Weird James Joyce Dream

Friday, July 20, 2012—Long Beach, CA

I had a really weird and (I think) interesting dream last night.

I was in Ireland, lying on the ground outdoors on a mild sunny day. I was reading a large book (physically large—like a coffee-table book) of poetry by James Joyce. The poems weren’t anything he’d written in real life, though—they existed only in my dream. The poems were printed on pictures of the Irish country side. As I was reading I noticed that the photo behind a poem was the exact scene that was before me—a kind of living Impressionist mountain scape, featuring lots of greens of course, but also browns, purples, and whites, under a pale blue sky. As I realize what I’m looking at my sister and I begin holding hands, while getting into to beauty of the poem, the picture, and it’s “real life” counterpart (I’m not sure if my sister was there the whole time or if she just appeared at this point in the dream). At about this point I begin to cry, tears of beauty. But a part of me is faking it; I’m putting on some sort of show, for my sister, for myself, and for others I feel are there somewhere but  where I cannot now recall.

The scene switched after this. I’m watching TV, back in the U.S., I assume. I’m watching the Charlie Rose Show, except that it’s the late 1970s and Rose has long hair (though he’s not looking all that much younger than he does today). He’s interviewing James Joyce, who in my dream universe is still alive at this late date and doesn’t look any older than his early sixties. He also doesn’t quite look like he does in the photo’s I’ve seen of him—he looks like a cross between James Joyce and Tom Waits. Rose is asking him questions about the book of poetry I’d been reading in Ireland. I’m not really hearing the questions or the answers, though (or maybe I just don’t remember them). I do notice, though that Joyce doesn’t really have a septum, that he essentially has one big nostril, which I find really fascinating and only a little gross. Joyce’s movements are very Tom Waits, very stylized semi-phony American hipster. His voice is a bit Wait’s-like too. He’s wearing one of those old-fashioned English bicycle hats, where the brim is short and connected to the top-part of the hat by a snap.

Later that morning I wake up with opening lines for a poem, a big epic poem, rolling around in my head. The poem has nothing to do with the Joyce poems, except that in my groggy state I see Joyce’s dream work having showed me the way back into my poetry, which I’ve lost touch with since 2009. Here are the lines (I think, I’m not sure what I woke up with and what might have morphed in the several hours since I got out of bed):


We have broken the seal completely

Whirl whirl          Californie whirlie whirl

and of course the cattlemen of Stockton

              understand the lumber ships in San Pedro and stacked

up across the horizon

touching Japan (Terminal Island)—

into pink dusk

summer palms


And that’s all I’ve got. I don’t think it’s particularly good. Nor do I know what if anything to do with it. But the way I arrived at it is pretty cool. Worth documenting, I think, if nothing else …

Rain, Relaxation, and Jean Rhys

Friday, July 13, 2012—Long Beach, CA

Rain! Since yesterday we’ve been experiencing a strange tropical depression, which has brought overcast skies, humid heat, and again, rain. This is so strange for Southern California. We can go a decade without summer rain and to have multiple days of it like this is even more odd. While this little intrusion of weather has been interesting, I would like my traditional dry Mediterranean-climate back, please—I don’t like humidity and the last couple days have been like a bad weather patch in Hawai’i. Welcome to Global Warming or just more traditional weirdness? Hard to say, of course …

Not too much going on besides the weather. I’ve been working out a lot—running, bike riding, and lifting weights—and I hit a little wall this afternoon: after going for a run early this afternoon and then eating a late lunch I just kind of collapsed while listening to the Angels game (they’re beating the Yankees 4-2 at the moment), slept hard for an hour or so, and then just vegged out in bed listening to the game, until I decided to write a bit here. The plan for the rest of the evening is to stay in bed, while writing a bit more, studying some Greek, and doing some reading. Every once in a while I get like this—I just need a day (or in this case half a day) where I take it easy. Sometimes I forget how active I am, both physically and mentally—and I’ve finally learned to accept when I need a break. I wish I could get to the point, though, where I plan them into my schedule. As of now I push forward until I drop. It would be healthier if I rested up before that happened …


