I have the proclivity to wake up and not want to get out of bed at five in the morning, but I also don’t want to stay in bed either. It’s a tug-of-war with myself on a Monday, but I made it to the coffee shop. Everything is well and good. The baristas are loading boxes of materials onto a dolly and carrying them back as I sit by the window and watch the sun rise.

I ate a lot yesterday. I started in the morning with a bacon, egg, and gouda sandwich and an iced espresso with cream and olive oil. It’s my favorite drink. Then I went for a two-hour walk after I finished reading and writing. It was 116 degrees, and I traveled by foot for almost six miles, sweating all over. When I got back to my apartment, I saw in the mirror that my shorts were drenched from heat. It looked like I had pissed myself when in reality the sweat was on the backside. I had to wash them in the evening. I drank a Big Gulp of Coca-Cola through the walk, and then I went back to the coffee shop to continue writing. I drank a berry juice to hydrate myself and another iced espresso with cream and olive oil.

I walked back home and ordered Five Guys to be delivered. Five Guys might be the best fast food burger out there, although I can’t overlook In-N-Out Burger. It has been so long since I’ve eaten a Double-Double. Their menu is so simple: a hamburger, cheeseburger, French fries, milkshake, and soda. They have a secret menu as well, and sometimes I have ordered from it. It includes animal-style fries and an animal-style burger that I believe is made with Thousand Island dressing and grilled onions, but don’t quote me on that. I’ll still go with Five Guys because of recency bias.

Anyway, I ended the night with a treat of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Sundays are my cheat day. Everyone needs to have one before they continue their week on a strict diet of limiting carbohydrates as much as they can because carbs are what make them gain weight, and no one wants that.

Today, I have to walk to the dentist to have a filling replaced, and I believe that’s it. I could spend several hours there like I did last time. I had to wait for ninety minutes just to see her. It was a nightmare, sitting in the waiting room. I had to watch daytime television, which is torture with low-budget soap operas and depressing commercials about smoking and lung cancer. They do that on purpose so people will desperately look for jobs because no one wants to see that.

But anyway, I hope the appointment goes well and hope the heat doesn’t bring me down to hell. I’ll have to finish editing my manuscript before I send it off to my editor. It’s not altogether perfect. I keep coming across loose ends in the stories because it’s a collection of shorts that all take place in the same town, and I’m just looking for inconsistencies. It helps when I’ve been editing and rewriting a gazillion times. I’m getting sick of it. Whenever a writer asks me when their stories are ready for an editor or publication, I say it’s when they’re sick of it. That always seems to ring true.

Anyway, I’m waiting for the summer to end, so it can get cool again. I keep having dreams like the one last night, where my aunt laid the ground rules for throwing a party: no alcohol, no smoking, no ESPN either. I had an argument with her about it until I woke up and was thankful it was just a dream. I run across that situation a lot after a dream. I guess that makes it a nightmare because I’m glad it was over or that it wasn’t real, but I don’t know if I should label it a nightmare, just a bad dream because Frankenstein’s monster wasn’t chasing me with scissors like he has in the past.