I spent the day sitting in an office in the lobby of a building on Charles St., reading Barthelme and the New York Times and writing prose sketches, catering to the needs of an obsessive, looming property owner. A one-off, extremely temporary job, just a few hours yesterday and 9-5 today, due to the anything-but-absentee property owner's odd-ball policy of ending all of his leases on July 31st. The leering, preening, grasping owner wanted people in the office and in the back watching the doors and preventing damage. As it happened, only two people moved out while I was there, and the most worthwhile thing I did all day (from the perspective of the paranoid, shiftless, nosy owner) was buying the peering, insectile owner a lemonade from a coffee shop a few blocks from the building. At the end of the day, the batty, prickly spook of an owner offered to recommend me to a friend of his, a vice president at Agora publishing, one of the places where I happen to have applied for a job. It's good to have base friends in high places.

And then, there it was. It had been right in front of me this whole time, and I just hadn't seen it. And it was so simple! That's what it meant when I washed my hands for hours on end, that's why I had to tie my shoelaces in a clockwise manner. Of course! I was acting out the suicide of my cat!

Thank you, Freudian analyst!

Here I don't want to move, and there Lance Armstrong goes showing me up yet again.

I have a new haircut, gotten with the intention of looking more professional so that job interviewers think that I am reliable. It will deliver the message that I take life and formal relationships seriously. Its composed follicles and layered structure will make such a strong impression that the most seasoned judger of qualifications will be powerless against it. My hair is my best spokesman. It will remain unflappable and relentlessly promote my cause, even if my face betrays me by grimacing, my hands turn traitor and attempt to strangle the armrests, or my aura chooses to switch from gentle to cagey. My hair will politely communicate to the interviewer and the world that the person it's decided to bedeck is worthy of trust. It will inspire people with confidence in me, will direct them to consider that I clearly have good taste, and also have the necessary agility and consideration to apply mousse and a rigorous combing. It will soothe the soul of everyone I encounter, even as it impresses them with the obvious signs of my excellence. Do not understimate my hair, for it is persuasive and it will overcome. It is both sexy and composed, strong and gentle, confident and inquisitive, bold and nuanced, firm and supple. My hair is better than you, and it knows it, but it isn't patronizing. The legacy of my hair will be as expansive and bright as the night sky. For generations to come, children will be told the story of my hair and its great deeds; historians will debate which of its accomplishments were the greatest; legions of imitators will desperately struggle to capture even a small fragment of my hair's magic; the fashion world will study every tuck and splendorous wave of my glorious locks; poets will sing my hair's beauty and bravery to all corners of the earth.

It's two years later and I'm finally ready to say it: Elephant is a godawful awesome album. Just a real knockout. At the time, I was terrifically underwhelmed. I basically thought it had no good qualities at all. I thought each song was poorly developed and leaning toward weak, and that the album had bad pacing as a whole. I thought that the copious overdubs killed the feeling that Jack's songs had had up to that point. I thought there were no original ideas, no real expansion as a band.

My God.

Every record critic seems to have a "What the hell was I thinking?" moment. As a critical listener of music, this was mine.

I take it all back. Sorry, Jack White.

A conversation held between two go players after I had left a game I won by over a hundred points (not that I'm boasting):

Nimphy [24k]: sukkel
Wiskid [12k]: heheh
Wiskid [12k]: heeft blijkbaar een ego-boost nodig of ze
Nimphy [24k]: ja lach maar
Wiskid [12k]: *zo
Nimphy [24k]: dag 23k
Wiskid [12k]: die ranking komt echt wel
Nimphy [24k]: denk dat ik maar naar bed ga
Wiskid [12k]: mag ik ff control?

I think this is Dutch. Babel fish doesn't know the word "sukkel", but I can guess. The rest is
Wiskid: "Apparantly he had to have an ego-boost."
Nimphy: "Well of course, ha ha."
Wiskid: "Indeed."
Nimphy: "23k day."
Wiskid: "The ranking really comes, however."
Nimphy: "I think I'm going to bed."
Wiskid: Something like "You think I can control it?"

I am requesting a transcript so that I can apply to work for the federal government. I am not at all sure that this is a good idea, but it causes anxiety, which can not be overstated in terms of awesomeness. If I were a religious man, I'd ask Jesus whether he likes hotdogs.

Time whistles by, its hands in its pockets, as leasurely as could be. We are nominally discussing The Descent of Man, although really we're just trying to make the next hour and twenty five minutes go by. With any luck, we think, the tutor will lose hope as he has many times before and let us leave early. No one was in the room at 10:35. One stutent actually came in a full twelve minutes late, and sat down unapologetically. Mr. Bayer allowed a ten minute discussion of Reality to begin the class, and then diligently asked an opening question. So began the play-acting. The conversation is punctuated by Tim Kile's facetious "seminar" comments, which spur half the class to laughter ("I'd like to bracket that question for a minute." "So what's on the table right now?" "Hmm. Yes. Interesting. Let's unpack that a bit." "Where are you when you ask that question?"). There are four students who are willing to be serious, but only contingently. As soon as there's a joke, they're on it. At one point, Dan Marshall pulls out a camera and snaps a flash picture in the middle of someone's sentence. The conversation doesn't even pause, as the tutor chooses to ignore the evidence. At noon, Tim holds up his hand, smacks his wrist twice, and says, "time." And we walk out into the nauseating sun of brief freedom.