Speaking of reading … I’m hitting a stretch where I’m stumbling upon some very interesting books. I’ve shelved my Proust redo for the moment (though I do plan on getting back to it) and since before my trip have been tearing thru Jean Rhys novels. Reading her has been a bit of a revelation for me. Her books are so good, so far ahead of her time. She has this simple pared-down style that is paired with an almost post-modern minimalism in regards to plot, which allows the complex emotions and thoughts of her protagonist to flow thru unimpeded. She really has only one story to tell, which she comes at from different angles in each novel. All her tales concern the plight of women who find themselves in the world without means yet strive to live lifes that will give them more than just being someone’s wife, someone’s baby-producing machine. Her characters long for beauty and ask little more than a small amount of fuel to keep their flame up hope alive. But they are trapped in a world where they are dependent on men, mainly for money, mostly because the other woman is the only role society will allow them beyond wifedom; they long to escape being property, but soon find themselves becoming simply a different type of possession. Dark stuff. Claustrophobic. Tense. But beautiful in its execution. Powerful feminist art in everything but name. It’s pretty rare these days that I find a writer who really has something to teach me about writing. But I’m learning a lot from Rhys, a whole lot …

Other reading notes. Still plowing thru a so-so history of the Greek war of independence. Ready to take a break from Jean Rhys and have Dawn Powell’s novel The Wicked Pavilion in the on-deck circle. I’ve never read her before, but I’ve heard so many good things about her stuff that I’m excited and am hopeful that I’ll have found another writer this summer who really works for me.

Sacramento and Other Evaluations

Wednesday, July 11, 2012—Long Beach, CA

I’ve been back in So Cal for a few days now and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Whatever problems I have with the more northerly regions of this state, at least (in most areas) they’re less crowded. As soon as I got off the plane in Long Beach I started to feel a bit hemmed in. Since then I can’t stop noticing the traffic, the dirt, the … pointless busyness everyone seems to be engaged in. More than ever I want out of this place; I simply don’t belong here anymore. I want someplace quieter, slower, more human. Back to my Grecian dreams. The key for me, I’m realizing more than ever, is to build up Burning Shore Press, to have an income that doesn’t come from whatever local economy I find myself in—because I simply can’t make a living most of the places that attract me. Big ideas rolling around in my head. I can see me soon breaking with much of my current life. Big angry realizations about capitalism, about my phony cowardly country. Too big to discuss now—I want them to roll around in my head a bit more …

Contemplating my little trip north. I said some fairly disparaging things about Santa Cruz in the previous entry. Overall, though, I like the place—it’s quiet (in comparison to Southern California) and there are definitely some nice people there. I was feeling pretty uptight there, though. This had a lot more to do with what was going on with the friend I was there to visit. His marriage is going down in an extremely ugly way and being a part of the shambles that is his life at the moment was very stressful and not all that much fun. Still, it was great to see him. I just wish I could do more to help him. But he’s the only one who can work out his problems—any attempt I could make in this area would either be ineffectual or put me in a situation in which I have no place. Later I can be there for him. Right now moral support is pretty much all I can offer.

The Sacramento part of my trip was a very different story, in that I was really able to relax there (I’m so glad I decided to go to Sacramento after Santa Cruz instead of the other way around). Sacramento is a pretty non-descript place in many ways. That, though, is its strength; it’s just a pleasant place with plenty to do (if you know where to look) that doesn’t ask much of a person. In other words, it’s not like Southern California or San Francisco, whose infrastructure and accompanying social dynamics demand the world as soon as you leave the house (and sometimes while you’re still in it!). It was also of course great seeing Steve, my old comrade in arms. We’ve been friends for over thirty years and we still find ways to connect that I don’t happen with me and other people. What makes seeing him so interesting for me is that though we share a ton of history neither of us are ever trapped by that past—we’re both always using it as a springboard into new things. Over the last few years are relationship has been especially interesting to me in that we both seems to be going thru a period where we’re intensely evaluating the past, our past, the history of , well, kind of everything, to see what can stand up to the scrutiny of the wisdom we’ve somehow managed to wrench from our time on this planet. We both seem to be retrenching ourselves, in the personal aspects of our lives, as well as socially, politically, etc. For a decade or so there we seemed to have really diverged. Now, though, we appear to be arriving in similar places, in some respects from radically different angles. I’m not yet sure what any of this means, but it certainly is fascinating. It’s going to be interesting to see where we’re both are ten years from now.

