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.

I showed up the next day and set my bags on the floor next to my chair. Then I started a tape on each recorder, pressed record, and got a cup of tea from the kitchen. When I got back, one machine was on 3:00, and the second was on 3:23. I put a CD into the player, put on my headphones and pressed play. Then I picked up the newspaper and started reading the story in the top right. After two minutes, I removed the teabag and threw it away. The CD played. I read another newspaper story, and during it I stopped first one DVD player, then the other, and set up two new tapes. The CD played, and I read. Laura tapped me on the shoulder and said something to me, then I put the headphones back on and continued listening to music. I read another story.

Then I heard my name called over the intercom. It was time to meet the G-man.

I stopped the CD, put down the newspaper, and asked Laura to watch my clips. She took my seat, and I walked down the hall and turned toward the front desk, past a row of offices where stuffed shirts yell into phones all day. When I got to the reception area, I saw a tired-looking man with close-cut hair, wearing a full suit and a badge with his picture on it. "Mr. Green?" he said. "I'm Greg Delitros." It was the same voice from the phone. I scanned his face, and thought he looked about thirty-five, with something of a gee-whiz, guys, I'm an investigator! attitude. "Can we use this room? It won't take an hour," he said to the receptionist.

"Go right ahead," she said, and smiled. I looked to her for support, as though she could protect me from this weirdness, but she is Marie, the receptionist, and she had already turned her head down and was engrossed in her computer screen, unaware of my existence.

The investigator and I walked into the conference room, and I sat down in the middle chair in the row facing the entrance. He turned on the lights and shut the door behind him, and then sat down across from me. "I'm going to interview you as part of your investigation before you're granted clearance. It's a normal part of the process, so don't worry." He sounded like he was already reading from a script, but also as though the task really excited him. "Before we begin, do you have any questions? Once I start, I'll have to write down anything you say. I'm so used to these things now that I forget sometimes that you're probably a bit nervous. I always try to think of how I felt when I was first interviewed. So, do you have any questions?"

"Well, first, who do you work for, again?"

"Ah, of course. I'm with the Office of Personnel Management. I was going to show ID when we started." He flashed his badge, too quickly for me to examine it.

"OK, the OPM. And, I was never sure what end result would be. It's for a contracting position, and they told me it was some sort of contractor's clearance. You said it was for security clearance?"

"Yes. It's a national security investigation before you're granted security clearance."

"So, actual secuirty clearance? Does it transfer to any job? Like, if I apply to jobs with the federal government, I could say I have security clearance?"

"That's right. Do you have any other questions? I know you said that you're not interested in the job any more, but once the process has started, it has to continue. I checked with your company, and they said that they had requested it. It's being paid for by the taxpayers, so you might as well take advantage of it. Okay. So you don't have any more questions? Let's begin. I'll try to make it quick, so you can get back to work. So, first, do you have ID?"

I showed him my driver's liscence. "OK, good." He glanced at it, and wrote the number down. Then he peered at the form sitting in front of him and said, "So you work for Nancy Adams Personnel? From oh nine oh five to the present?" He spoke quite quickly and formally, and asked the questions like television investigators conducting a lie detector test; somehow his tone and body language implyed disbelief and even mild scorn.

"Yes. At this job site, Quality Associates." He wrote down simply "yes". "And, does anyone here have reason to question your integrity?" I wasn't sure what that meant, but I said no. He wrote down "no". "Do you work with any state secrets, or any matters involving national security?" "No." "Do you discuss matters of national security with anyone at work?" "No." "And your supervisor is Laura Paul? And is she here?" "Yes." "Good. Okay. And the phone number, 443-525-9684?" "I don't . . . is that the number I put down? Then I guess it's right." "Okay. Moving right along. From nine oh three to five oh five you worked at the Meem Library? And did anyone there have any reason to question your integrity?"

This went on for several minutes, with these same questions about every job I have had. At one point, he said, "you look a bit distracted. Are you alright?"

"Yes," I told him, "I'm just trying to follow all the numbers."

He put his pen down and said, "it's ok if it's even, say, four months off. As long as the year is correct, really. So you don't have to worry about that."

"OK."

"So, from four oh oh to nine . . ." When he was done with jobs, he moved on to placed I'd lived. "613 Genessee Street, Annapolis, MD, 21401. You lived there from five oh two to seven oh two."

"Yes."

"While there, did you have any contact, personal or formal, with any foreign nationals?"

I goggled at that a bit, but said, "no." What is a foreign national, anyway? Anyone who isn't a U.S. citizen? Because, well, yeah, of course I had contact with foreign nationals. Everyone does. But, well, contact? I mean, Amanda's boss at the Fashnique had immigrated from India, and I spoke to her a few times. Was that contact? I didn't really care, so I answered "no" each time. "What were you doing there? I assume you were going to Anne Arrundel Community College?"

"No, to St. John's College."

". . ."

"Isn't that on the form?"

"I haven't heard of it." He looked. "Ah, yes, St. John's College, Santa Fe and Annapolis. So they're conjoined campuses?"

That made me think of siamese twins. "Sister campuses, yes."

"Okay."

