OMPHALOS

I didn't sleep last night. Joe and I drove out to the old native american mounds around three in the morning. Fog and deer and trains. Those mounds look like huge sleeping gods, eerie in the dark like that. Something you'd stumble upon in Arabian Nights where the hills wake up and walk away.

I'm learning the intricacies of the road and I've had none too few mess-ups. I almost killed us last night because a car was in my blindspot. And to think it was Jake that was begging me not to get hurt while he was gone. He's going to war in Iraq and he's worried about me? I am such a child sometimes. An insufferably stupid and painfully quiet child. Before parting, he said "You are so very small. You give perfect hugs." I couldn't respond. I was trying not to cry in front of everyone. I didn't even say the word goodbye. No one ever should.

This previous weekend, I went to the beach for the first time in years. As a result, I have sun poisoning in one leg. I am sick with light. Swam naked in the sea, though. Which is worth everything. The Spanish word for your smile: sal.

First job interview of my life yesterday. At the hospital where I was born. Things do seem to come full circle, though not always in the most poetic of ways. I was offered the position of spongebathing old people. Politely declined.

I am failing a lot lately. Failing with words and time and sleep and the way I keep waking up nestled in the wrong person's arms. Then there's the fact that I've worked so hard but I cannot possibly afford to go to the University of Chicago....but failure isn't ripe with disappointment the way it used to be. I fail smilingly. Or is it smile failingly. One of those. I can't help but think that it gives me character--though that may just be me trying to console myself. Sour versus sweet ratio, what-doesn't-kill-you-makes-you-stronger, etcetera ad nauseum. I like it when men are wistful instead of broken. Steinbeckian people who fail chronically but have laughing eyes. I do not have enough grace to be that kind of person, but I am working on humility. Self-deprecating humor. At least I don't cry and make a big muck. I try not to feel entitled to anything--not even air. Thinking maybe that breath is miracle enough. Or the tides, happening in all directions all the time. The Moon never tiring.

Also: reading Ulysses significantly alters your thoughts. My whole head feels red-shifted. Leopold Bloom's mind is on my mind. Makes me wonder if I'm not the hero of my own life, can't I at least be the antihero?

Despite all the goodbyes and incredible sulks, I am feeling very capable. Maybe it's just that I have a lot more patience for my peripatetic nature these days. That's patience--not romanticism. Then there's also the fact that I keep getting little glimpses into the other. Pretty little instances that make it impossible to stay legitimately mad at the world. Moments benevolent and imbued. Case in point:

During my last night on the beach, I was writing the word "metempsychosis" in the sand with my foot when the sediment started glowing. Phosphors.