third and first

i'm thinking about first and third person a lot. the word "organic" is a word that is coming up often when i think about first person. i think i like stuff that is written in first person that feels very "everyday" and the story sort of arises from the voice. for some reason i don't like overly language driven stuff in first person. for some reason that feels more at home to me in third person. this may be because if i read a really language driven piece in first person then i have to imagine this person, who is doing these things, who is doing some talking in the story through dialogue but somehow the talking in dialogue is nothing at all like the language that the narrator is using to tell the story. it bothers me. sometimes, while i really love a lot of lish's and say gary lutz's writing, i have this first person issue. i do not have this same feeling for someone like christine schutt, but that may be because many of the stories in a day, a night, another day, summer are in third person.

i got a fortune cookie this past spring, maybe late winter, that read: you will take a chance in the future and win. i put a lot into my fortune cookies. i have more faith in a fortune cookie than other people, probably. i thought at the time this had to do with publishing or maybe with a job. it turns, i believe now, it was a job and stuff. i quit my post-doc at etsu to move to sc. i didn't have a job until two weeks ago, but i'm making as much as i did at etsu and only have one prep. also, i'm living with emily the fiance and pat the texan.

i'm running six miles easily. i might do a 5k soon and actually try to run well. maybe shoot for 18. my sister asked me if i'd ever do a marathon. i'm not a distance runner, i'm a mid-distance runner. i will never run a marathon, i don't care too. i would like to be able to get up to an easy nine miles and run a good 5k. i don't know.

playing tennis every other day about. some full matches (best of 3 sets) i remember:

6-1, 6-4 (W) very early in the summer, we struggled to play a full match after this because it was above 90 every day and we kept going out at 1 and quitting, tied after two sets. then i couldn't play for a week or so because of calf problem.

7-5, 4-6, 6-3 (W) this one was fun, in the last week or so, with my new babolat. i do remember thinking my opponent was tired in the third and so i got a little lucky there. i hit some big forehands here that i was pleased with. trying to put more on the serve.

7-6, 6-7, 3-6 (L) one of my favorite matches even though i lost just because of the mental effort involved. i thought i could close it out in the second set but ended up losing the tie break. sort of was defeated after that and couldn't get anything going in the third. pat's serve also defeated me, kicking out wide to my backhand on the ad-court.

6-2, 1-6, 6-3 (W) i don't know what happened in this match. i think what happened was pat got pissed off he lost the first set, so he played out of his mind in the second and killed me (serve and volley), and then i got pissed off i lost the second set so badly so i turned it up in the third, really ran around backhands and tried to be aggressive. it was interesting and fun to play.

3-6, 4-6 (L) got my ass killed in this one.