I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat. I see you aren't aware of it. Well you must tell me, baby, how your head feels under something like that. (Uner your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat.)

Eric just called me to tell me that the ventriloquist's dummy he found in our uncle's basement is really freaking him out. He's alone in a Brooklyn loft with the dummy staring at him from a windowsill. This and other things are not good ideas.

He can't smoke in the loft, so he went to the hallway while we were talking. He can smoke in the hallway, and he really doesn't know why, but he doesn't question it. We should really go up there and visit him. He's leaving Friday, so we should really take advantage of this opportunity. I'm looking at you here, Scott.

We talked about this over the phone, and also about how he's going to a play with our aunt, to a part of town she doesn't go to. She's been living there her whole life and there are parts of town she doesn't go to because she gets lost. Then he went back inside and, he claimed, the dummy had moved.

Scott, Anne, thoughts about going to visit Eric this week?

My mother received some gifts from her coworkers, and one of them freaks me out inordinately. It is a travel game, like the magnetic chess that was once taped to Blue Thunder's ceiling. This is weird enough already, because there is no reason to think that my mother would want a travel game. Already, the explanation must be pretty strange. She was perhaps shopping at a hobby store for Crimmas decorations, tripped out on shrooms, when she remembered that she needed a gift. Her claw hand grabbed a travel game, and the next day she was still starry eyed and hazy from the shrooms, so she didn't realize what a strange and inappropriate gift it was. That's not reasonable, perhaps, but it is conceivable (proof: I just thought of it). Here's the kicker, though: it's travel tic tac toe. A metallic cylander with nine holes, and two sets of wooden pegs, one blue and one red. And a two-page rule book. For tic tac toe. This rule book freaks me out over and above the coworker, because someone had to write it, and someone else had to ask that person to write it, and there must be a shop somewhere that printed it. It's like something out of David Lynch. I can see Agent Cooper buying one for his cousin, the camera lingering over the felt box that stores the travel tic tac toe with the little glossy label that says "travel tic tac toe." Now, if the coworker's child had made this thing in shop class as a final project, I would be somewhat comfortable with its existence, but as I've already described, that didn't happen. So the existence of the thing is creepy enough. Then there is the problem of what was going through the coworker's head when she decided to give it to my mother. I fall over crying when I try to think of this. My mother says that the woman, whose name is Diane, happens to be one of her more intelligent coworkers. A quiet woman, but when she spoke to her, she seemed okay (which is more than she can say for most of her coworkers, who are rabid Bush supporters, and foreward vicious ill-conceived badly written e-mails about the tax code, and the people Clinton offed, and that sort of thing, and probably joked about the election to make my mother feel bad, and who cackle). If anyone has insight on this critical issue, i.e. the gift, please tell me, because I'm cracked up about it. I'm thinking the world is not even approaching logical if this sort of thing can happen.

Jeff still thinks about going to New York for Christmas the way I would have when I was twelve. He makes statements about how he shouldn't have to do something he doesn't want to do, and that we are just going because society makes us, and my mother could go visit her family any weekend she wanted and is thus only going this weekend because of society. He denies that computer games have anything to do with his not wanting to go, and when asked what he would do if he stayed home, he says, "what I want to do." He keeps asking if we're really just going to stay in my aunt's house all Saturday. His voice, while he says these things, comes from some treaty between his nose and stomach, so that it sounds tight and nasally, but also has a lot of breath.

When he left the dinner table, I asked my father about disowning Jeff. He said he was considering it.

Have you looked at the moon tonight? Over here it's got a pleasing cloudy aestheticly cut-off bit, and the rest of it shines through atmospheric conditions that have the same consistency of, say, a jar of vegetable oil. It's a few minutes up from the horizon, which is sloped upward from where I was standing, and is cased in trees and a few barely showing stars. The purple and diffracted light of Baltimore's suburbs overpowers anything else, but that moon is something. Look at the moon!

