this april is ephemeral. twenty-plus days of it, gone without a trace. a couple of the better parts near the beginning obscured or ruined by drink. no original thoughts, only patterns of quotation and memory. isn't it that way always? yes, but now more than ever.

i married joan of arc so i could write a research paper, the way i dreamed about in creative writing class in high school. the marrying her part, not the research paper part. i used to scrawl long streams of my elizabeth-obsessed consciousness into that big blue notebook during freewriting sessions with bob dylan or reggae covers of bob dylan filling the classroom. i kept coming back to music i was more into, and if jeff mangum dreamed of travelling back in time to save anne frank then i pretty much had the same desire for joan. finished the paper early. that's something new.

and some other stuff came together or came apart.  either way, it was there.

yesterday my unsettled emotional state became physically palpable, as it does in its worst moments.  walking down loring on a cold february night.  and after.  things like that.  i couldn't stay in my house so i went to laura's.  she held me and fed me peanut butter toast, then i took a hot shower and fell asleep in her soft bed reading about the death of jean jaurès while she worked on a keats paper.  she's almost done with school.  it's too warm to be scared. 

at night now it's not too cold to think. this morning everything started blooming as gas prices rose overnight. stealing moments to enjoy it. crunch time this weekend, with the venetian inquisition and la grande guerre. on into a summer, a new job, and a stockpile of books.   i miss a lot of people, but i'm getting better at living with myself.