Okay, so the reason I'm embarassed about being less stressed when Earl is around is that stressed and functional are directly related. Being happier when my boyfriend is around is one thing; being more functional is another. It bugs me, sometimes seriously. As far as I can tell his functionality is unimpaired by fire, flood, hurricane, my presence or the lack thereof.

On one level this is nice. After all, hyper-competence is sexy. On the other hand ... if I'm going to be made more functional by his presence, it'd be keen to think it went both ways.

To fight off my embarassment, I point out to myself that it's important to pay attention to terminology. We're talking about being more functional. This doesn't imply that I'm non-functional when he's not around. So why be embarassed that he makes my life better by giving me times I can take down my defenses -- which, in turn, drops my stress level and makes me better able to do things?

Hah. Take that, embarassment.

It's also worth noting that my own functionality is unimpaired by fire, flood, and hurricanes. It's very rare that anything hurts me that isn't something I've done to myself. There are people, of course -- Earl and a few others -- who I've integrated so thoroughly into my life that they can easily hurt me. But the rest? Nope, not really.

Liralen misunderstood what I said. I put too much detail into almost everything else I write. For the journal, I feel like I don't do enough.

On the other hand, the sort of detail I put into most things I write might not be the sort of detail people would want. I seem to live very strongly by intellect rather than by sensation -- an interesting thing to realise after being called a hedonist for so many years. Anyway, for whatever reason (and I have a list of possibilities), I don't tend to notice a lot of physical detail. Part of this is that I'm non-visual, so when I remember things I tend to remember them in words. Part of this is just laziness. I'm not sure what the rest is.

So what _is_ the detail I use too much of? Thinking, of course. I can detail torturous thought processes for hours. Nobody really wants to read about all the things a brain considers & rejects before it comes up with the plan it's working on. Well, nobody except me, apparently. I must have some interest in it, or my writing would be so darn full of it.

My day, in descriptive voice? It's hot outside, and the air is thick and hazy, and you can barely see the mountains. An official Bad Air Day. I have to breathe, but every breath I take outside makes me feel vaguely ill. It's probably all in my head. Also, I'm wearing black pants, and it's just really too hot for them, but so long as the guys at my company can't wear shorts, I'm not going to either.

One of my many reasons for going to Foothill instead of some more conveniently located college is the scenery. You drive down El Monte towards this huge wall of green-forested mini-mountains, and then suddenly you're _in_ the foothills, and the wall is no longer some distant thing. The air usually smells pretty good. The view from campus, out over the 280, is of gentle hills with houses tucked into them. Coming out during early summer the sunlight slanting over the hills was a deep-gold colour that for a moment made me understand the fascination with light that artists are supposed to have. The light around Foothill is usually fascinating.

Why is it easier to write about what I'm thinking than about what I see?