Yesterday I started a new job at the National Education Association, at their New Mexico headquarters in Santa Fe. The position is titled "Program Assistant/Receptionist"; so far I've only been trained in the receptionist duties. Oddly, it is the receptionist who makes the mail and bank run every day, and also restocks office supplies--I believe because the woman who vacated the receptionist position volunteered for those duties. She seems a lot like my mother, who feels the need to do as much work as there is to do, whether they give her more pay and respect or not, whether she likes the company or not. The former receptionist told me yesterday that she has trouble remembering to take her afternoon break, because she gets so busy, a problem which I presume I won't have no matter how busy it gets. So far the receptionist part has been boring and a little anxiety inducing, as I'll explain later.

I'm hoping I'll like the assistant position more. I'll be helping the "UniServ" who covers the northeastern and central New Mexico school districts. UniServs are the people who handle contract negotiation and conflict mediation, find (or offer, not sure yet) representation for union members who have legal trouble, lobby local governments, and other things I'm not clear on yet. My UniServ doesn't come into the office more than a few times a week, because he mainly does meetings all over the state. He hasn't come in since I started working. Eventually I'll be composing letters, proofreading, designing signs, and whatever else he needs. I'll also be maintaining a database detailing union dues by member. So far I've gotten no work on that end, because the people who are going to give it to me are, I guess, too busy.

This means that I have yet another job which, at least for now, consists of waiting for a phone to ring, and dealing with callers when it does. I wish I could have a job that didn't involve phones. Even though I've had nothing much to do so far, I already dread going to work; there's something awful about being attached to a desk with nothing to do. It's not that I hate dealing with phone calls, exactly. If they were for me, I'd feel a lot better. But the uncertainty of calls--not knowing when anyone will call, who they are, what I'm supposed to do with them--instills in me a baseline of anxiety the whole time I'm at work. When I applied for this position, the office manager seemed concerned primarily that I be able to work with frequent interruptions, which I feel okay about. I'm not upset by the interruptions as much as the anxiety. If I have nothing to do, the phone only serves as a constant reminder that I might, at any time, be required to speak professionally with strangers. I can't retreat into privacy, which is what I tend toward naturally. If I'm busy in the future, as everyone keeps telling me I will be, the phone's presence would mean that I couldn't ever get completely lost in details.

So far, I'm pretty much stuck with surfing the internet or writing emails and blogs; things which I enjoy doing, but usually for less than an hour a day. I have now had nearly every iteration of things I can do while waiting for the phone to ring (or, in the case of QAI, having babies and small children playing in the corner of my eye): first I could read and listen to music, with breaks; then I couldn't do either of those things, but could play lots of Spider Solitaire (Promissor . . . rawr!); next I was able to do just about anything, even sleep, but had to stay at the switchboard the whole time; and now I can surf the internet, but not listen to music, presumably not read a book, and certainly not sleep, but I get two breaks and an hour and fifteen minute lunch (it's a union, what do you expect?).

I miss the library, and it would be nice if I could start graduate school. This new job, at least, pays very well (by my standards, at any rate), provides excellent benefits, and has opportunities for advancement. All told, any problems I have with the job pale in comparison with that lineup. Someday, though, I will have a room without a hideous oversized phone at my elbow, and maybe even the ability to feel like myself all the time.

Last night I was sitting at my kitchen table with a plate of spaghetti that had grown cold an hour before as I'd forgotten to attend to it, and instead was watching the shadows shift as the light spread across the room. When it was cut off by the curtain, I got up and went to the window, and there was the moon looking in on me from across the yard. I greeted her, and she waved. "Do you want to come in?"

"Well, maybe for a few minutes. Why not?"

I pushed the panes open and she floated inside, coming to rest on a chair across from my spaghetti. The room became dark.

"Do you have anything for me to reflect?"

"I'm afraid I don't have anything to compare to what you're used to. My means are limited. How about this, will this do?" I took a table lamp from the living room and plugged it in on the kitchen counter.

"Maybe you could remove the shade? That's better."

"Would you like anything to eat? I have some leftover Chinese if you're interested."

"No, I'm fine, thanks. Unless you've got a pumpkin somewhere."

"Is that what you eat?"

"Yes. As a matter of fact, I'm mostly pumpkin."

"Just a second. I'll be right back." I went to the porch and chose a pumpkin I'd set aside for carving, short and with a broad face. The stars shone impassively in the space vaceted by the moon. I brought the pumpkin back and asked if it would do.

"It looks delicious. Turn away if you don't mind." When I turned back, the pumpkin was gone and the moon had taken on an orange tint in the light from the lamp bulb. It suited her features. "If you don't mind my asking," she said, "why do you keep referring to me as 'she'?"

"Aren't you? A woman, I mean? Luna, you know. I thought it meant . . . "

"It's a common misconception. I'm not really gendered, though. That kind of thing is just myth."

"Still, it seems appropriate."

"I'll admit that it's more poetic, but really I'm just mineral."

"I thought you said you were mostly pumpkin."

"Sure, but do pumpkins have genders?"

I sat pondering that, and the moon started to look a bit restless. I said that I'd understand if it was time to get going.

"Nice seeing you," it said.

"Come back anytime." Then it rose to the window and slipped through the trees to join the watchful stars.

It is that most evil hour, between four a.m. and five; the light looks yellow and uriney, and objects only come into focus when I look directly at them. Even then they look like they're being projected onto some disgusting surface by the illusion-casting lamps of the universe. There's a tingling in my scalp as though worms were crawling around in there. My eyes feel like marbles someone has thrust into a jello mould. This happens even tonight, when I woke up at 9 p.m. I suppose circadian rhythems exist.

Time at the Switchboard is refractory. It's starting to feel, when I turn off all the lights I can and lie down on the rough carpet, like I'm being observed remotely. The dim light is charged with the tension of after-hours; it feels like no one is supposed to be here, ever; it feels like I am taking refuge from a war.

This morning I woke twice: first at 3:45 a.m. from a dream in which Jeff and his friend Rob, and George Wendt, brought pizza to the switchboard, and then to a phone call. I did not get back to sleep. I heard someone unlock one of the doors, and two people talking back and forth for at least twenty minutes, a chatty woman and an inquisitive man, the noise floating above me on the floor preventing me from drifting and sinking into the carpet and through the floor into sleep. I find that when I try to get to sleep and am interrupted, I float down; when there is nothing interrupting me but I still can't lose consciousness, I float up; and when I fall to sleep I am not there to float.

Eric made a website: highqualitytime.blogspot.com. It will not take long to view.

I quite like Santa Fe in fall, although I can't describe it too well because I don't get out much. It hasn't got the elaborate changing colors of Maryland, but leaves still fall, and brown seed pods, and the wind still blows them around, making a delightful whispering swish. The sunlight becomes more noticably slanted, as though it were filtered through water, casting an ambient glow rather than the shocking search-light quality it has in springtime, or the beating waves of light and heat in the summer. I could do without the chamisa, though; it's mostly done blooming now, I guess, because my eyes no longer feel like they're being squeezed with a hot lead vise, but I've still got a useless cough and raspy lungs. The rainy season is mostly over now, but the air often feels like a storm has just passed through and cleared things up. There is a lingering summer heat wave, noticable but thankfullly not overwhelming. At night I wish the mountains would cease their vigil so they could step down into the flat southern part of town, maybe huddle around a campfire and roast the remaining tourists, sparks simmering and flickering in the black around them, and tell me stories that would explain everything I always wanted to know.

I've been reading Iliads, comparing them with the Greek often, wondering why I care so much but trying still, uselessly, to catch a bit of meaning with some tweezers, draw it through the air and snap it out of the book like stubborn sinew clinging to bone, and maybe pin it to my wall like a trophy. I'd make a little plaque commemorating myself: Greg finally got it. Anne's starting school in just two days now, because there was a last minute opening in the Fall Freshman class. I think I'll go through the seminar with her, at least, and perhaps that way finally get away from the lingering feeling that I missed everything, maybe understood broadly some of the philosophy and learned to read Greek passably along with a translation, and French reasonably well, understood most of the math and some of the science, and fell down like a bitch in the ring with religion and literature. Why am I afraid that I didn't understand the Greek plays? Why do I still think that attempting to understand is the right approach?

The mousepad at Switchboard has a blown-up picture of the tower section of Weigel Hall. It was probably created to appeal to nostalgic ex-students, but I wonder if the person who created it was a disillusioned Johnny who wanted to take out his wrath like Godzilla. My mouse crushes.

I can see very starkly now, pretty much for the first time, the difference between "modern novels" and earlier fiction. I don't know why something like this should have taken so long, and it's realizations of that sort which make me question my own intelligence. Why didn't I understand this before now? It doesn't seem difficult or uncommon. It seems like many people are interested in and understand things like this in high school, and here I am at 24 still stuck on things that really aren't very interesting. Am I wrong?

I'm trying to figure out what I meant by "things like this" above. The most simple interpretation is that I mean developments in art. The understanding that there is a qualitative difference between, say, sixties pop songs and punk rock, or between European fashion and American. On another level, I think I mean a level of cognition that would also comprehend the second meanings of politicians, or the fake world of advertising. Behold my inferiority complex: I actually often think that my capacity to understand is lower than aware high school students.

Polewach has (jokingly?) declared the pointlessness of reading 19th century novels (his language is that it's irrelevant, with the joke perhaps being that he doesn't think any literature is relevant). Much reading of old fiction juxtaposed with new is leading me toward the same conclusion that novels, even when they're interesting, are pointless. I probably arrive at this conclusion from a very different angle because, well, I never really know what John's saying or why.

