2001-09-27, 11:51 p.m.

At the reading I lost my black-and-white stone bracelet and Molu broke her watch. I fell asleep for circa precisely 2.3 minutes. I saw virtually everyone I know in the world, or in the town. I drank half a diet coke. I told Ryan he looked the very essence of himself (all southern writerly), the most perfect Ryan that ever was. I stared at the boy who seemed to be wearing blue pajamas. I thought how much better poetry readings are, mostly. I thought to myself twice, "You got dumped." I thought to myself twice, "You are single!" I sighed and stood around. The air was very chill but I had the new suede jacket, my legs wanting to walk without there being a place to walk. I smoked two cigarettes, stubbing only one out on the pavement. I thought about pavement versus concrete. I thought about the "secret letters to melissa." I talked to the new Martin, originally from Belfast, transplanted to Utah then Seattle, seeming rather shy and glad to know me there. I failed in my resolve to approach my favorite old gnomelike structure of verse professor when I saw him being hugged by another ex-student. Regretted briefly not being a hugger. I felt very skinny. I pretended to know things about football, just for fun. I told Molu about Wolf ceasing to exist as soon as he has left the room. I was very hot. I was very sleepy. I thought fondly of my journals, which I have been rereading (1991). I wondered why the iBook died and if it could be resurrected. I had recycling on my mind, not fiction, though I listened patiently to the fiction. I stood in the center of the hall under the cupola and thought the design on the floor looked like St. Peter's Square if St. Peter's Square were to be inside in North Carolina and rather dinky and workaday and secular and I smiled at no one and Jennifer was talking about the house they will buy and there was a great crush around the wine and cheese and I needed no consumables and in my head I was writing a line or two, but without the writing, and I thought of Ernst Toller in his cell, writing in his head, memorizing, the swallows outside the bars his muses, and I said to myself (quoting Enid Shomer), "He waited for things to break / the way a fisherman waits for the tide to turn / learned to love the quiet spells between strikes / learned to equate his failures with his thrills." I love this line. I love this poem. There are some things I love. The line is reproduced approximately - I don't have the book, just the whole poem in my head. And now I am home again, and tomorrow is payday, hallelujah. And tomorrow is Friday, hallelujah, and life goes on.

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