I fear I will not sleep well tonight. I slept late this morning, until 8:00AM, and although I would be happy to sleep now again, twelve hours later, remaining awake for only twelve hours of a single day feels both acceptably without ambition and biologically suspect. No caffeine percolates in the cup next to my computer. I’m drinking the tea designed for bedtime Mary recommended a few months back, and I haven’t touched a diet coke since the early afternoon. My sinuses are a bit sketchy, and I’m out of Alleve, but I should be ok on that end. I hope. I could take another bath, I suppose. Maybe I’ll clean out the guest bedroom and read next to the fan for a while. We’re due for major overnight storms which, if true, will characterize the third stormy night in the last four days. I can’t complain.
Although this month has been my most journal-heavy, by a mile, in years, I haven’t written since Thursday, so allow me briefly to summarize the last few days. I was stuck in meetings more or less all day Friday. Mary and I did manage to sneak in a rather strange conversation at a local coffee shop before the first Friday meeting. I’m still not exactly sure why she wanted to talk, and my paranoia meter is extraordinarily touchy, but I trust her. After the morning meeting a few colleagues and I hit a Mexican restaurant for lunch. I had a midday Corona, caught a pleasant buzz, and would have taken a lovely nap had the office not interfered. I completed tomorrow night’s preparation and attended a later faculty senate meeting where I was roped into chairing the second half of the proceedings. Parlimentarian procedures mystify me, so I relied upon an experienced nun sitting to my left to walk me through the “I call the question” crap. After the meeting I cruised home, ate disappointing pizza, and played football with T and S in the backyard. After we finished we hit movie night at the boys’ school. The stimuli were too much for me, despite my best intentions, and I bolted just as the movie started. I walked home through a gentle rain, chatting on my cell phone for part of the time, although I regretted losing too much time to the phone when I should have been experiencing the rain. I was exhausted by this point, so I watched some hoops before falling asleep.
Saturday was a difficult day. I felt lost. Throughout much of the day I channel surfed and avoided constructive activity. The boys had friends in and out, all day, so I had to rag on the kids to keep the doors closed (still too cold for screen doors), and I ate like shit. I want to make clear that I never become suicidal. Instead, I feel absolutely spent, exhausted, as if I am raw and fatigued, utterly without meaning. I can’t tell you how I spent most of the hours because I did so little. I don’t believe I left the house at all. Late last night I read Ellroy for a while, took a bath, and listened to my Mp3 player before falling asleep late. How do I explain this despondency? I don’t know that I can. However, a few poems began to form in my mind, around two concepts. First, the word “momentum”, associated with movement, release, passed through my mind over and over again. Something like this:

Launched from gripless chrome
Into loose soil
I breathed through the air between dirt

The second idea had to do with beaches in winter. More on that soon. I know the poems need massive, massive work, but I find the words and ideas appealing, and I find the presence of words and ideas even more appealing. I haven’t written good poetry in fifteen years.

Today I made a concerted effort to raise myself from the mire. I didn’t wake until eight, as I mentioned earlier. We were out of diet coke, so T and I made an early morning Target run through the thickest fog I have ever experienced. I feel like I have a new understanding, however, of why the government wants signage the way they do. The signs pop out of nowhere and probably could have led me, had I decent directions, to the store. Still, turning from 32 onto 43 was somewhat intimidating, as I couldn’t see more than forty or fifty feet to my right. In the store T picked out three packs of sports cards. I grabbed two packs of diet coke and, on sale and on a lark, the latest TV guide. T and I had fun. He weighed his choices well. When we returned home I started laundry (always a sign of personal recovery) and ate lunch. One of T’s friends visited for a while, so M and I watched “Stranger Than Fiction” while they played. I liked the movie a lot, but maybe I was particularly in the mood for a film that tries to create reasons for living. Funny, I’ve had the movie for weeks, from Netflix, and chose to watch, it seems, on the right day. Later Shadow and I walked to the beach. The weather was warm by now, warm enough that I didn’t need my jacket, and the smells of spring left me dizzy. Sometimes I can’t believe I live where I live. Today we were on the bike path, looking north towards the courthouse tower, and I was giddy with the idea that I actually live in this town. I felt the same later when I looked east over the water towards the lighthouse, although, as just about everyone knows, I’m deathly afraid of both heights and the lake. However, Shadow and I walked to the beach, where I sat for a few minutes and took in the waves. I need to attempt an explanation of what drew me to the beach and what I felt as I sat on the sand. The sense of what is hidden underneath the water filled me as I tried to breathe my emotions into vision. I realize this sounds trite, but I feel as if the water symbolized all that is underneath the surface, personally, that I’m sure others would acknowledge is present in both their own lives and myself, but which I can’t see on my own. Writing about this tires me out further. After the beach Shadow and I stopped by the park, where the boys and neighbors were playing kickball, and returned home. My legs were killing me, which shouldn’t happen after a three mile walk, but that’s what happens when you eat like shit, get older, and don’t work out much. I need to get my walking groove on again before Italy. Anyway, I took a bath, made dinner (pasta rolls), and caught a bit more basketball before turning off the television after dinner. T and I silent read for a while. He wanted to read his new cards which, to be fair, is reading, so I let him look through his binder while I read a great story about Wagner and robbing McDonalds in Murikami’s “The Elephant Vanishes”. T asked to listen to the Mp3 player, so I helped him figure out how to use the menus, and he listened to The Ramones and The Killers while I read. S took a turn next before M shuttled them up to bed.
The weathermen are predicting 70’s tomorrow. Of course, I work from 8:30AM to 8:30PM. Oh well. Time to avoid paranoia and cultivate sleep. Good night.