I've got the thruming horrid anxiousness all over today. How is that, for no discernable reason, life can feel so rich and wonderful, every bit of sun drenched earth miraculous, every possible thick richness spilling out all around me and then justlikethat I get flattened and strung out like an unspooled ball of twine and all seems terrifying and undoable? What is the difference? What sends my pulse racing and turns my skin to hot awful needle pricks and my brain all frantic and clawing?

I suppose I'm not getting the proper amounts of walking in--it's been so bloody hot, I can't seem to make myself walk further than the sweet gum tree in the evenings and I can't seem to wake myself early enough in the mornings. I am in the summer fogs and doldrums, which, in summer, always feel terribly frantic, like electrical storms (unlike in winter when all is cold and joyless like ice).

Jeff is home with, according to my expert opinion, heat exhaustion. He was so lovely and ill last night. I gave him ginger ale and a wet washcloth and he lay in the cool air-conditioning all night long except for one time when I was out with dogs at the chicken coop when the dark was just settling in, he came out to wait with me for a moment.

Why I realize I can never be a professional: I cannot bear the idea of having dinner or entertaining a stranger. I almost was forced into doing such an unimaginable chore (I'm on a faculty search committee) with a perfect stranger who is interviewing for a job here. Can you imagine? I cannot. I will not. They will have to pay me far more for such horrors. Lucky for me another fellow on the committee said no because he has animals to feed. I used the same reasoning + my hour-long commute to get out of it.

I didn't get the one job (not the one I interviewed for--that I still haven't heard about). I was relieved.

I just want to come to work and then go home and keep the talk to a minimum. Please.

Something happened last night. And it struck somewhere deep inside that I didn't know about and I cried out in grief--I don't know what or why or from whence this grief came but it was the most profound sorrow I have ever felt. I sobbed for a minute or so and then it was clean gone. Purely and completely healed. This is how I know god.

I'm too emotional today. Let me go home and be cool and silent and alone except for my most dear familiars.