Wore the jacket I bought for client meetings and spent most of the morning feeling the lining pull across my shoulders. It fits when I'm standing up, less well when I'm reaching across the scanner. I kept thinking everyone could see me adjusting it, which probably made me do it more. At lunch I took it off and walked around the block, and the cool air through my shirt felt much better than sitting at the desk. My hands were cold by the time I came back but the rest of me had stopped feeling trapped. Changed into old jeans as soon as I got home. Dad asked if the office was stressful. Mostly the clothes, today, though I didn't tell him that.

A friend sent pictures of the place he's renting in the city, three other guys and a couch that looks worse than ours. He sounded so excited that I felt bad for being jealous. Not of the couch, obviously. Just how he can decide who comes over and what time he gets home without it turning into a family discussion. I like living here, and I know how much money it saves. Both things are true and neither stopped me feeling left behind for a while. Mom asked who I was texting and I said nobody important, which wasn't fair to him or her. I sent him a message saying the place looked good. It does, in a messy sort of way. I'd like to visit.

I keep finding the same surnames on old farm records and wondering when people stopped remembering the person and started using the name for a place. Dad still calls one field by a family that hasn't lived here for years. I asked him about it and he knew the father's name but not when they'd moved, then Mom remembered something different. Neither sounded unsure. At work I like having dates written down because they don't change halfway through a story, although I suppose someone had to put them there. I want to look at our old maps this weekend, just the ones at home. Not for a course assignment. I'd like to know which parts of the names I grew up hearing are actually places.