As far as what we actually did in Sacramento goes, it was a nice mix. We hung out in some good pubs (this trip was interesting in that it was the first time I’d had anything to drink since February), went to a nice bookstore, watched some good films/TV, went on a hike in Big Trees State Park (in the Sierra Nevada foothills), and went to the Crocker art museum, which was having a show by Mel Ramos, an artist I’d never dealt with before (the museum also has a nice regular collection, dominated by regional artists). It was a good leisurely time—the perfect antidote to my Santa Cruz stress …


Other notes:

Still pushing my way into the gluten-free world, figuring out what I can and can’t eat. Still feeling good, though my stomach problems are lagging behind the rest of my body in this department. Yesterday I accidental ate some peanut butter that contained a soy base (which contained wheat) and my stomach bloated out like a famine victim. Unpleasant, but good in that it showed me that my stomach problems almost surely have their base in an overall gluten issue, which means that I’m now doing what I need to do to solve the problem.

Back on the wagon after coming home. Drinking as an occasional social activity works for me, but that’s about it; I have no desire to drink to drink. Since I’ve quit I’m noticing how much certain people around me drink. I’m glad I’m off that path. At this point in my life it can lead nowhere good …

Another thing keeping me from drinking is that I can’t drink most beer because it’s loaded with gluten. While in Santa Cruz I tried some sorghum beer. It wasn’t bad. A bit light. Missing something as far as it’s taste goes. It’s not a bad option, but I don’t see myself putting in too much effort to track the stuff down.

Notes from Santa Cruz

Monday, July 2, 2012—Santa Cruz, CA

Day three of my Santa Cruz excursion. My love-hate relationship with this town is in full bloom. The setting is beautiful (not as beautiful, though, as what’s under the concrete of the L.A. Basin), but, like so many other places in coastal California, there far too many cars jammed into the streets, too much noise and hectic feelings in a place that’s reputed to be ultra-laid back. I also have some interesting social problems when I’m here, which are definitely happening this trip. Southern California trains people to live hard and fast; for better or worse we attack whatever we’re doing. Here there’s very little edge to anything. In many ways this is good. But it also drives me sort of crazy, mainly in that I always feel like I’m wasting time when I’m in this town. I don’t doubt that there’s a very good chance that I’m the one with the problem, not Santa Cruz—in the long run their way might be the better one. But like I said, it just run a bit against the grain of my L.A. soul. I’m used to people and moments having a bit of an edge to them and here so much is soft and fuzzy around the corners, which, like I’ve said, makes me a little nuts.

Another factor here that makes me a little uncomfortable is how much money is sloshing around this town. This town has a rep of having this laid-back-hippy-more-progressive-than-thou culture, which it does in a way. But I think a lot of this is the fumes left over from another simpler, cheaper time. I mean, it’s so expensive here that one would almost have to have a big income to do anything other than just scrape by. Mostly of the people I’ve met here who have these kinds of incomes work in the computer industry; Santa Cruz lies near the heart of the Silicon Valley money spout. The underlying flow of cash pumps so much money into this town that I’m sure the income levels here approach those of Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara is snooty Old California money at its most stereotype: it supports boring old structures of privilege and ethnicity. Here, though, the money seems to be propping up more-recent hippy values that seem to exist now as just a thin surface layer. The problem is that the best of these hippy values were concerned with self-reliance and living lightly on the land (and cheaply). People here, though, are driving SUVs, living in expensive houses, and drinking boutique wines. In other words, I think what’s going on here is a counter-culture fantasy, not the real thing. I think the people here, on many levels, are just kidding themselves.

