesday and might join some of the planned activities with the other attendees. Note that this is out of desperation and not because I have anything better to do. Friday is my presentation and I am in a double salon, meaning the organizers expect a big crowd. Big crowd, come; I don't want to address crickets. If you're interested in neurolinguistics and cognitivist applied linguistics as it relates to the brain's processing of language stimuli, come on down. I have a kick ass Powerpoint visual featuring MRIs of human data processing and MRIs of monkeys and mice and will talk for an hour. I'm in Salon IV somewhere in the hotel. Email for specifics.

I'm a nerd, but somebody has to do it.

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Enough mindless chatter.

Missing the ex-girlfriend today like forgetting a word you know when you need it.

 

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