Santa Fe is big, and ugly, and dusty, and smells bad, and, and, and I don't like it. Jess, you're out of your gourd.

It's a tough assignment, explaining the circumstances behind the last post. I know of only two people unconditionally willing to talk with J--blon, one because she is unfailingly polite, the other because he has an obsession with the weird. Neither of them have coherent theories of J--blon's mind. In general, people say he is intelligent in the sense that he could win a chess game or follow a Newton proposition, but not in the sense that he has an understanding of reality or is capable of meaningful interractions with people. His presence makes people uncomfortable, and it's hard to tell just why. He assumes friendship with anyone he speaks to, friendship of a very idiosyncratic nature. He essentially seems to want to play the role of a beloved child of the person he's talking to. He is one half demander, one half critic. Demander in that he just oozes with the desire to be accepted. Critic in that he nevertheless makes fun of people, although in odd and illogical ways. Most people diagnose a strong desire for attention, to be present in people's minds. He is very rarely silent, whether he's in the library, the computer lab, the dining hall, outside, anywhere; and he doesn't seem to care who it is he's talking to. I should mention at this point that he's well into his thirties.

J--blon has a different routine with each library worker. With one person, he every day asks for a call number he could easily get on the public computers. With another person, he asks for help with homework. With a third, he incessantly talks to the worker until he has to find something to do. With a fourth, he will stay until past midnight so that the worker has to request that he leave. With a fifth (and this is the origin of the incident), he checks out a senior essay, takes it to the couches, and ten minutes later gets into a discussion and forgets that he has the essay.

This fifth iteration occurs, or I should say used to occur, on Max and Cory's shift. It particularly angered Cory, the supervisor, because J--blon would check out essays the day before the student's oral, keeping others from reading it. On the night in question, Cory said to J--blon that he better actually read the essay, or else he wouldn't give him any more. Ten minutes later, he was sitting with the essay in his lap and talking loudly with whoever was next to him. Someone came to the desk asking for the same essay, and Cory directed him to J--blon. A few minutes later, he then returned and asked for another essay, saying he wasn't sure if he should read it now or in the morning. He was planning his time for the week, it might be better to do homework, etc. Cory said, Steve, what do you mean planning your time? You only read for ten minutes and then you just talk to people.

It was at this point that J--blon went into hysterics, waiting about a minute to fall to the floor. Now, if you consider this an explanation, perhaps you can explain it to me.

Obviously, the joke wasn't that funny. The common theory is that he honestly found it funny at first, for an unknown reason, and decided not to stop because people were looking at him. I did hear him boasting later that he had gotten the whole library laughing, so this makes sense . . . in a way. I mispoke when I said that I found out what caused it, because I could only say that the phenomenon "J--blon" caused it. If my account doesn't make sense, you could blame my writing for failing to coherently explain, or you could blame the J--blon for being irreconcilable with normal reality. You'd be correct either way.

When I finished reading an e-mail last night, I got up to leave the library, turned toward the door, and then stopped, having suddenly become aware that someone was uncontrolledly laughing. Naturally, I turned around to see what was so funny. A junior I know was sitting on a couch by the glass doors, staring in my direction and shaking with laughter. I gradually realized that he was not alone. People on both sides of the reference section were laughing outrageously and shaking their heads, looking in amazement at nothing obvious. Their stares all focused on the floor in front of the circulation desk. A freshman library worker was leaning over the desk and trying to hold back hysterical laughter while his supervisor stood back, his arms crossed, his face contorted and annoyed.

Then I heard, slurping and choking, off-key and grating, a separate laugh, sliding under and over and through and around the laughter that was coming from all other directions. I walked over to peek around the desk, turned at the column, and saw him: one arm pillowed his shaking head, the other pounded the floor in a hilarity so strong it pinched his face, making it even uglier than usual; his legs kicked, and his torso shook convulsively with gasps for air, as though from great sobs of pain. His characteristic ratty, baggy flannel clothing ballooned onto the floor, and his dirty hair writhed across his back like an animal sick unto death. Steve J--blon, whom I've described in a previous blog.

His laugh was like that of a crazy character in a movie who has just stabbed his mother. It destroyed the normal mood like a black helicopter hovering over a graveyard, like a puddle of blood on an office carpet, like a screech in the middle of a calm night, like a broken mirror. It was infectious and insidious. No one could ignore it, though no one particularly wanted to see it. At first it was just a spectacle; as it drew on, it became freaky. Eventually, the inconceivability of his hilarity dawned on everyone present. No way this was natural laughter, even considering what that might mean for J--blon.