This really bothers me. As does the fact that so much of the money pushing this place along comes from the computer industry. To be frank, I’ve never trusted the computer world, socially. Those working in that realm seem to be paid an awful lot of money for doing very little (of what I would consider to be) work. Intertwined with this is a sense of privilege that I find unpleasant; I just want to drag a lot of these people off the “campuses” into the real world, hand them a shovel and tell them to start digging, to experience real work for a change. Getting back to my previous points, I think what this all adds up to is that old snooty Santa Barbara and post-hippy Santa Cruz are ending up in a disturbingly similar place, albeit from wildly different angles—I think there’s a false premise at the heart of each of them that numb and dull their residents to the lives most people in this world live.

All that said, it’s nice to be here, to change my routine and see and feel some new things … new, cleaner beaches, redwoods, different plant communities in general, less concrete, cooler breezes. It’s of course great to hang out with Greg again. I have few close friends left in Southern California and I’m not as close with anyone down there are I am with him. Yesterday we drove up the coast, hung out on the beach with his two-year-old daughter, before going for a drive thru a bit of the backcountry and then eating dinner with some friends of his. A nice day, relaxing (despite the fact that his daughter can be a bit of a handful, like all kids that age). Today he’s working so I’m just wandering around town by myself, right now listening to the traffic sounds pouring into the coffeehouse in which I’m sitting and typing on my netbook. Feeling pretty relaxed. My stomach problems, which flared up on the trip down, have mellowed about a bit. Living gluten free on the road is hard, but I’m doing it. Feeling OK overall, a little spooked too, though, by being surrounded by people I don’t quite understand.

Bits and Pieces of This and That

Monday, June 26 2012—Long Beach, CA

Nice summer days have arrived. The June gloom is finally mostly gone and we’re getting clear blue skies and weather which is warm but not yet too warm. It would be nice if we could just hold this, have a mellow summer where we never get too scorching (a lot of Southern California summers go down this way, though just as many turn death Africa hot starting in July and stay that way into October). Actually here’s to mellow in general!—now that I’m finally starting to unwind I’m having a harder and harder time accepting the fact that come mid-August I’m going to have to step back into the fast lane again.

Though things are going well overall, I had a really stupid day yesterday. I rode my bike down to the beach to have a run and somehow I lost my keys; I’ve never before in my life lost a set of keys. Since I was just going for a quick run I’d brought nothing besides my clothes and keys—I had no money and no phone. Plus, I couldn’t even use my bike since it was locked to a lifeguard tower and that key went with the rest of them. This meant that I had to walk all the way to my sister’s on the other side of Long Beach State to get the spare set of house keys I leave with her (which I could use to get into my house and get my spare bike-lock key so I could free my bike). Luckily after hiking an hour-plus to her house she was home. Unfortunately she couldn’t figure out where she’d put my keys (she moved to a new house recently and a lot of things got scrambled in the move). So we called Mark and Bonnie, who had a master key, which got me into the house. My sister was also nice enough to drive me back to my house and then the beach, so I didn’t have to do any more walking. Still it was a long stupid sunburned day, which really put a damper on my mood.

Not much else has been going on. I’m getting ready to head up north Friday. I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to get up there. I’ll probably decide on that tonight. I’m looking forward to some time out of town, but I’m also a little apprehensive about breaking the current pattern I’m in. I’ve been working hard on my diet and conditioning and I’m feeling better than I have in years. Plus, traveling can be a bit of a pain when you’re not eating dairy or gluten. Still, I’ll figure it out and will have a great time, I’m sure.

Been writing a bit (though not much here obviously). I may have stumbled on a new novel idea, which is based out the time I spent in Hawai’i. I’m a little reluctant to discuss the details, though, for fear of jinxing it; I’ve had a lot of false starts recently. I keep saying I’m in a fallow period, but I also can’t stop from searching for the next project. I’m not sure if this is because I simply don’t know how to relax or because there really is something I should be writing about that I just haven’t found yet (again, maybe I have just found it). I’m suddenly beginning to think the latter is what’s going on. I’m beginning to see a real way thru with this Hawai’i idea.



