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2.28.01 - 10:00:25

i seem to do that a lot. leaving on jet planes. i'm going to honduras on sunday. it still seems very far away. not three or four days. definitely not three or four days. i am listening to nelly furtado. i'm like a bird. it's a good song. i deleted all the other nelly furtado tracks i'd downloaded. but this one stays.

i associate planes with death. in a very strange way, though. i don't know. every time i get on a plane, i think i'm going to die at three points. 1) takeoff. 2) when we level out 3) landing. when we level out i'm always scared we're suddenly going into a nosedive. it's irrational. but the thing is, i don't really think i'm going to die. it's not like i'm scared to get on planes. i guess it just makes me think a lot about the possibility of not coming back and what i'd want to have done before then. so i can take off and not worry about what ifs. i don't know. it sounds all morbid and stupid now, but it's not really that way in my head. it's hot in here.

the lydia da short stories are only getting better. i'm pleased about this. i need to get my hands on the newest sudden fiction. it's time for some more of that, i think. either that or mark leyner needs to come out with another book in the same vein as tetherballs in bougainville. no, if you haven't read that book, go do it. now. it's the funniest text i've ever read.

now i'm listening to crowded house. distant sun. i really think this is one of their best songs. i don't pretend to know what you want, but i offer love...sometimes the best you have doesn't really fix anything, but it's still the best you've got. you know.

i took a three hour nap this afternoon. that victorian poetry class. my professor. his name is dr. robert patten. he invites us to call him dr. bob. lyn hypothesizes that all doctors named bob do the same. lyn's father is another dr. bob. dr. bob has grey hair and creases in his face and his cheeks are rather rosy. his eyes are very gray. his hair has a few different shades of gray in it. one of these shades matches his eyes almost exactly and though i can't tell you why, it's just a little bit disconcerting. yeah. i really don't know why. today i said something in some poem was derisive and and he asked, what is derisive? in a funny sort of tone. and i looked at him and he's an english professor and he's 60 years old and i'm stuttering and i say, well, you know, like a condemnation. and he says, yes, i know, but what in the poem is derisive. aww. i was a little embarrassed about that one. dr. bob always wears suits to class. some of our profs do this. some of them wear tshirts and jeans. it's nice that you're allowed to do what you want. all of the profs i've had are very liberal. with their language, too. i remember mr. thornberg, my high school economics teacher, on the first day of class. he slammed a book on someone's desk and started pacing back and forth, chanting, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, for about two minutes in this loud angry voice. i forget exactly what it was supposed to demonstrate. i think it had something to do with the way shock value loses it power after we have a little time to adjust to what's going on. i really don't remember what that had to do with econ. but mr. thornberg was a little eccentric. hilary was really surprised that i'd have profs who were comfortable saying fuck in front of a classroom. it's just words, you know. just words.

dr. bob. dr. bob wears suspenders. but not the kind of suspenders that clip on with the little metal teeth. no. dr. bob wears suspenders that have the little leather tongues that you button your pants to. it's somehow a very comforting touch. i walked the entire way to the parking lot the other day three feet behind a man smoking a pipe at four in the afternoon. it was sort of balmy and pleasant and gently sunny and i saw him and i thought, how strange that this man is walking and smoking a pipe. and the wind was catching little feathers of smoke and throwing them back at me, and it was like the suspenders. comfort. i hate cigarette smoke. i hate cigar smoke. i hate burning house smoke. but pipe smoke is so different. all sweet and full and old-timey. i'm sure it probably isn't so lovely to breathe into your lungs. but just a little whiff of it now and again really calms me down. it's strange that i'm still thinking about that moment, because the number of pipe smokers i've seen around rice would have to be exactly that one guy. and it's not like i wander around the pipe-smoking district in downtown houston. in fact, i can't really recall the last time i was in the presence of a pipe. maybe at some fancy-shmantzy restaurant. it's funny, though, what your senses do to the rest of you.

someone just sent me the longest attachment ever. it took forever to finish downloading. and i bet twenty bucks i don't have any desire to open it. oh well. at least it doesn't waste trees like real junk mail.

it's like...sometimes i feel so much that i want to rip out my heart and gush blood all over the floor and just be amazing, shockingly alive and beautiful and frightening, fear and warmth and power and everything i have inside of me...but these images are so worn out and you find these tropes all over the place and it's just so tired, so boring, so ugh.

see, i'm sitting here and i'm just one big cliche.

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