Almost there, David Foster Walrus. So very close. And then you will be done. FOREVER! Afterward, I will take a much needed rest, and then maybe make a sandwich or something to celebrate.

Contrary to popular opinion, I did not lose $100 at the Casino last night. Sorry to let you all down. It was really just $94.

I'd rather be sitting at home with headphones playing something swirling, perhaps drinking tea and looking at a book with pictures. It would be nice to do this until Sunday, in a sort of motive cocoon that would scratch my head and refasten the buttons on my jacket and prop up my back and sing about aphids, making me whole again before the flight home. Who cares which slit the photon went through? So what if some space has Riemann geometry? Is that cemetaire marin going to don a blue sweater and sing hymns to the hipsters? No, fool! It's not! "Also, your dreams are boring and I don't like you," it says instead. Me and my black bag are going home now, and we're going to try to forget that we have precept at 8. Maybe if I'm lucky the campus will blow up in my absense.

I'm aware no one will comment to that, so how about this: who here likes cheesecake?

Yesterday rose bright. The people were out and smiling, and you would have smiled too, even with the knowledge that you were being sappy. We sat on the balcony and smoked, and talked about sitting on balconies smoking. Someone said the words "party" and "apartments." We went, because at night it's cold and there's nothing else to do. Phone call first, because phone calls are important. Then party: Little room under a staircase dripping snow water, ash everywhere and people grinding to Michael Jackson. They charged for the beers, but I got them free because people like me somehow. Was told by a girl she hoped that I didn't despise her, even if I hated her, and I told her I didn't despise her. She's more attentive than I thought. This is the one with a face like a decaying block of cheese, who picks at her beard and makes the world dirtier. The one without the chinhair anymore told bystanders sexist jokes he "heard from me" (people here are very witty). Got a ride with a drunk beefsteak to a closed Bell, then back to drive home and shamble.

Blake has shaved his head. He looks like a disgusting British schoolboy from a bad movie. Mark Ingham was once again the inspiration for a group uglification, although this time there is no shaving kit bought from a D.C. crack dealer, and fewer Febbies. If you have a message for Blake, leave it here. If it involves his blacke jean jacket, press one. If it is about the white shirt that hangs below this jacket, press two. If it is about how funny you find his diabetes, press three.

Tim Kile put me on the guest list for the show, and then he took me and four other people back stage. Oh, by the way:

Attn: Scott White

Wyn Butler remembers you and your interview, and he said he had a good time answering your questions.

Hey guys, who wants to go see The Arcade Fire tonight at the Paramount? Anyone? Anyone?

Oh, that's right, you can't go, because you're two thousand miles away! Ha ha!

I almost passed out while shelving books yesterday morning. That was real fun. I had just gotten up from a crouch to find the proper place for some Buddhist commentary or other, and my hand refused to rise any more. I had a strange feeling, as if my body were oscillating back and forth in something like a sine wave. Then I fell backwards and hit the shelf behind me, after which I failed to get a grasp on something and so dropped to my knees and fell sideways, knocking books off the shelving cart.

Something like this happens a few times a day, although I rarely get all the way to the ground because of it. Yes, I think I have anemia.

An open letter to my throat, James.

Dear James,

I'm dreadfully sorry that I fell asleep in the smoking study room, not only for my sake, but for yours as well. I am very glad that you're still alive, and I would do anything to make it up to you. If only you told me your wishes. Why do we not speak more often? One would think it only natural, but alas, you are sadly incommunicative. Perhaps you were trying to say something when you grew that lump this last Tuesday, but I can't quite make it out. Are you angry with me? You should know by now that I don't respond well to violence. Remember those times you got me out of school whenever I wanted by pretending to be infected with strep? And then in the empty house I would eat ice cream for you to make you happy? I wish we might soon return to days like that, if only you could tell me what the lump's about.