I used to think that I read fiction for reasons beyond entertainment. I'm not really sure what I thought those reasons were, because I've never been a deep thinker. Really I usually read (I'm thinking of high school and into college here) because I was solitary and impressionable, I liked stories, and I believed that reading "important books" was necessary for someone who wanted to be "intelligent". I found reading enjoyable even when I didn't even follow the story, let alone any other meaning of the text, because I responded to the different rhythems and and dictions, and it gave me a vague but often stirring feeling of being somewhere else, as another person, much like in dreams. When I think about why fiction might be worthwhile, I fall back on the following very common postulates: 1. Fiction might help me understand life, or appreciate it better (recognize patterns, experience people and events more critically, appreciate the weight of decisions before making them). 2. Through stories, writers are able to examine and communicate ideas, even complex ones, in a way more immediate and accessible than standard argument.

I look at these postulates now and recognize them as belonging very much to the 19th century. I don't really know how thought about literature has developed since then, if it has. I see also that these postulates are very rarely true, at least for me. I mostly read for entertainment, historical curiosity, and the excitement I get from seeing a writer's abilities. Additionally, I recognize that the better writers tend to consciously examine social conditions and human psychology; but honestly I don't know that I get much out of it when they do. So why do I read fiction instead of quilt, or bet on horses? Dunno. Moreover, why do I stubbornly still think I ought to read, say, Fielding or even, as I did early this year, everything by Flaubert? Dunno.

This is the new face of St. John's College: stone-faced, chill, perhaps taken aback by what he's looking at but trying not to show it. And what is he looking at? I believe it to be a male strip-tease. Notice the excited interest of the dude in the plaid shirt, and the big smile on the girl's face. I believe the strip-tease artist is Mr. Grenke.

I have a new desktop computer. The monitor is huge and black-bordered, the tower is futuristic grey, the mouse is bulbous, the speakers are small and powerful-looking, and the keyboard is soft and fluffy. Now I can finally download music again, and . . . play World of Warcraft, and . . . yes, I said it. And also . . . that's about it, really.

I have been trying to structure my time better, since I get depressed when I don't plan. Pants get tossed all over my sentences, food grime builds up on my words, and I have to pay more per letter. If I could only manage to sleep at work, my collar would slide off. My tea is cooling before I can drink it, and my stomach is probably too floppy anyway, but later I have Lyly and Pullman. Too bad my dry wall is bleeding.

I dreamt that I decided to go home in the middle of a shift, so I took the switchboard radio, the sleeping bag and the pillow, went home and made a sandwich. Jeff was playing computer, and Anne chatted with me while I ate. We were watching a movie when the radio crackled, "226 to base." I walked over resentfully, pressed the transmit button and said, "go ahead," expecting something non-essential like a radio check.

I waited a few seconds, and then heard the voice again, sounding breathy and pained. "Lack of life signs."

I was astounded, and certain that I should never have left the switchboard. They would see that I wasn't there, and whatever happened might be blamed on me. I pressed the button again, feeling chill. "For who? A student, or what?"

"No." A long pause. "Anaya." Anaya is another security guard who, in the dream, was this guard's partner.

"My God, do you need me to call an ambulance?"

"No . . . I'll take care of it . . . Arnand . . . Arnand, noooooooooooooooooo!"

I ran to my car and sped to campus. When I arrived, I saw a huge crowd gathering, hushed and unsure how to act. I overheard a few groups saying things like "did you know him?" "are we supposed to be standing, or is this okay?" and "I guess classes are ccancelled." Meanwhile, I was dodging through the seated groups trying to get back into the building before anyone realized that I hadn't been there. I had forgetten the radio, the sleeping bag and the pillow at home; I thought I would have to call Jeff and ask him to bring them to me. I heard the voice of Chris Nelson, the college president in Annapolis, saying "As you know, we're here for a solemn event."

Then I woke up on the floor at Switchboard.

Geschichte des Altertums is so long that it has an introductory volume of 250 pages, entitled "Introduction. Elements of Anthropology." For the most part, I've read only this volume, and dipped occasionally into the first book proper, which relates the history and culture of ancient Egypt and Babylon. Meyer wrote at the end of the 19th century, at which point it seemed that Anthropology had barely gone beyond comparing ancient summary works, like Herodotus and Strabo, with each other and with what was found in the same areas in the modern age.

Meyer sure hates shamans. He abruptly concludes his chapter on the primitive belief in magic by saying that traditional conceptions, on which the shamans' power is based, hold back and suppress everything from the formation of self-reflection to the development of medical science, and in general the achievements which raise the human condition from barbarism to culture.

I'm at switchboard now, haltingly reading German, then switching to Manuscript Found in Saragossa, then drinking some coffee and playing some Alchemy. I've brought my stuffed owl, Zaditor, to keep me company. For the most part I've been listening to Schubert and Chopin. I've been unable to sleep while at work. Anneis probably right to think that I complain about this job too much. If I manage to use my time well, this job will be a blessing.

I only work at the library for two more hours. I start at the switchboard tonight at midnight, and stay until 8 a.m. I don't know what to do with the two hours here. I just finished work on my last project, and wrote an explanation of it for whoever takes it up. I could look at the shelf for books to weed from the collection, or read College & Research Libraries News.

I don't want to leave.

I've been reading one of the first universal histories through interlibrary loan, Geschicte des Altertums by Eduard Meyer. It's in German, so I've been stumbling through it; and with all five volumes, it's several thousand pages, so maybe even the hundred I've scanned aren't representative; but so far, it seems like nothing more than a gigantic review of all the historical writings before him. It's like an endless special edition of the Times Literary Supplement discussing only history books, perhaps designed to teach scholars how to waste their time. But who knows, maybe he throws in a little synthesis every hundred pages.

New beds comin' in soon. Ayup. Heard about it from that nice man down the mattress store. Why, he even gave me a free sheep. Don't know what I'll do with that'un. Maybe make a sweater. What I hear, though, I hear thurze a queen-sized bed a-comin' round the house next week. Even got a working shower now, not just a bathtub anymore, nope. Working wireless internet connection too. It's like a real residence now. Don't know how we'll pay for it though. Might have to take two jobs; switchboard looks like a real stinker, so it may be that I keep the library job 'swell. Ayup. Lot of hours, that.

I've just checked out about 10 albums of music by Chopin, after browsing the introduction to a collection of Chopin waltzes in score. Here I go again.

Someone just checked out a book of essays by Leo Strauss with his picutre on the cover. I had never seen the man before. He looked very uncomfortable in front of the camera, and had an expression even more blank than is common for portraits. Perhaps, while that picture was being taken, he was wishing that no one would ever look at his face and he could live behind his name alone, perpetually unseen and mysterious.

I guess I've decided to take the job. I'm not very happy about it. I have three meetings on Monday to try to get tuition remission for Anne to take the undergraduate program. First I meet with financial aid, then the assistant dean, and finally the director of the graduate program (for those of you who know him, Mr. Venkatesh). We still don't know if Anne's even gotten in.

Laura told me that I can come back to the library if there's an opening in the evenings and weekends supervisor position; the switchboard supervisor (Kyle) told me that if there was an opening for the daytime operator, I could definitely switch if I wanted to; and the human resources officer (Lois) told me that she hasn't done any interviews yet for the position I applied to in Admissions. Because of all this, I at least have some options.

I haven't told Laura yet; in fact, my last words to her on the subject were that I'd decided to stay at the library through the summer unless I got a salaried position. I guess the offer to start me at the midpoint salary was enough.

It looks like I'll be studying Zen this summer. Jess had suggested it to me a while ago, and then I saw D. T. Suzuki's Manual of Zen Buddhism on a "what are you reading this summer?" library display and thought it would be a good idea to focus my mind while locked up alone in Peterson all night.

I have a meeting today with Lois in Human Resources to discuss a job I've been offered: overnight operator of the St. John's Switchboard. The hourly pay would be smaller, but the paychecks would be larger. I'd have benefits, including vacation and, in two years, I could do the E.C. program for free. That's where the advantages end. I would be leaving a job I actually enjoy, which has got to be pretty rare. I'd also be working at a schedule opposite to Anne's no matter how we worked it, because her job doesn't have much opportunity for overnight work.

Laura told me I could come back to the library if I took the job and the library supervisor position opened up again. Or I could stay at the library until I'm offered a salaried position. I don't know yet what to do.

My meeting with Lois is in less than ten minutes. None of the questions I'm asking her would be hugely helpful in the decision, but I'm going to ask for more time to decide.

I'm thinking of taking some courses at UNM as part of their non-degree program. I got the idea first from Molly Padgett, who is otherwise not a warehouse of ideas. It seems that I may know what to go to grad school for, and it's something I would never have thought of: Anthropology, probably either Biological Anth. or Archaeology. It seems I'm fascinated by the reconstruction of human history and origins. It seems I might want to check this out with some courses.

This started, as my interests normally do, with regression. I was reading Arthur Toynbee's A Study of History when I realized that he wasn't ever going to slow down and tell me what that history was, so I looked for supplementary books. The library isn't very expansive in this field, for obvious reasons (hint St. John's doesn't study history and wants to suppress it hint), but I was able to find a reasonably thorough history of world civilizations. It was written in the early 70's, before some important dating techniques were discovered, but it would do. The first chapter was on prehistory; it contained mostly idle speculation about the mesolithic, and some moderately more informed speculation about the origin of agriculture. Since this is a period I know very little about, and it seemed that, whether or not this book thought so, it would give important insight into the origins of civilizations, I looked in the bibliography for that chapter. The library had a few of the books listed there, and the most general looked like Back of History, by William Howells.