When he got to Los Angeles, he asked who I lived with, and I told him I was living with my then-girlfriend. He asked for her name and wrote it down. Then he said, "Could anyone blackmail you becauese you lived with a girl outside of wedlock?"

"No."

"While at this address, did you have any contact, personal or formal, any kind of contact, I don't care, with any foreign nationals?"

I spoke to an Armenian dude while Tiffany was waiting in line to pay a fine in traffic court. Does that count? I said, "no."

"Good. OK." After all the addresses were done, he asked me for the names of people whom I see at least once a month, and I named Scott, Jess and Anne. He wrote your names down, but didn't ask for addresses or phone numbers. They're on his forms, of course, but he didn't know that, as far as I can tell. "Finally, if I ask around about you, no one's going to say, 'Ah, Mr. Green, yes, I get drunk with him all the time?'" "No." "Or, 'Yeah, he just bought some crack off me last week!' It's okay to smile, I'm only joking."

"I guess I've had a boring life."

"Not boring, just by the book." Then he thanked me and shook my hand, and he left. I went back to my chair, put on my headphones, pressed play, recorded more tapes, and read the newspaper until my ten o'clock break. Then I slipped across the Syrian border to discuss matters of national security with foreign nationals.

Back in late February, my supervisor told three of us that another project had two permanent jobs opening up within the month. She said that she had been told to ask the three temps who had been here the longest whether we would be interested. We (Matt, Billy and I) were all interested, Matt and I particularly. We had been here since September as "temporary" workers, and were starting to feel cheated. Laura told us that she had no details on the job, but said she would tell us more later.

The next week, Laura tapped me on the shoulder and said, "can I talk to you?" and then she ushered me into the hallway. She had done this many times with Matt so that she could go into detail about why something he had done was not work safe. This time, she gave me a stack of papers labelled as a Questionnaire for the Office of Personnel Management and told me that the new job would require a type of government security clearance for contractors. I asked her if she knew yet what kind of job it was, and she said it was "on the FDA project."

I repeated, "so what kind of job?"

"Scanning," she said. I felt a bit let down, and I let her know. I didn't go to college so I could one day operate a scanner. Still, it would almost certainly have a higher salary, so I told her I would still take it if offered.

I filled out the form, and as a result everyone I had named in the form as a reference (including many of you, Kay, Scott, Jess, Anne) got requests from the gov'mint for information about me. My father got one as well. I was a bit surprised to see it, since it doesn't seem that serious of a job. I mean seriously, scanning for an FDA-contracted project, which probably means forms requesting approval for new drugs, doesn't seem like it would pose a risk to the nation's security.

A bit later, as we kept asking Laura when the position would be open (she had told us in March, maybe April, and it was getting pretty close to April), she kept not knowing anything. I told her to ask someone who might know. She did, and told us that the position wasn't open for a while; maybe May. I can't really do justice to my reaction, since I'm on a lunch break, but know that it wasn't positive.

In April, Billy, Matt and I all got paid to be driven in a company van to the FDA headquarters in Bethesda, where we were briefly interviewed by a woman named Vickie Vandevender and then fingerprinted by an electronic scanning machine. Again, this seemed a bit excessive, but I didn't think too much of it. It's pretty common that government jobs require fingerprinting. I was a bit pissed off, however, by the fact that the FDA project head brought along his younger brother to be fingerprinted. Moreover, his younger brother hasn't yet graduated from High School.

A little while later, I found out that there isn't even an opening at the FDA project. Not even a scanning position. Instead, they might have one at some time. This is the result of bureaucracy. It's like a giant game of telephone. Laura had never known any details about the job, and now, she found out, there is no job.

Yesterday, I was sitting in front of my two televisions, where two fifteen-month-olds were crying as their mothers left the room, then five minutes later running up and hugging them as they returned, then crying agian as they left the room, then five minutes later being really confused as a research assistant entered the room to play with them, then crying, then one last time running up and hugging their mothers. It's kind of like a drawn-out game of peek-a-boo. The NIH named this assessment "Separation and Reunion". I wasn't paying any attention to the tapes, or, rather, just enough that I could stop the recorders when the assessments ended. Mainly I was reading Philip Roth and listening to music. Then Laura tapped me on the shoulder and said I had a phone call. This has never happened before. I've gotten calls on my cell phone, which I had to rush to hang up on, but no one's ever called the office.

I took the phone, and heard a scratchy, fast-talking voice tell me, "This is Greg Delitros. I'm an investigator with the OPM. This is about your security clearance process. I'll need to interview you."

"Well, ok. Actually, as far as I know, there isn't any job here, so do you really have to interview me?"

"The government told me to interview you. I can't just call it off." This guy sounded like he was from Dragnet. "So, I'll come in tomorrow between 8 and 10:30. I'll just come up to the front gate, or the desk, or whatever you have. We'll have it in a conference room? See you tomorrow."

Now, as a temporary employee, I don't use the conference rooms; at least, not unless someone has put candy in them. This investigator didn't seem to know this. I got one anyway, as Laura went to the receptionist and told her in what I imagine to be an uncertain voice, "could one of my temps have a conference room tomorrow?" The receptionist said that this happens all the time, so it wasn't a problem.

Next time I get a chance, I'll describe the interview.

This is the face of belligerence. Belligerence, thy name is "Papu".