So I’m drinking, breathing, writing, singing
Everyday I'm on the clock
My mind races with all my longings
But cant keep up with what I got

****

So when you’re asked to fight a war that’s over nothing
It’s best to join the side that’s gonna win
And no one’s sure how all of this got started
But we’re gonna make them goddam certain how its gonna end

****

The sun came up with no conclusion
Flowers sleeping in their beds
This city's cemetery's humming
I’m wide-awake, it’s morning.
-Bright Eyes

The story of my life these days.

While at a stop-light tonight I watched a young couple—she was struggling to get down the steep stairway that was their front steps. Attentive to her needs, he took her hand and helped her down slowly, kissed her tenderly, his arm around her delicate waist. They walked through the grass, hand in hand and passed my car, so entranced with the other they would not have noticed a car moving toward them at rocket speed--horn blasting. It was then that I felt like an annoying splinter so embedded in my work and pointless life that there was no need to remove it.

I had spent the last two hours grading papers outside at a local watering hole—my only dialogue was to the skinny young waitress—or my comments to students on their papers. I knew I had to stop when I ended up writing over a page of notes—basically disagreeing with one young upstart's entire paper.

I sent out an email to the LA department relaying my usual accolades to the person or persons responsible for getting a student interested in a subject. At first, I was shocked that I received a response from someone, but not surprised, as X accepted the praise, of course. This XXXXX usually puts me down, ignores me, or embarrasses me publicly; X is never supportive--therefore, I never attend X's top-heavy and unorganized meetings.
I sat smiling to myself as I read X's typcial curt response--imagining X basking in a personal victory of this child’s understanding of world literature.


It’s laughable, really. Everything. I am running out of purpose and am finding myself at the end of a joke missing the obvious punchline. And--honestly-- missing you.

THE PRESENCE OF LOVE

And in Life's noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.
-S.T. Coleridge

An exhausting and duty-fulled weekend indeed.
Props to all the moms out there--
now that I am one I understand.

And kudos to my friend Ariel who is now called Dr. Balter.
Time sure does fly.

Now off to my cozy nest to watch Jim Carrey in
Lemony Snicket's A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
wish you were here...