Now Howells, as I was later to learn, was primarily a physical anthropoligst, specializing in prehumanity. And so he devoted more than half of the book to the question of human origins. Now, this book was written in 1953, practically at the beginning of our understanding of human origins. The "Piltdown Man" had only recently been revealed to be a hoax. There was still a different name (indeed multiple names) for each specimen of what is now called Homo Erectus that had been found (e.g. "Java Man", "Sinanthropus", "Pithecanthropus Erectus"). The !Kung San, who were described rather uncritically, were still referred to as Bushmen. Every stone tool was still assumed to be a weapon.

Despite all of this, the book made me realize that there's a hell of a lot I don't know about human evolution and prehistory. So I got a book by Richard Leakey; then one by DonaldJohanson, who discovered Lucy; then a 25-year-old collection of Scientific American Articles; then finally I received the interlibrary loan I'd requested, an up-to-date standard introductory textbook to Anthropology, Patterns in Prehistory.

Perhaps, since I've been studying these things for less than a month, I should wait to say that I might go to grad school for them. But I am certainly looking into non-degree classes at UNM in Anthropology, regardless.

I may have just discovered an essential element of poetry through reading, of all people, Sylvia Plath. I never understood before when people said things like, "poetry's medium is pure language". Now I do, I think. If the purpose of art is to generate feelings, then poetry does this not with ideas or stories or sounds or images, although it may use these insofar as language is connected with them; but it is the language itself that generates the feelings.

I'm taking a second allergy test next Tuesday, since I failed the last one (I was blocking histamine). This means that I can't take allergy medication until then. For a while I doubted that the Clarinex was doing anything; now I know that it was. My eyes feel like a mob hitman is smothering them to death against the inside of my skull. My head is almost too heavy to keep aloft. At least I can still take my nasel spray; without that I'd probably qualify for disability payments.

I slept through Kay's knitting club today, stayed in the bath while Eric called me three times, and haven't done anything at work that was work-related other than find a couple of internet sources for the fact that Horned toads have black eyes. When I go home, I'll have some food, watch some episodse of Homicide, and read some Kurt Vonnegut. (I don't know what I'll eat; maybe chicken. On Friday, I received all seven seasons of Homicide on DVD, having ordered it from Borders with a 30% discount. I started reading Kurt Vonnegut novels when I heard that he died.) This is my day. I just thought I'd blog.

Shortly after I arrived at the library today, I was talking to Laura about how she sets up a spread sheet. "I can freeze this line, if I want, so that it stays on top even when I scroll. So I go to View . . . and then I click . . . ngggggg!" I looked over to see her face suddenly constricted into a look of shock and anger; her index finger had shot up like an attack dog, pointing just past the monitor.

"What is it?"

"Rain! And snow!"

Just then, the whole library rang with a pounding noise from the roof.

"And now hail! This has been happening every day this week, just as I have to ride home"

I looked out the window, where Laura's finger was still pointing rigidly in anger, and saw large streaks of every kind of condensation coming down at once onto the shivering pinyons, the skeletal branches of the newly-budding poplars, and the small juniper shrubs. Within seconds, everyone in the library ran over to press their faces against the windows in glee and wonder. Eight people ran over in a line and, like water from a faucet reaching the bottom of the sink, hit the wall and spread into a new line. Tutors and students stood together and gawked at the sight of the clouds descending to the earth like a mad swarm of bees.

As much as I would appreciate having employer-provided health insurance, vacation time, sick leave, and pay raises, I have to love my job. I am officially allowed to spend as long as I want, while on my shift, browsing through Library Journal and reading about new book releases; and if there's anything that looks interesting to me, I can point it out to the library director, who more likely than not will buy it. So not only do I get to browse and shop for books for free, I get paid to do it. I wish everyone had this job.

Maybe there's something to this whole waking up before noon thing people are always talking about.

Rain, rain, rain, the house is bombarded and the new bikes look like barricades. I don't believe there's anything outside the door except rain. Someone put up a backdrop so that it looks like there are wet dead leaves, droopy budding plants, and Cary Grant approaching the house, smiling and waving. Wait a minute, that is Cary Grant. What does he want?

In the last week, I was offered a job at Borders. This is the first job offer (which, indeed, resulted from the frist interview) I have ever gotten at Borders. I applied in Ellicott City, Annapolis, Los Angeles, Pasadena, and once previously in Santa Fe. They used to have the most annoying paper application of any retail store, two pages front and back with a request that the applicant list and describe employment and account for periods of inactivity over the last five years. I filled out that application maybe eight times, over the course of six years. I still have hand cramps from filling out that application. I never got a call.

Some time around last year they changed to an electronic, internet-based application, which requests even more information (professional AND personal references, area of college focus, reasons for leaving previous positions) and then had a personality test to see if the applicant is a leader, friendly, talkative, enjoys large groups, likes going out or staying in, enjoyed high school or thought about dropping out, likes filling out personality tests, likes lime with restaurant water . . . for thirty-five web pages. Five questions on each page. Filling it out eats up more time than the verbal portion of the S.A.T.s I did the electronic application in November to maybe get a Christmas season job while I wasn't at the library. I called them twice to ask if they were hiring, and went to the info desk to see if I could speak with a manager about my application. No response.

All I wanted was to be a bookseller. Most people might think that three years of supermarket, restaurant and cafe work, a job at a library, a four-year degree from a prestigious book-filled school, might make my application stand out.

I applied one more time last month, finally got an interview which went well, set up a second interview which also went well, and was hired . . . to work in the cafe.

I would have taken it, because I could use the money, and cafe workers still get a store discount; maybe if I stayed there for a few months, I could even be a book seller. Actually, I did take it, but two days ago I called back and turned them down. The other library supervisor quit, and once spring break is over, I will have thirty hours and five work days a week at the library and so I likely couldn't work out a good schedule at Borders. It could have been so beautiful.

I went out today to a place called Bobcat Bite, miles outside of town where the trees form the closest thing to an ocean within two hundred miles, and the road looks like it's going to ascend to the sky after the next turn. The Bite itself is a small shack, about the size of a medium gas station convenience store; only half of that is tables. There's a large, hilly gravel lot, and a roofed porch where people can wait to get inside. The building is wooden, with a picture window and wall mosaics of kachinas on both sides of the door.

(Jess, is this the place you wanted to go to? I'm sorry we didn't make it. Hopefully over the summer. Scott, you might want to consider building up a meat tolerance. Greg, continue writing the blog.)

Alanna asked me if I wanted to go with her, because she felt like having a burger with somebody. She was inviting everybody who's in town over spring break, and two other people came, one a senior in Annapolis, the other a Santa Fe '06 graduate. Alanna and I got there first; she had written my name on the dry-erase board (complete with an inlaid photo of a bobcat) tacked on the outside wall, used as a table list. "I never like writing my own name on those things," she said. I wiped my name off and put hers. I don't like taking the responsibility of communicating with the staff. We talked loosely for a bit, and then a waitress came out and looked at the board. "A-lane-a?"

"Yes."

"We have a table if you're ready."

"You can skip us. Two other people haven't shown up yet."

Then she erased her name and wrote "Byron", the '06 graduate.

Saying that we weren't ready yet was perhaps a bad play. Her friends arrived around 7:15; we got a table a little bit after 8.

When they showed up, I realized that I recognized both of them, and they both recognized me. I stayed quiet for about half an hour, because that's just how I roll. I roll observant. I found that both of them are a type I never really got to know at St. John's: social, thin, aware, a little bit artistic, interested in word play and constantly acting out impromptu comic roles. Then again, maybe that describes most of my friends in Annapolis and I just didn't know it. Yes, come to think of it, that describes most of my friends in Maryland in high school too. Huh. This is something of a revelation. I'll definitely have to think about this more. For some reason I'm fascinated by the sort of relationships I observed tonight. I definitely lack them now for the most part, and even in the past I was always in the outskirts. People who have a response when asked, "What are you doing this weekend?" People who tell stories about things that happened to them in the last month. People who always seem to be keeping an eye on everyone around them to make sure they're being approved of. Does this make sense to anyone reading this? I've always thought that I perceive people in a way others don't recognize, and I feel a bit embarrassed when I try to describe it because it sounds like I'm full of shit.

Anyway, Bobcat Bite. Yes. The woman who had earlier mispronounced Alanna's name popped out every ten minutes and gave us updates on the table situation. We were waiting for one of two parties to leave, because there were only two tables that could seat four people, and each time she had to tell us that we couldn't come in yet. Finally, just before 7:50, she took our order while we were still outside, because they shut down their grill around then. Alanna kept asking people if we were also really hungry, or also excited, because she likes to create bonds, I guess.

Some of the people finally left, and we sat down. Everything looks very humble inside, with a six-stool bar, five round wooden tables, and pictures of Bobcats all over the walls. There isn't much room between any of the tables, and everyone is close to one wall or another. Our food came a few minutes after we sat down, and oh, wow, I've never seen burgers that look quite this good. These things are as thick as two ordinary burgers, perfectly formed and grilled, thick and juicy. This doesn't translate well into words, maybe, but afterward, Alanna asked me, "Do you feel the passion yet?" And I did. It was the first time I ever felt an inward glow after eating a hamburger. It may just have been my body's diversion of energy to my stomach to begin digesting this monster, but I felt it. Like I'd just finished swimming in the ocean, or touring a room full of Klee paintings. I just wanted to smile. It was a hamburger high.

I am nearing the end of Flaubert's works after a month and a half. I've been reading them along with Frederick Brown's biography of Flaubert, published last year. This is the first time I've read everything an author wrote; I did it almost on a whim, although not exactly without reason.

