Oh dear. Monday Monday Monday. Morning. Early, is it? Yes?

I�ve felt drunk or hungover all weekend long, but I never had anything to drink. I think I have to get used to having the heat on. I think I don�t drink enough water. I�m dehydrated all the time, I guess. My head has been pounding, I want to flush my brain with a cool liquid. I want to go back to bed.

I didn�t do my grading this morning. I didn�t even do my planning. Or, for that matter, my reading. Fucking hell.

Yesterday I did not even turn the computer on. I am very pleased by this. I find myself increasingly bored and irritated by this place. I made soup yesterday. I cleaned my clothes. I cleaned my house. I ran errands, lots of em. I did real things for once. I cut vegetables for once. I opened the back door to the cool air and I made soup and Basho ran in and out and in and out and told me how much he LOVES his new dog food (Iams lamb and rice formula, fyi--thanks to Buddy and Jeff and Frances for that tip) and how much he LOVES everything and everyone which he tells me every day, actually, but some days the message gets through to me a little more clearly. I ate tangerines and bananas. I drank tea with Frances. I worked on my puzzle, the one of the waterfall that my mumma gave me for Christmas last year. I haven't done a puzzle in years but I used to do them over and over again when I was in high school. I had a puzzle obsession. It actually made my brain hurt, like too much tetris or too much algebra, which is the other thing I would do obsessively (algebra problems) in elementary and junior high and high school. Sometimes I still do math problems because, as long as I don't let myself become too obssessed with doing them (like timing myself or making statistics about how I am doing and charts and graphs and really it hurts me even to think about the meta data that my obsessions generate, so I won't) they really do make me feel better. Like Jane Austen or Star Trek. I want to believe in the universe of puzzles and pretty math equations and everything coming out right, coming out balanced, in the end. It's not really like that, I know, but it's partly like that, isn't it? And today I can�t stand this anymore. Propping myself up here at this desk trying to scam my way out of and through another day teaching. I can�t stand the way I write, I can�t stand the way I think and this diary is fucking boring.

I will move next May, I suppose, unless some miracle financial or otherwise, occurs. But by moving, I mean, I will move someplace cheaper so that I can not teach. Not teach. Ever again. Ah no�you know, I wouldn�t mind if I could get a class like I had last year�a night class, but two nights a week and here not far away. I hate having to drive anywhere. I hate that tremendously. I hate, also, not knowing what I�m doing. I hate having a class that meets three days a week. I hate teaching two classes. That was a bad idea. I�ll not make that mistake again. Probably? I won�t be getting any teaching next semester.

I wish I could buy a house, I do. I want I want I want, yes yes yes.

I saw a pup at Petsmart who looked like Basho�s twin. The woman with him said, in an excruciating baby voice, �oh! Another border collie-pointer mix!� So I guess that�s one theory about Bashi. We�re going to the vet today. I keep telling him this like it�s an exciting FUN thing to do. So far he totally believes me and is wicked excited about the vet. This is how trust is destroyed, isn�t it?

Maybe I will quit smoking. Life would be ever so much cheaper without my vices.

I hate this entry, I ain�t got nothing to say and it�s been like that for days�or no, that�s not true. I have a million things I�m thinking about and a million changes racing through me and a million new desires bloom every second but the whole thing�s gotten away from me now. I can�t explain it to anyone here because I�m way too conscious of the anyone aspect of that sentence. Does anyone else feel like a product? I do. I do I do.

Plus, I think, when I started this diary I was in so much pain and I needed this outlet to simply get on with things, to simply get through each horrifying day. Life is different now and I haven�t figured out how to make this diary sustainable. Something I�m interested in. Something more than a catalog of my depression. I�m not interested in that anymore and I don�t want to tell you about my family and friends anymore and so, what am I left with?

I guess it�ll require some thought. All I really want is to go home and be on vacation. Or to roll logs with Frances and talk or not talk. Or walk for miles in the woods in the rain in the autumn air with Basho. There is a great tree of gold directly across the street from my house. Every time I see it, it stops me in my tracks.

Some Gerard Manley Hopkins:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed.