Metro light rail, this is hard for me to write.

I like you. I really do. I enjoy your crisp air conditioning, your clangy bells, the way you zip through that University-Stadium intersection like you own it.

I just don’t want to take you to work anymore, because I am a Wuss.

You are running one-car trains all summer to save money. You’ve got the taxpayer’s back. I respect that. Still, I don’t want to stand nostril-to-armpit with my fellow sweaty passengers when it’s 118 outside. Paying more for trains that run less frequently.

I don’t blame your business decision; it’s necessary. It’s proper. You’re keeping the train affordable for those who need it to be.

It’s just that at the end of the day, Tokyo Subway conditions are really taxing in the heat. Sorry. See you this fall?

Universe, I would like to ask you for a few things, as you do provide excellently to those who ask:

1. I need a wonderful, hard-working, honest, philanthropy-oriented web designer. Someone who believes in the cause and will work as hard as I do for it. Someone who isn’t there just for a paycheck, but for a passion. I promise to nurture and protect this web designer and be a great boss. Also, there will be regular trips to Pita Jungle for hummus involved, unless the designer hates hummus, like my weird husband.
2. I need an intern, a hard-working, smart ASU student who will give me 100% because this is the very first, very important step in his or her career. S/he is a maturing young adult, very serious about the job, doesn’t need micromanaging, takes initiative, wants to absorb the Internet world like a sponge. I will also feed this wonderful intern hummus.
3. I need my muse back. She has been battered very badly in a recent storm of anxiety, stress and poor sleep. Make her strong again. Help me feed her. Not hummus. Whatever muses eat.
4. I need to help a political candidate win an important election, or at least give it his or her best shot. I did not realize this until today, but it is a need.
5. I need to find my place. If this house is it, the bar behind my house needs to stop playing live butt rock on Sunday nights. Please, universe. This would help a lot.
6. I need my friend Moira to have a speedy recovery from her surgery tomorrow. Please send her good books and movies.
7. My brother is running an ad in a national magazine on Tuesday. Will you send lots of people his way?
8. I need to make music.

One thing I took from Australia was the aboriginal notion that one is born with a finite amount of energy. A spiritual idea, but if you think of mitochondria production and cell replication, it is probably true on a physiological level as well.

I am becoming aware that with as much creative energy as I have, I cannot be “on” at all times. I have a battery. It drains, goes dead. It must recharge.

Things that charge my creative battery: Travel, time off to knock around, introspection, yoga, exercise, breaking out of my comfort zone, nature, alone time, reading, watching TED videos, getting to help someone solve a problem in a new way

Things that drain my creative battery: Taking on too much work, stress, not meeting clients’ expectations and feeling bad about it, endless routine, fear that I will never “find my place”

What charges and depletes you?