I've read his books so quickly that I don't think I learned much from them, at least not as much as I could, but I've gotten something from them. Each of his books is different from the others, and everything he wrote in maturity is masterful. His interests and affinities were somewhat cramped, but his talent was unbounded. The novels stand apart from their time, as do those of all great writers; but I can't help thinking that something about them is even more set apart than other authors, that they are, in some way I can't place yet, intensely unique. Flaubert seemed to have no direct predecessors or followers. He took influences from many places but made something new with them. Many authors who came after him revered his books, but none that I know of wrote in the same vein. His works aren't part of a literary movement, and they don't seem to be products of their time (aside from the fact that they're set against the noteworthy events that took place in France during Flaubert's life). Even the most original authors, Melville, Joyce, Woolf, Nabakov, seem at least in retrospect to fit in with aesthetic trends and to exist in a community of related ideas. With Flaubert, there's nothing of the sort.

I find his life interesting as well. Flaubert impresses me as almost an alter-ego, if I had more dedication and talent. He revelled in silliness mixed with mockery, chose certain subjects of study and researched them exhaustively, and when he was writing, had style ideas rather than story ideas. But he also had ideas about relationships with women that are completely unlike mine; survived on family wealth, which I can never expect to do; and knew what he wanted to do with his life.

The idea of seriously studying literature has been a half-formed ambition of mine for some time. I still haven't figured out how best to go about it. I started studying Flaubert almost by chance: every month I read Library Journal along with the other librarians, to see if there are any books I think the library might want to acquire. Last month's issue mentioned Brown's biography of Flaubert, stating that Brown was an accomplished scholar who had succeeded at writing a definitive biography. This got my attention, since when I had read "Un coeur simple" senior year, I was impressed by how singular and origingal it was, and I've wanted to examine Flaubert's other works ever since. The library happened to have Brown's book, so I started looking through it right then, while at work, just to see what it was like; my interest grew as I read it, so I checked it out. As it began to describe the periods of Flaubert's life when he was writing his books, I decided to read each one in turn as I got up to them in the biography, so that those sections wouldn't be blank spots for me.

This is pretty indicitive of how I go about choosing what to study. I keep meaning to come up with a more logical plan for myself, but until I do, my passions will ignite and cave in on themselves almost on a regular schedule. I can't tell which of these passions would hold the most interest for me in the long term, which I would like to study in graduate school. I can't even tell if I would ultimately enjoy studying literature specifically, or if it's just curiosity.

My goal with studying German is to commit myself to a single language, randomly chosen for all intents and purposes, and master it. I've always wanted to learn a language but kept cycling from one to the next, and so I decided to pick one and linger with it. I'm hesitant to do something similar with a more broad academic study, such as the study of literature, because it would be an even more extensive commitment; because conceivably not all subjects are equally rewarding; because it's less clear how to go about it logically than it is with langauges; because almost every subject seems related to others. This is one of the great nagging questions of my present life. It seems that up until the day I die, I will be searching for the meaning and direction that should determine all of my actions. My search for meaning is a logical search, based on the clarification and exclusion of options, the desire to gain more complete knowledge so that I can manage my time more reasonably, and constant curiosity about the things I'm not doing, the people I don't know, the times I don't live in. Incidentally, Flaubert parodies just this sort of passion in his last, unfinished novel, Bouvard and Pecuchet. Perhaps if only had finished the book, I would know what to do with my life.

My tongue has blisters all over the side, where it came into contact with a mouth guard a dentist told me to wear while I slept because I was grinding my teeth. My tongue has hurt for four days now. I think if I knew it was going to continue for the rest of my life I'd commit suicide.

When I showed the blisters to the dentist, she told me to take Benedryl, and now I am sleepy all of the time. I have become even more sleepy than I normally am. Even when I wake up, I can't concentrate on anything for more than two minutes before I

I went to the hospital two days ago to get a cocktail frank transfusion. It was risky, but I probably wouldn't be alive to write this without it. I was strapped to a confectionary oven for two hours, receiving liquidized hot dogs in one arm, mustard in the other. Nurses and receptionists were standing around chatting with each other in the hallway in voices so annoying that if I had forgotten where I was, that alone would remind me; and the doctor was busy putting on a puppet show of the temptation of St. Anthony when he should have been taking the needle out of my arm, but thank God, I got enough coctail franks to last me a few more days. I woke up this morning, finally, and found that the transfusion had been entirely successful. The doctor said that if I become hungry again, I should be okay with store-bought cocktail franks. I am eating twenty of them right now.

We have gotten two packages of the highest import in the last week. The first was a small FedEx box which we came home to find on our doorstep on Wednesday the 27th of February. We didn't see it through the gate, but once we turned the corner, we saw immediately what felicity was now ours. Indeed, we felt like documenting the moment, so I unlocked the door and Anne got our camera and took pictures of the box from many angles, then I took pictures of Anne walking into the house with the box, opening the box, and finally removing its contents: a pizza from a Brooklyn pizzeria, frozen and so full of delicious that it cost nothing to ship. It was packaged inside of a plastic bag, with four rows between wax paper, two slices per row. We infused the pizza with heat and crushed red peppers, ate it, and hibernated for the next several days, having taken in enough deliciousness to simply rest in contentment.

The next package came on Friday, this one considerably larger and clearly containing something even more awesome, since it had a physical presence that was difficult to ignore. "It must be Jess's wedding gift!" Anne said, and she attacked the taped center with scissors. Once she got it open, she began to jump and sing impromptu hymns to joy. We now have a fondue pot. Last night we found a can of Sterno, and tonight we will, for the first time in recorded history, melt cheese and dip bread and apples and broccoli into it in our very own home. We are sending a letter of thanks to the Swiss government for the invention of fondue, and another to Jess, for whom we have begun praying that he be accorded the status of a demigod. With this much deliciousness, I will no longer have to be awake more than two hours of the day, just long enough to enjoy the fondue.

I've spent almost the entire day at the library doing work. My bad dog allergy seems to be clearing up. My book dust allergy is reviving.

I've started work again after my epic month-long unpaid vacation. I think I'll be writing at least a bit more now that I'm back at what Kay once called an internet job. My break has been startlingly unproductive, even when I take into account two colds, a stomach flu and dog allergies. My exercise has faded into a memory, and I have grown outwardly. I have finished only one book, which was about 180 pages long. My German lessons have fallen a bit behind, which is particularly critical since I have to return it at the end of this month in order to get a refund. More regularly, I have passed from one obsession of old English plays to another, Roman history, and right back to not caring about much of anything.

Also, Buffy.

Laura's dogs are bad dogs. I tell them often, such as when I come into the house and they jump on me and bark bark bark bark bark bark jump bark and then start chasing each other and barking and whining. I tell them in the morning when they wake me up three times even after Anne has fed them and I tell them they're bad, because they're bad. I don't like the dogs. I want to set them on fire for the heat. Also, they ate my slipper, and Anne's boot, and a box of cookies, two boxes of cereal, a bag of cashews, a box of pizza with green chile and pepper (and the packets of straight hot pepper, and the container of marinara sauce), and the fourth season of Buffy. I tell them they're bad.

Also, I don't like them because they are loud and big and ugly and they smell bad and I don't like them. Well, they're sort of cute, they're just also bad. Especially Rosie and Charlie, they are extra bad. Plus, too, also, they hump each other a lot.

This New Years I have resolved:

1. to eat less puppy meat
2. to be even more like Werner Herzog than I already am
3. to clean up the crumbs that are always falling from my pant legs onto the street
4. to shave less, and jump on the bed more
and finally,
5. to finally beat the first Zelda

Laura offered to have us housesit for her, so we went to learn how to take care of her animals. None of them are as needy as Tesuji, except for the dogs. They tried to give away one of the dogs, Rosie, three times, but she keeps coming back. She is an alarming combination of puppy and train, with the energy and interest in humans of the one, and the massive force onslaught of the other. As soon as the dogs were allowed inside, Rosie ran to each person in turn and jumped onto them with her front paws to sniff their faces. We were standing in a little hallway between three rooms, so Rosie had to make use of every inch to wriggle and turn from one person to the next. The other three dogs wanted rather than demanded attention; they rubbed legs and chased each other, and sometimes they shuffled over to their water bucket to slop some up. If not for Rosie's intense sniffing and slam dancing, the dogs would have seemed normal. Before Laura put the dogs back into confinement behind the office door, she asked us if we wanted Rosie, just in case. Even if I wanted her, I'd be afraid that she'd eat Tesuji like she killed and ate one of Laura's chickens.

For the next couple of hours, while we made a gingerbread house with Laura's children and Kay, the dogs scratched at the office door and howled as though there was a beast after their lives. Laura's five-year-old, Zeb, sprinkled gummi bears on the roof and sides of the house with enthusiastic determination, until they had overtaken the structure. The seven-year-old, Sadie, rammed twizzlers through the windows like a fallen tree. In a sick twist, the manufactureres had added sugar people, a grandmother and two children, to watch as their house was demolished. Anne took particular pleasure in describing the carnage and got Laura's husband Paul to take pictures. She wants to get another house and a video camera to more thoroughly present the tragedy of the grandmother. Shots of monster hands, walls being torn away, and that sugar face staring up at the sky and smiling.

We are goiong to the got to sushi and we eat it in Albuquerquteead. There is the rtsulshsi in there. LI I get some too with the sucashi.

We are goiong to the got to sushi and we eat it in Albuquerquteead. There is the rtsulshsi in there. LI I get some too with the sucashi.

This is content. SCoTt has an elfin FACE. Anne is absent and probably p. p. I just watched the Fall. The Fall. SchTt hasf ne elfinf ACE. ANnnnnne elefant face. Elephant?