Odds and ends. Still reading Proust. Picked up Sexus, by Henry Miller the last couple evenings. I haven’t been able to read him for years, but so far this one’s working for me. Reading a book on the Greek war of independence. Tried to read Anais Nin’s early diary. Couldn’t get into it. Still working on my Greek—slowly but surely (“and don’t call me Shirley”). Still putting a lot of time in working on the BSP e-books. What a pain in the ass. The technology Amazon offers is elephantine. It’s impossible to get a book looking good in all their formats at the same time. Plus going from Word to html is a fucking nightmare of bizarre reformatting and other equally frustrating issues. Hoping to have all of them done by late July.



Sat up late last night watching Ride the Wild Surf, a truly dreadful surfsploitation film from the early/mid-sixties. The reason I got hooked on it was because of all the real surfing scenes interspersed with all the hokey crap. The footage they have a Miki Dora riding Sunset, Pipeline, and Waimea is amazing. Apparently that was his first time riding in Hawaii and it’s hard to believe he was able to make the adjustment from being California point rider to those big crazy reef breaks so quickly (and while maintaining so much of his style—he wasn’t called ‘Da Cat” for nothing). It shows how much talent he had. There’s one ride he has at Pipeline that’s amazing. It’s a big day and he’s of course going backside, but he still smoked this long clean barrell, riding as deep into it as was probably possible. Fantastic stuff.

Recovering

Saturday-Tuesday, June 16-19, 2012—Long Beach, CA

A very deliberate morning. I didn’t wake up until about 10:15 (which is actually a bit earlier that I’ve been getting up recently—I’ve gotten into the habit of staying up until three or four in the morning over the last few weeks). Since then I’ve been lying in bed reading, City of Fortune, a popular history of the Venetian empire, by Roger Crowley, which is turning out to be quite good (I fairly recently read his book on Lepanto and the Battle of Malta, which was also well done). This morning will set a nice tone for the rest of my day, which should be low-key to say the least. I plan on working out, studying Greek, and cleaning the house bit. I also hope to get a little work in on more long-term projects, such as my revamping of BSP. I’m feeling a little unfocused lately, like my post-school unwinding has turned into something more approaching laziness. I also feel, though, that I’m starting to get a bit of a handle on this. Slowly, but surely I’m chipping away at things I need to do, want to do in this “free” time. I know too that I should appreciate that I have to time to fall into a bit of sloth—it won’t be that long until things start getting busy again, and not always in a good sense.

I’ve noticed that when I start getting “lazy” it’s because I’m actually in a place where I’m not ready to move to a next stage in life: I can’t commit my energies in any one direction because I don’t know exactly what I should be doing. Losing this main focus, it becomes harder to deal with the little things I need to get done. What’s the point of vacuuming the house when the universe lacks a center and therefore is largely without meaning? (OK, that’s way over the top, but the point is still valid.) Whatever else that can be said about my current state, I’m definitely in transition, as a person, as a writer. I just have to accept that this is a good thing, something I’ve been working towards …
                                                                 ***

Three days later. Something (I don’t remember what) caused me to stop the above passage and ‘m only now getting back to it. Looking back at what I wrote I’ve already come to slightly different conclusions. Though only slightly different, I think they are important and throw some light on where I’m at at the moment.

In the last few days I’ve felt a relatively small but very noticeable uptick in my energy level. Since I’ve been working out steadily my body is also feeling much more limber and responsive. I’m beginning to see that a lot of the issues I’ve been dealing with over the last several years, both the physical and emotional/mental ones, tie heavily into the fact that I’ve simply been completely exhausted for a very long time. Taking a look back at my life, I’m beginning to see the details of why this is. What’s interesting/depressing is that the only reason I haven’t seen this is that I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had the time to do the most basic self-upkeep for a very long time; it’s a wonder that I haven’t completely cracked up.

Let me catalogue these times a bit.