After about thirty seconds Blake happened out of an office, alarmed by the noise. When he saw what was going on he said, "Steve, man, breathe. Really, you're concerning me." He walked around the desk and looked down at the absurd figure. "Come on, get up. Stop it. Just stop it." Steve did not respond. The sick laughter continued. "I'm getting angry." Pause. "If you don't stop, I'm going to call security. I'm serious." The laughter continued. The supervisor leant slightly over the desk and said, "Steve. Cut it out right now. You're affecting everyone in the library, and not in a good way." He didn't stop.

I went behind the desk. The freshman was still peering over the desk, chuckling a bit from the absurdity but looking decidedly less amused. I asked the supervisor if he knew what started it. "This is one of those situations where it's best to know nothing," he said. I left in awe. Today I heard that J--blon kept on for an unlikely, awkward and annoying five minutes, until the last dreds of appreciative attention had left long ago and the studiers were restless and angry. I later found out what caused it, and maybe I'll explain it some time.

Today I played a game of Go with a 16-year-old French kid. I told him that "je parle un peu de Francais," which made things rather awkward. He said, "Je jeu depuis un mois." When I didn't respond quickly, as I was trying to think of the plural of "mois," he said, "trente jours." I said, "Moi depuis trois mois." At the end of the game we both said "Merci," and then he asked, "Quel age avez-vous?" I told him, he told me, and then there was nothing else to say. I left.

I just checked out Ghandi's autobiography to a junior named Eitan Fire. I am so nonplussed.

Does anyone in the world have a strong opinion of Robert Frost, bad or good? No one I've asked so far seems to. I wonder about that man. His poems are quite good for what they are, seemingly flawless according to their design and their context, and yet something prevents me from unqualifiedly liking them. They are so completely modern, the thought behind them so direct and pure, the images perfectly chosen and the words perfectly suited for communicating them, that perhaps I question them as a matter of principle; on moral grounds, as it were. I appear to be incapable of accepting the modern, because of its contrast wtih the more complex, uncertain postmodern. Not that there's any good postmodern poetry, as far as I know, with the possible exception of found poems. Is this even a problem? Why should I care?

I do care, though. I've been reading far more Frost than the assignments for language class require. I've been asking all the intelligent people I know what they think of him, and even some of the unintelligent people. I've gone so far as to consider a sustained study of poetry (which consideration isn't new in itself, but I haven't ever carried it out). How could I ever pick one interest to pursue in grad school/not-grad school if I continue to have three or four at a time? (Other current interests: Old French/history of language, psychology, postmodern fiction/fiction in general, progression of philosophy, and of course modern music and Go. All potentially life-long pursuits.)

Also, Pearl Jam don't suck. This is news to me. Thought you might like to know.

The "good chance" has turned into maybe three-to-one odds. I am not pleased. It hinges on whether anyone here is driving to croquet, because airline prices are forget it. At least when I run into the wall really hard I sometimes forget I'm inexplicably still in school.

There's a good chance I'll be at croquet. If I miss more than one of any class between now and then, who knows, perhaps I'll be home a good deal before croquet, and not return to Santa Fe. A senior's only job is to show up. I know it. Christ, everyone knows it. Now how much would you pay?

From the depths of Santa Fe I cry out to thee, o lord: please make me a sammich.

Eric is back in Olympia. The house has so much less possibility now; fewer ways to get cigarettes before my father goes to sleep, decidedly less weirdness, no unexpected calls from the hippie-punk photographer in Columbia, no phones answered with the musical quotation "You hear me talkin' to ya, I don't bite my tongue", no more mall walks which raise the hopes of every ring vendor.

Damn that's pretty:

Guillaume Apollinaire
"Le Pont Mirabeau"

Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine.

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l'onde si lasse

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

L'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante
L'amour s'en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l'Espérance est violente

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

*****************
Literal translation:

Under Mirabeau bridge slips the Seine
And our loves
Must this remind me of them
Joy always came after pain.

Let the night come sound the hour
The days go by I remain

With hand in hand let's remain face to face
Until beneath
The bridge of our arms pass
The so tired wave of eternal glances

Let the night come sound the hour
The days go by I remain

Love goes by like this running water
Love goes by
Like life is slow
And like Hope is violent

Let the night come sound the hour
The days go by I remain

The days pass the weeks pass
Neither the past
Nor the loves return
Under Mirabeau bridge slips the Seine

It's always this way. I walk outside and there's the holly bush, the little red honda, the stone house across the street, the badly paved driveway, all so expected and natural and without transition, like the last two months never happened. There are cats, at least. I had forgotten that somehow. Consolation, I guess. There's also an older, fifty-point-lower-IQ version of me in the basement at all times. In that room across the hall sleeps a wrathful God counting down the minutes to the moment he can smell my coat and confirm his true assumption. Not even the airport pickup and long island iced tea can put it off for long. I woke up this morning in Santa Fe and tonight I go to sleep in Ellicott City. A small portrait of hell.