Well, I finished Moby Dick so you can all breathe a sigh of relief. No more phrases like "in my opulent somnambulance I overlooked the presence of a more treacherous will lurking in the very depths of my blah blah blah and put in lots of commas and the word and." will populate my entries. Much.

The days grow longer, but the days grow shorter as well. And heavier, hotter, densely suffused with paralinguistic meaning. Every hour that escapes untaxed or unencumbered by activity seems a spiteful misappropriation. In my long night watches I pace the foredeck, eyes fixed, staring. (sorry.)

The favored Jeopardy category among us milk bottles has turned from "Things That Piss Me Off" to "Dang I'm Gonna Miss That". What is "ramen"? What is "talking out loud about people right around you"? What are "students"? What are "friends"?

....

I've been trying hard to remember my dreams lately. For a long time I stopped, because they were seldom... nice. Now I've decided to give it another go. What bugs me about my dreams is the blatant symbolism I usually talk to myself in. If my dreams were a film you would probably walk out, or at least feel insulted.

"oh, he's dreaming of the basement again... is that, like, representative of his subconscious? gee, how original."

But I know my subconscious and it's way sly. It loves to play tricks on me. So, sometimes the things which are obvious are actually something else in disguise, or sometimes I'm just having a laugh at my own expense.

Last night I did dream about a basement. Always the same basement. Gray cinderblock walls fall away from a meager light. There was a small dog there in the light, wagging it's tail.