Since 2005 I have completed four novels and a book of poetry (within these books there has also been a highly significant artistic shift, which took a ton of effort for me to accomplish). I’ve also created a publishing company, which, at times, has involved a great deal of effort. Added to all this, I’ve transitioned into teaching and have had to learn to do this on the run, while mostly teaching outside of my areas of expertise, which has been rewarding, but also labor intensive; I’ve actually never worked so hard on anything in my life (with the exception of my first two novels). While doing this, since early 2009, I have had to deal with the constant stress of trying to live in Southern California without a car, which has entailed ridiculously long and dangerous scooter commutes that have taken their toll on me mentally, both in regards to the stress of the rides themselves, but also because their length gives me less time to do the other things I need to do. Added to all this has been a series of sinus, digestive, anxiety problems that have really dragged me down, swiped more of my energy. Taken together, all of this constitutes by far the busiest and most difficult time of my life (even busier and crazier than when I was in graduate school and working full time, which just about killed me).

Now that I’ve finally put the brakes on things (to a point), I feel as if I’ve been caught up in some massive wave that’s just now broken (or maybe I’ve just now noticed tha it’s broken). While there have been many rewards, the price of me riding (or at least getting pushed along) by this wave has been high, in regards to my health and especially my relationships with other people: many of these have collapsed and most have been seriously neglected. The biggest price has come in regards to my relationship to myself. Since 2005 I’ve been a writing and teaching machine—but not really much of a person. The next phase of my life, I’m beginning to see, will be dominated by my trying to figure out how to again be a person, someone who’s life is full and rewarding in more than just a work sense. I can be an artistic and academic draft animal no longer.

A bit of a side note. I can now see why I was having so many anxiety issues last summer in Greece. While that trip was a vacation in many ways, it was also a challenge to myself: I was using it to look outside my current life, to find something better and more real. The problem was that I wasn’t quite ready for that. Or at the very least I bit off far too much too fast. In retrospect, I should have done what I’m doing this summer—unwinding and taking stock at home—and gone to Greece this summer, when I would have been in a much better place. The reason I was flipping out there was because I was flipping out in general. Suddenly being dumped in a new cultural situation far from home added a whole new layer of stress to my life. My anxiety wasn’t so much a problem as it was a healthy warning sign—get your act together, Rob—your health, your happiness depends on it.



Day-to-day life? Glorious relaxation. The amazing realization that there’s such a thing as relaxation and perhaps I can someday learn how do it well myself. Reading. Finishing the Venetian history I started a few days ago. Read A Single Man, by Christopher Isherwood, which was a bit disappointing. An angry little book, depressing, with a cop-out ending, In my opinion. It’s well written, though. It also features some nice passages on Southern California. I might have started a big reading project. A few days ago I started rereading Swann’s Way, the first volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. I read this and the Within a Budding Grove, the second volume, years ago and they had a big impact on me. I got bogged down in volume three, though, (maybe I just didn’t have the time at the time) and abandoned the work. This summer is the perfect situation to revive my Proust quest. So far I’m really enjoying Swann's Way, seeing things in it I couldn’t before. Reading Proust, I’m seeing, is a perfect counterpoint to the way I have been living my life these last years. Proust is about nothing if not slowing down and tasting life, reveling in our moments, even the seemingly smallest ones. It will be interesting to see how far I get into his work this time.

 Been working on BSP too, getting the books in e-book form. I’ve also almost got the print edition of Edgewater finalized; I’m now looking to have it officially out sometime in mid-July (I might get out an e-book version slightly before that.



Thinking a lot still about what my next writing project should be. Non-fiction seems more and more like what I should be doing. I’ve been interested in writing about art and artists. I have a few ideas rolling around in my head in this area I still haven’t quite nailed down.

No Greece, In Search of Relaxation, Marguerite Duras

Tuesday, June 5-6, 2012—Long Beach, CA

 

Lots of stuff going on. I’ve officially shelved the Greece trip. Or more accurately, I’m postponing it until next summer. I’ve done this for two main reasons. Money is the first one. I simply don’t have enough to take the kind of trip I want. The second reason is more complicated. I’m coming to understand that I don’t just want to take vacations to Greece. As I was telling my friend Katie in an email today, I want to have a deeper relationship with the place than that; I’m pretty sure that sooner rather than later I want to live there, at least part time. This involves a reorientation of how I get back there. I need to start laying the groundwork for this more serious venture on this side of the Atlantic. Admittedly I’m not sure what this groundwork is. I know, though, that getting my life together as a writer is a priority (dealing with getting the Backwaters novels published is a big part of this). I also need to get serious about learning Greek. I got a really good start on this but by last January I was so crushed by school that my studies fell by the wayside. I’ve started up again, though, and I’m hoping to have a productive Greeky summer.

