Notes

First: A TV show that I've been watching in an attempt to fall asleep has called up an extremely persistent but vague memory. Somewhere, there is a small, circular plaza near a split-level, small shopping center. It is in a part of the world where early morning in the better parts of the year is clear and crisp, with a soft swirl of early-morning people carrying bread and children in black leather shoes circulating past. There is a bench, and behind it, out of focus, some tall, thin evergreens. At some point in my life I was up before everyone else I knew in wherever I was and I was slumped over on that bench, cold, probably thinking that I was being romantic and thrown. I most likely ate bread and read the newspaper. Possibilities include: the town in central California which houses the John Steinbeck Museum; Ovalle or San Pedro de Atacama, or the town where everything is named after Gabriela Mistral, in the north of Chile; an unidentified part of Rome; or Cambridge, England. I have misplaced this location. If anyone knows where it's gotten to, please let me know.

Second: Personally, the most frightening valence of anarchy is sexual. It is not that a lack of order leaves one starving, or homeless. It is that a lack of order leaves one naked, vulnerable, and in a world which gains nothing from listening to what you have to say. This is just something I've thought about.

Third: I can't sleep. Outside, it is hard to tell which is green and which is blue, the gaunt shadows of trees or the pallid marble sky. Maybe the first three weeks here were a lie - maybe I was just so exhausted from getting settled that his midnight sun business didn't get to me. Well it's getting to me now. I'm tired. But I keep looking outside and there are cars turning corners down wet streets in my neighborhood that everyone keeps insisting is dangerous. Two people walked single file up the road behind my house. Someone across the way turned on their bathroom light. The chinchilla that lives outside my door - its name is Fargo, it belongs to my housemate Stephen - has either been given too many things to throw around and too much space to throw them in or is simply too large to be confined to noise-making activities like balls and pellets and rattles and little plastic windows. Fargo is really very large. Someone should teach him to read.

Fourth: I don't know what any of you were expecting this blog to be about. As evidenced by my misplaced windy square, I don't take pictures and I don't see why I should, until that is somewhere pretty vacates my mind. I am having an interesting time at work but nothing has materialized that seems worth writing about, and everything I'm doing is so new that I have nothing cogent to say about it. I enjoy writing, but I hate personal writing, so I suppose what you have done by requesting a blog is created a diary. I would hate to write a diary because it would only be for me, but since I am dimly aware that someone is reading this, it feels slightly legitimate. Point is, all I can do in this space is give you my subjective view of what happens when you are 20 years old and someone phones you and says "Would you like to move to Alaska for the summer?" What happens is the sky turns green, the chinchilla won't be quiet, and foreign places keep disappearing. I wish something more concrete would materialize for me to hand back and say "Look. I've found it. Brass it like a baby's shoe and keep it for generations to come." Maybe someday down the line. This is the current dispensation.

Fifth: Something about coming back from Homer has thrown me off course. I don't know what it is yet. Once I isolate it, I will let you know. The closest I can get: it no longer feels like the sun is always out. It feels like it did that day on the coastal trail with Sophie, but all the time. It feels like the sun is about to go down all the time, and I've forgotten something.