I am now winnning thee ellecshun. Peeple frum all over thisgreat nation are voting for mee! I am winnning all of the vots.


Thank you forr yore support.

There is a rat in the wall in the back room of the library scratching out a message in Morse Code. The message warns me of danger. There may be a flood; at the least, a hard rain is going to fall.

I have been reading a book about Gershon Shofman for several days. It seems to be one of the few traces in English of Shofman, who wrote Hebrew short-stories from the early 1900s until the 1960s. I found Shofman's name in an introduction to Knut Hamsun's Hunger, where Issac Bashevis Singer lists him among about ten authors of modern fiction who Singer claims were strongly influenced by Hamsun. I have yet to find any credible evidence of this influence, but looking the authors up has introduced me to people of quite different talents, and also led me to question my abilities to tell a story. These men each told hundreds of stories about people doing everything people are capable of. Sailors play impromptu surgeon at sea and kill their patient; a man whose wife left him while on a honeymoon in Italy kills himself; victims of a plague in a small mountain village amass in a church where the impious mock them; a Russian Jew living in exile in Vienna fears violence from his fellow exiles when he roots for a Russian boxer. I'm afraid that I don't have any stories to tell, and that if I were to write, very little would happen. I have a mundane mind and a static life, where the main elements are simply boring: steady employment, books, colleges; steady employment among books in a college; frequent oversleeping; a collection of idealistic friends, among whom only Steven does anything particularly unusual. I'm not oppressed and I'm not powerful. I have few connections with the world, and I often don't believe that I understand the world. I feel like I would have to find something exciting to write about with any conviction, but nothing is ever in my mind. Mind, why are you so empty?

Today Heather, the Technical Services Librarian, showed me the end result of cataloging, where we take the records we have created and import them into Horizon, the library program used for checking books in and out and as a database for searching.

She was hesitant to come out of her office, as she doesn't like the public. I come into work earlier on Mondays specifically so that our schedules overlap and she can help me with cataloging, but either Laura or I has to get Heather and tell her that I still need instruction. Last week she didn't leave her office. Today I asked her to come.

Once she got behind the circulation desk, she carried a Johnnie chair over to my computer and showed me the steps for importing. Neither explaining nor listening were problems for her: I was able to follow everything she said, and she had relevant replies to my questions and comments. I knew by her pause as I readied a pen to take notes that she interpreted my actions appropriately. An observer might have thought that she was perfectly comfortable. Little things, though, showed that interaction itself was fearful to her. When I spoke, she sat far back in her chair and half-flinched, almost as though she wanted to escape. She continued doing small steps on the computer without any comment while I was turned to help people who came to the desk. Her eyes seemed more active, her hands surer, when she was looking at the computer screen and typing, or manipulating one of the books I had cataloged. Aside from a few small jokes said almost as though for herself, she directed all of her attention to explaining the main task; when I asked questions, she answered them directly and then picked up where she'd left off. She spoke of nothing extraneous, and filtered my presence in such a way that she would be able to respond only to my interest in cataloging. Whatever I said was stipped of color, implication, and alternate directions, and analyzed only for what related directly to cataloging. For her, my role was cataloger and nothing else.

When she was done explaining, she picked up all of her things and went back to her office, and soon after went home. I tried to import some more records after she left, and got stuck on a single point which I was unable to figure out in an hour and a half of experimentation and coaxing of the computer. I tried all the rather few options, looked over my notes, searched my memory of what Heather had said and done, and still couldn't figure out how to proceed. My actions were muddling up the Windows files, and I started to get scared. I had broken Horizon! Eventually I figured out what I had done and managed to import the records in a different way, but I still couldn't figure out what the proper way was.

Two student workers showed up when they were scheduled to, and I decided to leave the computer and move on to a non-desk job. My new task was to spot-check the students' shelf-reading, simply making sure that they had placed all the books on the shelves in the correct order. I started looking at the call numbers, and found that without transition, I felt depressed. I started wandering what the point of this work was, and couldn't see why I had been happy about life just a bit earlier, had been excited about such futile little things like the books I planned to read, the German language.

I examined myself and realized that even so small a failure as not being able to import catalog records was enough to puncture my sense of self-worth. This realization stopped my thoughts from swirling, but I still felt hollow inside and near tears; I was able to laugh at the absurdity of this condition, but I couldn't change it immediately. I wanted control over that computer! I wanted its functions and operations to accord themselves with my will! My inability to control it was like a crack in the foundation of my mind, which caused the superstructure, my priorities and my self-image, to lilt and waver. Only my self-control prevented the whole tower from collapsing. Because Heather was no longer there, I could get no resolution, and even though I tried not to think about the problem, the mood lingered. I wonder if I'll dream about this later, and I wonder what the computer will represent.

We were awoken by a phone call at 8 o'clock one morning; we let the answering machine pick up. Michael's voice said "Leave a message for Anne and Greg after the beep. If you're calling for Ted and Michael, you can reach them at . . ." Then we heard our landlady saying, "I'm calling to let you know that I'll be coming to the house on Wednesday around 9:30 with the plumber to look at the hot water heater. I don't think I'll have to come inside." In the silence that followed her voice, the pale morning sun, usually the sign that we could sleep for several more hours, was suddenly hostile and ominous. Would we have to wake up into this sunlight before she came, or could we stay in bed and hope that she didn't enter the house? The situation seemed unreal, uninterpretable, incommensurable with our lives. I fell back asleep and when I woke up, I was reminded of the call by the message that had been left on the answering machine. I still couldn't incorporate it into my expectations for the future. How could anyone come into the house at 9:30 in the morning? It was like living under a totalitarian police state. I couldn't conceive of having to get up so early, and as a result, I didn't think about it and acted as though it wasn't going to happen. I went to work as normal, and went to sleep at my usual late hour (around 5 a.m.)

The next day, Anne had set the alarm for 8:30. We sat in bed for a while listening for the landlady and waiting for her to be gone. Around 11, I asked Anne if she wanted to go to the Farmer's Market. We weren't sure that it would be safe to leave the house, but when we opened the door there was no one there. We went and got delicious food.

We got another early morning phone call the next day, on the prophesized Wednesday. The machine spoke to the silence of the hollow room at that ungodly hour of 8:30: "Hello, Anne and Greg. Actually the plumber and I will be coming into the house after we look at the hot water heater, so that we can check the gas heater, that little thing in the corner, for carbon monoxide emissions. Also, if it's not lit, we'll light the pilot, or else turn it on low. It won't take more than half an hour, I don't think. I'll be over soon. Bye." Dust began to settle over the horrible words; Anne and I strained our eyes against the sunbeams pouring in from the skylight and tried to make sense of the situation.

"Why is she coming today?"

"I think I remember now, she said Wednesday in the first message."

"What should we do? We can't be in bed. And what if she sees the cat?" We never told the landlady that we had a cat.

"We could put the cat in the car, and all of her things under the bed, and just go driving," I said.

"Why does she have to come into the house? Goddamn."

"I don't know."

For the next fifteen minutes, we descended chaotically upon the mess all around us like lazy maids a few minutes before the master was due home, sweeping up leaves and kitty liter, washing dishes, packing cat-care items and mice toys under the bed. It was 8:57. "The cat carrier!" Anne flung a chair into the bathroom and stood on it to open the storage closet that's in a wall recess above the door, and I arranged the bedclothes so that they covered what was beneath. We then persuaded Tesuji to get into the box, with the rhetoric of our pushing hands. There was still a huge pile of clothes, overflowing from the hamper. "I guess we could do this while we're waiting," I said. I lifted the hamper, Anne grabbed some snacks, and we fled with the laundry and the cat, locking the door behind us. The sun had an evil brightness so early in the morning, and the air smelled busy. We went up to campus to start washes, and on the way we noticed a little strip of a park along Old Santa Fe Trail with a long, columned wooden shelter and benches sitting among an expanse of chimisa, dust and Birch trees. I parked by the laundry room in lowers and we brought the two hampers down; then we realized that we hadn't brought the detergent. The laundry went back into the trunk, and I moved the car to my library spot. Not having anything else to do, we browsed the bookstore for about an hour and then returned to the car, where the kitten was mewing in confusion.

"I hope they're gone. It'll be 10:30 when we get back." But when we pulled up to our street, we saw an telltale white van parked in front of the mailbox. We couldn't get our detergent, because it was in the house. We decided to go buy some at Albertson's. Tesuji cried softly.

"She doesn't like it in here; she must be hungry. Poor Tesuji."

"Maybe we could get her some food and let her outside in a park."

So we did. I drove to Albertsons, where we bought detergent, two cans of wet cat food, a collar and a leash, and then we went back up to the park we had seen. In the parking lot, Anne attached the collar and the leash, and we took Tesuji for a walk over to the first bench beneath the shelter, where there is long pathway bathed in shade. We let the cat down onto the ground and watched as she shivered for a bit at the car noises, and settled in to investigating as she calmed down. She sniffed the ground, lingering over the first small plant she came to, and then started circling around chewing on beech bark that lay in the gravel. A white-haired man walked by, carefully stepping around us and smiling down at the cat. Tesuji started to get more bold, and all the leash could do was restrain her, so we sat on the bench and gave Tesuji her food. She stuck her nose in the can and greedily swallowed what was inside. As she sat licking herself, I wondered if she needed to relieve herself. "This whole place is made of kitty litter," Anne said.

I shifted the dirt beneath my foot. "Maybe she'd like something softer, though."

"You could try over there, by the weeds." I took Tesuji to a patch of more sand-like dirt by a large growth of weedgrass further back from the road. Tesuji sniffed a bit and then wandered off toward a nearby bush. I picked her back up and we went back to the car, drove to campus, and started a wash. The white van was gone by the time we got back to the house, so we let Tesuji roam free once more over the mountainous chairs and the pool of comforter and sheets.

