I have a meeting in fifteen minutes so this is a speeeeeed entry.

I don�t write here much anymore�I mean, comparatively speaking. I�m training myself to write in different places about different things. It�s hard. I miss my diaryland rituals.

I thought daylight savings would ruin me until the spring like it always does. But I�ve discovered that I like walking in the woods in the full dark. I can�t read out there anymore so I just drink my beer and sit quietly while Bash does his daily investigations. This is better than reading. I have to train myself out of my obsessive reading habits the same way I have to train myself out of my obsessive writing habits. Neither of them is particularly useful or productive. I�d like to be more deliberate about things. Sitting in the dark in the woods I am deliberate.

Plus I like that the sun rises so early now. It�s much easier to get up at 5:30 when the sun rises at 6 than it is to get up at 5:30 when the sun doesn�t rise until 7. We had a lovely walk this morning, me and Bash.

Last night I went out onto the porch to check on Miss Blue and found a possum out there eating up the cat food. It was just a young thing by the looks of it and it looked at me and it looked at the door, which was so far away, and it paused considering its options for a bit and finally it scurried under the bed. Hmmm. So in addition to various stray cats we are keeping the local possums (and possibly the raccoons�the cats� water dish is inevitably filled with food bits every morning now) well fed.

This is my boss�s last week. I�ll miss her. I went to her going away party on Sunday night. I do hate putting on my normal human mask. Miserable and boring and miserable party, except for the part of my boss telling the story of this enormous oil portrait she has hanging in her living room. It�s of her at age 9 and it�s a silly looking thing, but apparently it�s rather famous. I don�t feel like writing anymore about that. I hated how I felt after that party. I�m at least 16 years younger than everyone in my department (at least 30 years younger than most of the folks) and so no one really talks to me and I don�t really have anything to say to anyone anyway. I never do. I can�t even talk to my own peer group, let alone this lot. I really hate parties. I really hate society, to be totally frank. I want to be away and away, in the deep woods, no roads no neighbors, away and away.

Right, meeting time.

Just back from the meeting, which was stupid and long and got sidetracked into a very long discussion about retirement and medicare and supplemental insurance and other matters that I�m sure are quite important and fascinating but that have absolutely nothing to do with me just yet. I feel so distant from this place. I�ve been low these past weeks, or not low, but low energy. Fallow, that�s how I�ve been. I�m waiting, storing up my winter cache, waiting.

Jefferson just called. He's still up in Maryland and will continue there on account of all this rain we've been getting. Sigh. But he's scheming like he does, my mad scheming friend and I like to hear about the schemes and I like to hear about the woods up there and the work he's doing.

Right. Now it's break time and I'm done. Adios.