Was it friction from the smoke, or your attempt to seal yourself and keep out the harshness of that guy's pipe? Did you raise that bump because you are happy? Is it a cry for more syrupy coffee drinks?

Anyway, I hope you read this. I never meant to offend you. Please come back to me, baby.

Your most dedicated friend, etc.

You know that part in "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" when the voices rise up like wind in a really nasty fight with itself, and there is a beat that no one has named? When the words, that periodically give way to "woo-we" and "woa-ho," send you flopping on the floor no longer searching for completion because that is it right there? That's what I don't feel like. I skipped my classes Monday. That was nice. Around four in the morning the air got close, like it was watching me. Outside was empty except for the dead leaves, all crunchy and wondering why they'd ever grown at all, and there weren't too many of them either. Every cigarette was better than the last. I did some cooking and stared at the walls, which have round corners that flop down from the ceiling like a trench coat hanging close to the floor. Time as measured by the clock passed quickly, but my mind couldn't tell. At times like these I feel like I've been left by people who have no use for me right then but will come by to pick me up when they get the chance. Not much to do but wait.

Then the sun came up around seven, and some dense orange light poured out of a hole in the sky onto the clouds. It looked more like something that ought to be reported along with the weather than it did like a sunrise. I remembered going to the harbor one night in Annapolis to watch the sunrise, but I still can't remember if I was still there when dawn came that day or not.

We don't see very many things from day to day, but we don't notice this. It doesn't occur to us, because we don't ask ourselves if we're doing anything new. If we did we'd be really bored. I want to buy a house in upstate New York with friends and record songs in my basement. They'd all be songs of transport, not the public kind, more like the rapture kind. Anyone want to go? It's cheap up there, I swear, because in upstate New York you don't need to eat. The air brings you all the nutrition you need. If you want tobacco, there's tobacco. You want liquor, so too, there's liquor. The trees are happy to have you up there, they're so fine to everyone that they pay you just to be. Body of water called the Hudson Bay, and also the Hudson River. Your spit freezes before it leaves your mouth, it's great. We don't have to go to Woodstock if you don't want to go to Woodstock, that's all up to you. Don't tell me yes or no right now, just nod if you feel it.

On Sunday I drummed with Tim Kile. We are going to be the best ever death metal band out of Santa Fe, particularly since Tim's songs are not at all like death metal. In fact, he sounds a lot like the Arcade Fire. He has a strong idea of what he wants each instrument to play, and even told me what kind of beats he wanted. This makes for a tense jam, but seeing as he knows his shit, I bow to him.

Oh, and by the way, Tim assumes "Laika" is about a former member of the band, whose last name was Alexander. He was older than the rest, and for a while was the only thing keeping them together. He left eventually in a state of dissolution and anxiety.

Did you know that I'm not particularly liberal? Turns out I'm center-left. The Socialist Party, they're liberal.

Furthermore, did you know the word "liberal" used to be applied to capitalists, the "new men" in the late 19th century who figured out how to make a lot of money out of nothing? Marx used the word to refer to capitalists.

I'm also not progressive, apparantly, because, according to neo-cons, the end result of the Democrats' policies would be a fixed, permament, unchanging social state. It would just stop after a while.

Go figure.

There seems to be a problem here. The trees are white and pink instead of green. The bushes all have yellow leaves. The ground screamed and split with pain. Overnight Santa Fe turned into a wasteland. For the last six thousand years this area had a tropical climate, people lounged naked by the water and ate berries and pomegranates, wildlife flocked here for relief and earth love. And then, sometime around 4 a.m. this morning, everything died at once. The police found signs of a struggle. Every animal with tear ducts is crying right now with a deep body groan that's sending the grief of the earth up to God. Who turned out the lights? Who turned out the lights?

I did it. I wrote a first semester essay on Hegel titled "Hence Certainty: or the 'Gist' and Kant on LSD-25." I even quote Morrissey. I so win.