Two days ago Anne and I were sitting on the bed reading at about 2 pm. It was a bright, warm day, one of the rare days lately without precipitation. We had woken up only a few hours before, and once we felt like it, the plan was to drive up to the Ski Basin to look at the trees turn, as Kay had suggested to me. There is fall even here, for those of you who don't know. Anne and I were both just finishing up chapters, about to shower, when we heard a woman's voice through the window shouting "Get off of me! Don't touch me! Get off!" Her voice was full and loud, but she sounded more annoyed than distressed. She was maybe two houses away. "Don't touch me. Oh my God!" She said this last almost like a valley girl, but at a full scream. Maybe she was three houses away; maybe she was the next block over. There was silence, and then she shouted, "Somebody call the police! Don't touch me! Get off me, you jerk!" Anne looked at me. I went to the window to see if I could get any more information, but the situation wasn't any clearer. Anne picked up the phone and dialed 911. She told the dispatcher what was going on as best she could, laughing nervously the whole time because of the uncertainty. What was going on, to whom, and where? Was time running out or wasn't it? What would the police even do when the got here? She didn't know what to say when the dispatcher asked for an address, so she gave them ours and said we didn't know just where the screams were coming from. While she was talking, I ran to all the windows to see if I could tell any better; I could see nothing but the neighboring houses, silent and unmoving. Anne hung up and said the distpatcher told her that someone else had called as well, but she didn't know if they were sending the police or not. We still heard a few screams, still sounding intensely annoyed, perhaps fearful, and saying the same things, with no other person's voice accompanying it. I have no explanations that make any sense. My only thought, and a pretty unlikely one, is that the neighborhood retarded kid had grabbed on to some stranger woman and wouldn't let go, but that doesn't work, as it would most likely happen in the street, where someone close to the scene would soon have come to help her; and for which she probably wouldn't have asked for the police anyway.

Since she was still shouting, if seemingly without much fear, I wondered if I should go out and try to help. I was still in my pajamas, but maybe my presence would scare off whoever was doing . . . something . . . to someone . . . somewhere. I reached for my pants and asked Anne. "What would you do if you went outside?" "I don't know." I put my pants down, but I felt paralyzed and thoguht that I was failing. I wondered if anyone else on the block was trying to help. The screaming came less often, and I didn't know where to go, so I stayed in. A few minutes later we heard police sirens, and then the sounds of an ambulance, winding around the community trying to find the woman. We no longer heard her voice. After a while, the sirens stopped and the afternoon was quiet again. Anne and I went up to the ski basin, and the trees were beautiful.

I spend a lot of time wondering what it would be like to be another person; sometimes a certain person, often just another person per se. I'm happy to be who I am, but all the same, I'd like to know what it means that there are all these other people. Why do they have habits and tastes that are different from mine? What are their thoughts, and how do they think them? Why do other people consider something to be good when I don't, and is there any ultimate meaning in this difference? I think my anxiety and constant confusion about the creative process has the same source as these questions. What is the state of an artist in the moment of creation? What makes another person say things I don't say, and do things I don't do?

This thought often turns into an attempt to understand personality. Laying aside the question of the origin of different personalities, which is enough trouble, I want to know what a personality even is, and just how they differ from one another. Do people with different personalities have different feelings and thoughts? Is the bearer of a different personality really different from me, or similar in some crucial way? Do they have a different consciousness? What experiences of life do other people have, and would I recognize them if they could somehow be presented to me?

More than I want to get to know other people in the convntional sense of that phrase, I want to know other people absolutely, the same way I know myself. I don't want to use this knowledge, as is implyed to me by the phrase "get into someone else's head", although I often use the urge as an impetus in fiction writing. The conception doesn't appeal to me for the purpose of greater compassion for others, although I am often lacking in compassion. I just want to know. I feel as though this knowledge would bring me a sense of completion and satisfaction beyond anything else I have experienced. When I dream, I think I get something of it, and that may be one of the reasons I like sleeping as much as I do.

I don't know if what I'm describing is unique, or even uncommon. I have rarely seen this feeling expressed, and yet I doubt that it is special in me. If anyone would like to join me, please let me know. I'm open to a meeting of minds.

WATCH OUT, SCOOTER

Tonight a man came up to the desk, stood in my peripheral vision and called out, "engarde". From his voice and a brief glance, I knew it was him, so I ducked behind the desk and grabbed a pair of scissors. He disarmed me by saying, "hey, none of that, now." I stood up. Blake greeted me with a firm handshake one-arm embrace combo, and said, "you stole my job."

He was wearing a thin, grey wool two-piece suit, with a tucked-in shirt and leather shoes, all well fitted. He's growing a beard, which has come in thinly but fully, and is closely groomed. His hair was controlled, parted in the middle, of medium length. He has glasses with light-colored frames. He is small, trim, and erect. He comes off as a handsome young scholar, which I suppose he is. He's just moved in with a girl named Chelsea who graduated last year, and whom I know only from my precept on Willa Cather. She's about his size, also blonde, thoughtful and sharp; she stayed rather quiet in class, and seemed like an interesting personality.

Blake invited me to a dinner he was planning for all the members of our class who were still around, and we exchanged phone numbers. Upon his request, I gave him Scott's phone number as well. Then he described how he got mugged back in March, ending with the words, "I've been thinking about it a lot. Next time I'm going to tackle the guy, even with the heavy back pack, and then kick his ass." After that, he showed me how to use a credit card to pick a lock. As he was leaving, he saw an LP of Kind of Blue and asked me to check it out t0 him. "Put on a little music as I put some moves on my lady," he said, walking away.

In Maryland I was oppressed by the looming presence of my parents and the constant reminder of my own childhood. Their tastes hang over the whole house, and you can see them even from the outside.

My mother's failed sense of presentation is apparent: the inaptly placed flower garden and the small gnome at the end of the driveway.

There's Jeff's lingering embarrassment: that red Honda on the edge of their curb, parked nearly all the time.

You can see my father's distance from people: the pathway leading to the front door, which is obstructed by propane tanks.

Inside the house are floral-patterned living room furniture often covered during the day by baskets of clothes taken out of the dryer, in tribute to my father's militant wash schedule; and at night by my prostrate mother, generally with Mulder on her stomach. A vacuum cleaner sits in front of the hearth (which they call a fireplace) on most days, and the table against the wall is taken up by detritus from my mother's job.

The dining room has fruit wallpaper and a flimsy dinner table they've had as far back as I can remember. Jeff always sat against the wall at dinner, and my mother often said to him, "you look good against that wallpaper." She took his picture there many times. In every picture, he's crumpling his face to try to get a laugh. I wouldn't say that he looks especially good against the wallpaper.

The kitchen recently received a Thing in the middle of it, a hundred-pound wooden piece with a large cutting-board surface and numerous small drawers along the sides. The oven and range-hood are a deep black, the counters are white and have a faded color pattern, and the refridgerator is gigantic.

In all three of these rooms, the reigning decorative style might be termed Cluttered Ugly Things.

My mother's bedroom used to be Eric's bedroom, and the mix of their decorations was confusing for me, psychically. My father's bedroom is more austere, and even has a small feeling of solemnity aided by dim lighting and copious dark wooden furniture. The basement is centered around technology: the computer, the television, and the washing machine. Off to one side is the room Jess dubbed the "Bourgeois Bunker"; on the other is Jeff's childhood room, where twenty-six-year-old Jeff still lives, a child.

I felt at home here, but never free. Every room was a reminder of my parents and my childhood. Worst was my own room, so small, full of everything I had accumulated. I tried to re-arrange the room every season, and it never felt right, whether my bed was against the side wall or by the window, a nightstand present or not, my CDs displayed or in binders. I had a television that I rarely used anymore, but whose blank face stared at me all night. My shades were usually drawn, and when they weren't, I had a fine view of the overgrown bushes in front of the house. My bookshelf contained a small library that I found always unsatisfying. My closet opens into the attic.

I could never fully become an adult in this house. I was always reminded of myself as a teenager, all my old habits and thoughts. My parents treated me kindly, for the most part, but their earnest instructiveness and constant attention drained me. The fact that they paid for everything meant that I didn't have to figure out how to do it for myself. Their too practical minds often clashed with my speculative thoughts, and made it so that their advice was always questionable.

My mood in Maryland was winter: my passions were cooled, my habits frozen in place. I could produce no new shoots, and the old dead ones stayed around to mock me.

Here, everything is new and under my control. Anne and I can order our lives and our house as we wish. I have enough time to read, write, and learn German. My job has considerable variety and autonomy, and very little supervision. New Mexico has elaborate skies, rolling land, intricate plants and insects, and beauty. I am working on making my life.

The owner of the guest house we are soon to be subletting called me on Monday night to say that his plans of moving out by Tuesday morning had been postponed because of a flat tire and an unexpected amount of work. He said he'd reimburse us the 20 or so dollars we paid him for that particular day, and told me we could move in on Wednesday. This took him about ten minutes to get out, and it seemed after every sentence that he wanted some prompting. Whenever I said anything, however, it seemed like there was a note of distress in his voice, as though I had made a faux pas. This has been the nature of our conversations since the first time I spoke to him in early August. When we met him, we saw his even more unsettling face, the gray skin of which looked stretched and bony, with deep pools for eyes and compact, off-color lips, all under dry looking, short black hair. As Kay aptly pointed out, he is a David Lynch character.