Another reason I’ve postponed the trip is simple exhaustion. Lately I’ve been depressed about my inability to write, to have much passion for writing. I’m now seeing that I need a fallow period, that my inability to write stems partially from the fact that I’m completely exhausted and burned out on the lifestyle I’ve been leading. The truth is, I’m not finding much joy in most of the things I do; I’ve been busting my butt teaching and have written two novels and part of book of poetry over the last five years—and all this has taken a lot out of me. I need other things in my life. I’ve kind of forgotten how to have fun. I need to simply relax and try and relearn (or maybe learn for the first time) a few basic things about living. I need more friends. I need more time for contemplation. I need to step back a bit and simply take in the things around me. I need a big break in regards to just about everything.



I had a really weird dream the other night that Steve E. suggested I write down before I forget it. I was teaching at some college, not either of the ones I’m at now; it was more a university than a community college. It had a vaguely east-coast feel; at least some of the buildings were made out of bricks and there was ivy growing up parts of them. I was in a class giving a final. I remember thinking even during the dream that the final seemed kind of like a scam, like it was too easy to really be a final. After the test I went back to my apartment, which was in a building on the campus, not too far from where I’d just given the final. I was only in my apartment, though, for a few minutes before I heard something going on outside. I looked out a window and saw a bunch of cops pouring into one of the bigger buildings on the campus; somehow I knew they were there to make mass arrests of the students. Before I could really take too much of this in, though, I heard someone banging on my door. It was a single cop, a Latino guy with a small mustache, who had come to take me away.

He took me into a building and then into what looked like a giant men’s room. Once in there he started asking me all sorts of questions about supposedly subversive activity on my part (I don’t remember the specifics on this, but I do remember that he was pretty vague in the dream so there might not be all that much in the way of specifics to remember). At some point I asked for a lawyer. The cop then pulled a blonde guy who looked straight out of 1976—feathered middle-length hair, big-collared shirt, etc.— out of a bathroom stall. Apparently he’d been in there banging some girl. At this point there were suddenly more people there. A judge? Other cops? I’m not sure now. I do remember that I was being peppered with questions at this point that I didn’t understand; I wasn’t sure what I was being accused of. Around this time a female student was brought in as a witness against me; she wasn’t anyone I recognized. I remember she was just beginning her testimony when my the alarm on my clock-radio went off. I woke up in a truly foul mood, much of which followed me well into the day.



 Been reading Marguerite Duras recently. I’ve never read her before, though I’ve been interested in checking her out for a while. A few days ago I blew thru a short novel of hers called Black Hair, Blue Eyes. It’s a pretty awful book. Very elliptical, minimalist, experimental in a lot of bad ways. Some of it moves well into self-parody, of herself (I can tell this even without having read any other of her books—her methods and perspectives are easily sussed out), post-war French literature, and French culture as a whole. There were aspects of it, though, that interested me, that made me want to read something else by her. Right now I’m about a third of the way thru her later novel called The North Chinese Lover. So far it’s a much better work: it does all the same things as Black Hair, Blues Eyes, but in this case her technique really propels and elucidates the story (in Black Hair, Blue Eyes it kind of was the story). With this book I can see why she’s so popular and highly regarded.



I haven’t felt much of a need to write in this diary recently. I’m realizing this is partially because I’ve been using it as a way to vent about teaching, which is now done for the summer. However much I end up writing here this summer I can now see that I have a chance to do some new things with these pages, some more positive things. Complaining to flowering (the flowering of something other than my complaining). I’m looking forward to this, to relaxing into something more fun.