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# of hours: 4

***

. . . . . .

# of hours: 8

***

. . . . .

Up and headed to the darkroom ...

[disappeared it]

... This is a dream journal. And the dream has turned surly, I'm making note of it.

***

# of hours: 13

***

. . . .

There is always much to do, but a certain amount of cushion rest, too, a stretching the bones for a bit before the rap at the door, a gaze out the window. But now all the small time is on the plate too. All the morning tea waking in the dark to watch the building clock face luminesce beside the twin stop lights, red red, green green, yellow--, and the one roof lit by the clock face, whether shingled or ridged with aluminum siding I forget to check once the sun is up and I am on my way, and all the mornings gaining their chill and the letters in the box and the books in the boxes and the tea in paper sleeves, the tea cooling in the pot forgotten in the hurried stretches behind the slow driver--they blur--and for good reason--I have not been here.

***

"As self-consciousness, the I regards itself; and the pure expression of this is 'I=I,' or: 'I am an I.'"

--Hegel, "Summary of Self-consciousness from the 'Phenomenology of Spirit' in the Philosophical Propaedeutic."

***


# of hours: 12

***

. . .

Meanwhile the workshop table was a brilliant turquoise blue. It would have been brash in sunlight and glossy to touch had it not been nailed fast to the wall of the garage and covered in grit from driveway gravel that fumed and settled as the truck came and left. As it was, the gravel smelled of cat urine and of oil stains in the middle dirt, and the wood of the garage winked with holes that let in views of wild grass and thin streaks of light, but the back wall with its workshop table was impenetrable.

***

Finish the roll, call the jail, lift up your garments. Then we'll see.

***

# of hours: 13

***

. .

Texas is too much with me.

Texas is very much with me.

***

If you still wanna come over I've mopped the kitchen so watch your feet.

***

week four

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To disappear in a few days: don't look for it Tuesd'y. What I've been doing in my absence: this whatness delivered yesterday to my colleagues. You were kind and incredibly generous. Thank you.

***

Utter: On Skepticism and the Second Book

What cannot be said above all must not be silenced, but written. Myself, I am a man of speech, I have never had anything to write. When I have something to say I say it or say it to myself, basta. You are the only one to understand why it really was necessary that I write exactly the opposite, as concerns axiomatics, of what I desire, what I know my desire to be, in other words you: living speech, presence itself, proximity, the proper, the guard, etc. I have necessarily written upside down--and in order to surrender to Necessity. —Derrida, Envois

[disappeared it]

***

To Francisco, K, and Lyle: gratitude. Lyle, you always help me think.

***

. . . .

. . .

. .

week three

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[disappeared it]

***

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. . .

Can't get to you yet. But I will.

***

. .

week two

Ordered checks drove to post office to send book purchase signed and mailed W9s to Poetry Foundation and Smith College typed and signed autopay change request per customer representative's phone instructions Sunday morning tossed typed and signed autopay request per customer representative's phone instructions Monday morning made online payments online for cable and phone and visa checked remaining minutes have none made phone reservations at Hilton for AWP made class blog and elaborate but dull class blog post and class blog links ran three loads of laundry all but whites folded and put away worked on my website to send link to AWP and Smith people needing bios and contact info printed list of photo materials to find photo materials website called card member services to request auto-payment not bill (again) the wrong bank account avoided giant dead praying mantis in front entry way until Catch staff arrived for dinner then wrapped him in paper towel and held him away from my body until reaching the kitchen garbage can ordered Cellar Pizza swept kitchen sent bio and photo to Smith College Poetry Center email email made tea forgot tea talked to mom talked to Glenda talked to Herman talked to Suzanne talked to Fr. Bill picked up soda for Catch retreat also bought a waterproof watch can tell time again investigated singles' retreat and deposit for retreat and tenuous cancellation of retreat also wrote check for deposit and licked envelop closed and addressed and stamped went to Walmart twice hated Walmart looked everywhere for AWP registration information for panelists and found much later note in email about secret links or phone verification lit candles for students put out plates forks cups and water none drank soda Special Intention mass for my family and Em's party also glitter and a quick change to party shoes also lost an hour to stomach cramps and chills also cleaned cat litter and washed dishes and put out chairs and cleaned up chairs and put out sample mags and shelved sample mags and ran through calendar and standards and nearly cracked my head open over trying to understand Amazon.com payments and sellers accounts and credits to individual checking accounts. Still baffled.

***

. . . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . . .

. . . .

See, somewhere around now last year I balked and balked, or said I did, but then moved through the year and arrived here, in this now, where I would have woken a year ago and written the dreams of last night, the Nicaraguan fruits in crates teeming with ruler-sized metallic green centipedes, would have implicated myself in some unique and meaningful psychosis, the case study for the day--bug dreams again--and for that reason alone would have found myself interesting enough to write the evocative version of it here for both of us, so that I would have a record of what I saw and so that you might have another image of terror in beauty, or another of the dream sinking its real teeth into my misty wake--into my laughable ability to stay awake--because I am afraid of the dream, enamored too, nothing's changed, except that I think now I'm more inclined to believe I not only know enough to know the difference but also: there is one: so now, in this now, the voice is all wrong, all mush and slop, all you don't want to listen in on this because it's very much a love letter plagued by the many cliches of the love letter that I canforthetimebeing do little to work against until I've said enough, that again? but I thought? but, no, we aren't past this now, you and I, for I believe you exist and I believe your existence is good, I almost always have, except when the evidence said you never really know a person, which is all the time, thanks to evidence, and then I figured it was okay to figure you out like a book that yields up difficult readings every day depending on my mood, thanks to moods, and because you choose to write books--or I assume you have no choice but to write books--there is evidence again that there is nothing more to go on, for without the third (and the third is the arrival of the future if what I've been getting at is present and past) my love for you is a dream, but if what I believe is our future arrives: you arrive too:

***

. . .

. .

[disappeared it]

***

week one: first week of classes

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