After he was done telling me that we couldn't move in yet, his partner came on and, in a slightly less creepy but even mroe rambling manner, gave me a quick tutorial on the gas heater. "Good evening. How are you doing? Good. First, I wanted to tell you that I'm leaving a phone number for the plumber on the table here. Also, I wanted to tell you about the gas heater in case you never used one before. There's a spigot on the wall next to the heater, and it has to be turned either perpendicular to the wall to turn on the gas, or . . . have you ever used a gas heater? There's something called a pilot light that you have to light to engage the gas, and it needs to be lit before you turn the spigot. But you turn the spigot and it allows . . . it allows the gas to flow through the pipes and into the heater, and then if the pilot is lit, it engages the gas and the flow of gas heats the house. So, you turn this spigot ninety degrees, until it's perpendicular to the wall, and that turns it on. And, have you ever used a gas heater before? Probably it would be best to ask someone who has previously turned one on to come over and help you when you decide to turn on the heater. So, when you start having chilly days and you say to yourself, 'Hmm, I'd like to have the heater on,' you can know how to turn it on, rather than waiting and suddenly it's December and you don't know what to do. We leave it off during the summer months because even the pilot produces some heat, you'd be surprised, so we turn that off and it isn't on right now. And because there is some flow of gas, when the pilot light is on, it needs some gas to be flowing to stay lit, which is of course a nominal expense, but it is an expense. So, actually, I've never turned this particular heater on, and it isn't easy to describe the process over the phone, so maybe you can get someone who knows how to do it. Or you could even call the plumber, because I'm leaving his number on the table for you in case you need it. But, I hope you enjoy your stay here. We've had some marvelous summers here, and it's very nice, and off the street, and quit. The only time it isn't is when the neighbors sometimes have parties, just occasionally. But I hope you enjoy it here, and have a nice year."

We camped out in the library last night, with the library director's permission. She said that we couldn't turn on lights after dark except with the shadess drawn in the office of the Circulation Librarian, Laura Cooley, where we were to sleep; also, we could not have guests. We took two cushions from the couches, two pillows, and a blanket, and slept beneath Laura's beautiful ceiling with its endless expanse of stars and galaxies. Today, finally, we should be able to move in.

I see that I never wrote that description of Promissor. I should write that description of Promissor.

Anne and I finally saw the place we're subletting, and it looks wonderful: set back from the road, cozy and furnished, with a tree it's our duty to water and walls we can lock to repel intruders. We're still staying in the hotel, because the owner doesn't move out until Tuesday.

I write this from the Santa Fe campus library, where I once again work. I think I'll be very happy here. I always wanted the knowledge and responsibilities that I now have as a supervisor, and the position will give me a chance to figure out what it means to have moved out.

I've been given the first task of making sure that all the students who graduated or withdrew have been removed from the database. It's a good way to catch up to the school since I've left, to see everyone who has already left and those who have registered as alumni borrowers and whom I thus run the risk of seeing again. I especially like being able to see what books everybody has checked out. I could do this as a student as well, but now I can also add or remove fines or delete accounts. Oh, the power.

Anne and I went for a walk in the foothills yesterday, and I remembered what it's like to be in the high desert. My perspective has improved since I was here last. I more fully appreciate the beauty of the landscape, the variety of plants in their weird shapes and colors, the ever-changing sky, and the solitude. Everything seems familiar, and yet I notice now that I come back how it all has more depth than I thought when I was a student here.

This is the first time in a month and a half that I've been separated from Anne for more than twenty minutes. I feel like something critical is missing, like my glasses; or perhaps as though I forgot to wake up. She's looking around town to apply for jobs, and she has no phone. I wish she were still here.

Life is not fixed. None of it is solid at all, and the slightest wind can blow anything away. I learned this more every day as we travelled west, through lush eastern forest to rolling hills and farmlands of Tennessee, to the broken roads and dirt piles of Arkansas, the imposing sky and flatness of Oklahoma, and finally the desert nothingness of the Texas panhandle and the mountains and dust of New Mexico. Now that I'm here, I see that more even than I thought at first is transient and fluid. And yet there are patterns in the chaos, and principles to which a strong personality can hold.

Anne and I both got the same job through AppleOne, at a call center for a company called Promissor (rawr! Promisaur!). They administer and schedule exams, mainly for state licenses in real estate, insurance, barbershops, and mortgages. The call center schedules most of the exams over the telephone, and some others are scheduled by the test-takers online. When our training is over, we will answer phones all day and either answer questions or schedule exams. We have now had five training days. Each one has brought something special. Here are the highlights:

Monday: We meet our training supervisor, whose name is Dorissa, as well as the seven other people in our class. We discover that whites are in a small minority at this office. Systematic problems with the company's system result in a woman named Grace lecturing us for nearly an hour about the finer points of computer programs we haven't seen yet and know nothing about. Then we each observe one representative for a few hours. The rain, flooding, mud and accidents cause Routes 95 and 50 crawl along. The drive home takes two hours.

Tuesday: At lunch, I speak to Juan from the Spanish line. He's a totally nice guy, and confirms that there are no paper towels, napkins, plates or utensils in either of the two kitchens. We observe another representative for a few hours. My representative gets a call from a Vietnamese woman in Minnesota. He asks her for her town of birth in order to fill out a field he doesn't know is not required, and when she says Vietnam, he writes it in. I inform him that Vietnam is a country, and he scrambles to get the correct information.

Wednesday: We sit with a third representative for about half an hour until everyone realized that its their phones that are staticky and cutting in and out, and not the callers. All representatives are told to ask everyone to call back in two hours. We sit in the classroom for the rest of the day talking with Dorissa about an information packet. Anne and I look at the posted schedule and see that we share only one shift. Dorissa tells us that the schedule is not final, and we request that we be placed on the same shift.

Thursday: We're told that the schedule is real. Bruce, the office manager and one of the few white people, comes into the training room to discuss the schedules, fifteen minutes before our shifts are supposed to begin. When people show up on time, he says, "For those of you coming in late I was just talking about how to change your schedule if you're dissatisfied. If you can find someone to switch with you, then we'll look at the change and decide if we want to approve it. You can write on this form what kind of schedule you want." We finally begin training on a computer, and discover that the programs are exceedingly simple. I switch with one of the other trainees, who has Anne's schedule (shifts beginning at eight in the morning).

Friday: We both find people who have 2 p.m.-11 p.m. shifts and want morning shifts. Our schedule request is approved, just before we leave for the long weekend.

I'll describe more about the office later.

Real Baltimore Sun headline yesterday: "Rain Not Done Here Yet"

Anne and I wonder how this could have happened. I imagine a board meeting of Sun editors and reporters in a windowless conference room with cheesy wood paneling and a long plastic table. A reporter says he has a huge story. "Did you guys know it's been raining? A lot! And It might rain again, too."

Three editors comment: "Wow, damn! Really?"
"Is that so?"
"You don't say."

Silence.

Another reporter says, "Did you guys know it's been raining?"
Says one of the editors, "You know, I just heard about that! How long is it going to last? Is it done yet?"
The reporter: "Here? No, not yet."

Silence.

One of the editors: "Well, we need a headline today. Does anybody have a headline today?"
Reporter 1: "Well, it's been raining a lot."
Editor 1: "Where? Here?"
Reporter 1: "Yes. Yes, it's been raining quite a lot. And it's not done yet. Someone should write a story."
Editor 1: "So it's been raining? And it's not done here yet?"
Reporter 1: "Yeah, that's what I heard. I have a couple sources, anyway. Should I write a story?"
Editor 1: "Well, is it done here yet? You know, we need a headline and I think I might have one. When can you have this story done by? Can it be done in five minutes? I want a doughnut."
Reporter: "I can do that." He scribbles a few lines of the story. "Did you say doughnut?"
Editor 2 : "doughnuts? Are we getting doughnuts?"
Reporter 2: "I want doughnuts. Are we getting doughnuts?"
Editor 1: "Doughnuts! Get us some doughnuts! Is that story done here yet? I want doughnuts!"
Reporter 1: "Well, I have a weather report. Maybe we can print that as our top story."
Editor 1: "Still need a headline. And some doughnuts, goddammit!"
Editor 2: "How about 'Rain Not Done Here Yet'?"
Editor 1: "It's raining?"
Editor 2: "I guess so. And it's not done yet. I just thought, you know, we might want to tell people it's not done here yet. And where are those doughnuts? I want doughnuts!"
Editor 1: "We're getting doughnuts?"
Reporter 2: "Can I have a jelly doughnut?"

I'd kind of like to work at the Sun.

I just went to the Double T Diner with Jeff. I wish I could explain this better than I can, but I don't really understand it. He asked me last night if I wanted to go to the diner, and when I asked him why, he said, "Because I'm hungry." I didn't go, because I had things to do. Tonight he asked me again if I wanted to go to the diner, or more properly went through his routine. I was listening to music and chatting with Anne when he tapped my shoulder. I looked over at him standing there in the black button down shirt I helped him pick out, twisting his back so that his chest was concave, perhaps because he thinks this looks somehow impressive, and smiling as though we had a shared secret, but he knew a bit more of the secret than I. "I'm hungry," he said. I told him to wait, because I was talking to Anne, and because Eric was supposed to call from New York and I wanted to be here to answer it. Anne went to bed, and it became so late that I could reasonably expect that Eric wouldn't call, so I went over to the couch, where Jeff was stretched out lazily, watching The Colbert Report. I told him I would go if he still wanted to, but since going to the Double T is generally such a bad experience, I asked him why he wanted to go.

"I'm hungry."
"And there's nothing to eat in the house?"
"Is there anything to eat in the house?"
"Would I know?"
"--."
"--."
"Well, do you want to go?"
"I'll go, but I don't see why you want to go to the diner."

Then he went into his room to put on his socks. I followed him and said, "If there's nothing in the house, why don't you go to the grocery store?"
"The grocery store, eh? What should I get at the grocery store?"
"Something to eat. I don't care. But the diner is expensive, and the food isn't any good. Why do you want to go?"
"I like the diner." Then he asked, "do you want to go to the diner?"
"Not particularly, but I'll go with you if you want to go."
"Should I go to the grocery store?"
"Do whatever you want."

We went upstairs, and I put my shoes on. Then we walked up the driveway. The sky was black and vast. The humidity and insect noise made the world feel like a movie set. We got to the street and Jeff asked, "which car are we taking?"
"Make a decision!" I cried at him. We took his car, and he drove to the end of the street and turned left, toward 40 East and the Double T. "I just don't see why you don't get food at a grocery store, but if you want to go to the diner, that's fine."
"Should I go to the grocery store? I could still go to the grocery store." He pulled up to the light and got into the middle lane, which would allow him to turn left toward the supermarket and not right toward the diner.
"It's up to you! I have no part in this decision. I'm just going with you because you want company."
He thought for a few seconds and said happily, "I'm going to the diner." Then he made a right turn from a left turning lane (at 10:50 in Ellicott City, so there weren't any other cars on the road), and drove to the Double T.

I took the opportunity to preach to him, which is usually what I do when I go with him to the diner. I explained how he's lazy, and can only live the way he does because our parents take care of his needs even though he doesn't at all appreciate it. I talked about how video games for him are an escape from his meaningless life. I suggested that he go to a career counselor, and that he think about himself and his situation more.

We got to the diner and sat in the non-smoking section, in a booth across from a silent black man and behind a table of three fat people. The fat person facing me was dressed in a red and black checkered shirt and a wide-brimmed straw hat. I think he wanted to look like a riverboat gambler. We ordered, and I continued to preach to Jeff until the waitress brought our food. By the time it came, I ran out of things to say, so mostly I ate my egg and cheese sandwich and watched him in consternation. I don't understand how my brother turned out so differently from me. I see nothing of myself in him. I see no way of explaining to him the basic truths of his life, of all life. We exist randomly, and have to find our own purpose. We are each alone, and without interaction we are blank things. We exist in time, and if that time is under our own control, we would do best to figure out how to use it well.

He ate a chicken salad sandwich and french fries, and when he was done, he paid his bill with money he has saved up for no purpose. Looking around the diner, he said to me, "Why do you think it is that I don't like other people?"

In Carroll County there is a woman named Wendy who converted one of her basement rooms into a barbershop. She lives in rural Maryland, where the highways have two lanes and cows still graze in the field. The driveway by Wendy's house faces an acre of cornfield. Wendy is in her fifties, has a long, slightly poofy hair style popular in the eighties, dresses very simply in big shorts, t-shirts and sandals, and speaks with that lazy Maryland accent that took the worst of Eastern shore mariners and southern sharecropers and melded them into verbal sludge.

My mother started going to Wendy with a woman she met at work. The woman's name is Tanis, which rhymes with heinous, appropriately enough. Tanis has that ugly Maryland woman's bus-driver mullet, gray hair, and a lot of face. She and my mother got along reasonably well, perhaps because Tanis didn't talk about the need to castrate Clinton quite as loudly as the other women they used to work with. They often schedule their hair-cuts with Wendy at the same time, which is the only interaction they have now after my mother quit her old job. I guess it's possible to build a friendship around just about anything when you no longer have an interest in ideas.

I went with my parents tonight to get my hair cut. The three of us took turns as Wendy cut our hair and chatted with my mother about the trip my parents are taking in July to Alaska, her own son's job search, the wedding of her son's friend, Eric's travels, and other things middle-aged people can relate to each other about. My father went first, and left a fair-sized clump of salt-and-pepper hair on the floor, which Wendy swept toward the trash. Then I went, and left almost twice as much black hair as she fixed up my fluffy, unkempt head. I always prefer the way my hair looks before I get it cut, and don't like it again for about a month. My mother followed me, and left a thin pile of nearly white hair. While she was in the chair, Wendy's brown tabby came to investigate the couch I sat on with my father, and the floor by our feet, and then he jumped onto the windowsill and looked out at the dying light. Just his tail stuck out behind the curtain, and it waved jauntily. My father told me that the last time they were there, that cat had sat in my mother's lap while she waited on the couch, and when she got into the barber's chair, he had jumped onto her lap again, under the smock.

It is very weird to watch your parents get their hair cut. They look so vulnerable with their eyes closed and their hair lank and unstyled at the sides of their heads.

While I was in the barber chair, my father asked what color Anne's hair is naturally, and when Wendy heard that in the past it had been dyed red-red, she said, "Ohhhh, I had to dye this one girl's hair red-red before. She had hair about your color, and she wanted it red just underneath for highlights. I didn't say anything, but if I had been her mother, I would have been like, 'No way!' I mean, I don't knooow . . . it's a little out theeere . . .." Later she said that the only style of hair she couldn't understand is dred locks. "They look like rats' nests! My husband asked me once how to do that one and I said, 'hey, beats me!' I just don't get that at all. I mean, why would you want to do that?"

As we drove home, we saw two women by the side of the county road walking dogs. My father was about to comment on how one of the dogs was as big as a goat, and then we realized that the woman was walking a goat.

I have decided to start keeping some sort of day planner. I'll begin with a fairly primitive form--a notepad on my night table--and see where it takes me. That's a step above writing things on my hand, which I've also never done. Weird as it may sound, this is uncharted territory for me. I keep a notebook in my pocket all the time, but I rarely use it to keep track of worldly obligations. I have only recently realized that I am not a child anymore, and no one is going to take care of me.

I will also try to update this blog every day. This is really very basic. I was asleep for too long, and it's time to wake up.

Know Your Moon

There is a moon.

The moon circles around the earth, and both the moon and the earth orbit the sun.

The sun circles around the center of the Milky Way, and both the moon and the earth orbit the center of the Milky Way.

The Milky Way circles around the center of the universe, and the sun and the earth and the moon all orbit around the center of the universe.

We see more or less of the moon lit up with the sun's light, depending on where the side that faces us is in relation to the sun.

The moon rises and sets at different times depending on what phase the moon is in.

Look at the moon!

I quit my job last week. My emotions were getting to me, overwhelming my reason and sense. I was arguing with my supervisor almost all the time, and railing against the organization of the office and the indignity of being a permanent temporary worker. Everything that didn't go my way made me angry, and almost brought tears. I couldn't bear the sight of my two new co-workers cheerfully making DVDs, figuring out how to solve problems I'd encountered many times before, chatting with each other and laughing at their own mistakes, and listening respectfully to our supervisor. I knew the supervisor, Laura, much better than they did. I'd been on the project before Laura, who was transferred to it back in October when she herself was a temp. She got hired because there was an opening in another project, transferring grant applications to an electronic format and then putting them on CD; but before she went to the new position, she was placed on this DVD recording project until it ended. I naturally felt jealous, as she had gotten hired as a permanent worker (and in a management role) while I remained a temp indefinitely. Moreover, my job was horridly boring. I had to show up every day and repeat the simple actions I'd been doing since I first got the job in September. I spent a whole school year recording tapes for people who didn't even know me. This frustration had a vicious effect on my happiness in other ways, as well: whereas at first I was able to read novels and philosophy at work, toward the end I was finding it difficult even to get through the newspaper. When I got home, I might occasionally look at job sites and every so often apply to one, but I wouldn't say that I had dreams.

On Wednesday of last week, I spoke to Eric in Berlin. I told him about my frustration, and found myself using stodgy language ("the job market is dangerously tilted toward employers"; "it shouldn't be so difficult for me to advance my position"), and he told me looking for traditional work isn't something he or any of his friends have ever done so he didn't know what to say. He suggested that I visit Berlin. Since he's moved there, he's often told me about how it's a great place to live right now because it's cheap and has a hopping culture, and Americans can easily make enough money to live on by teaching English. I asked him if he has a lot of free time. He laughed and said, "I have a ridiculous amount of free time. Oh yeah."

I went in to work the next day, Thursday, and almost immediately got into a bitter spat with Laura about whether or not I had to record both copies of a particular assessment which we had on two different tapes, for whatever reason. I showed her that the two tapes had the same material, and she kept telling me slow down, not to talk so much, and to show her how I knew they were the same. It felt like she was babying me, demanding that I prove my point because my judgment alone was insufficient. Finally, she said that I could go ahead and record only one of the two tapes. On my first break, I called my temporary agency and told them that I wanted to quit. They said that Friday would be my last day.

After I told Laura that I had quit, we talked a bit more openly and she told me that she hadn't mistrusted my judgment, but had been occupied with writing an email and couldn't at first understand what I was saying, and then could tell that I was getting mad but didn't know what else to do. Then, very shortly, we again got into an emotional debate about the ethics of capitalism and specifically of our company, which is a small, family-helmed government contractor. She kept trying to divert the conversation toward my own character, and my tendency to be too sure of what I say, to not listen to other people, and to make too much of small injustices. It was rather maddening at the time, although even then I came to see that she had a point. Nevertheless, I still feel the same way about the company, and about capitalism. I'm very nearly a Marxist.

That night, Anne and I discussed saving up some money and then moving to Berlin to be writers. On Friday, I had one more day of work, and more arguing with Laura, and more bad feelings. I didn't even get past page five of the newspaper, but then I left the office for the last time. Berlin very quickly began to seem like a wonderful idea, better than any other option. Anne and I can both get jobs of any sort just in order to save a few thousand more dollars, get certified to teach English, and leave this country at least for three months, depending on visa renewal. This is our plan. Now we just need jobs.