12-13-00 8:57 PM W

Learning love from a box of moving light; paid for; pretend

I’m exhausted. It’s the flu, I guess. I pray the baby doesn’t get it.     One of my students, a young lady, nineteen years old, Marta Barban, was crying when she left my class tonight because she won’t be in my class tonight, and, she says, she loves me. She has a crush, I guess. Life’s weird like that. Where was she when I was nineteen? I was with Jerzey Yokono. Whatever. I’m not even tempted. That’s how old I’ve become.

~~

I have to drop these movies off at the rental place. I don’t have my wallet, so if I want any new movies, I’ll have to stop by the house.  Even exhausted, I dread going to bed; dread [photo of the jungle growing right up to the ocean at Las Uvas, near Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica] the surrender of it. So much is undone. So little has been proved. I like to think it’s never too late, but the reality is something different: I bungled my potential. [ a couple of striped fish, one vertically, the other horizontally, above the dying reef at Las Uvas, underwater photo] No exotic beach can change how mediocre I turned out.

My freedom is close-ended.

12:04 PM 12-13-00 W

I don’t know why I’m starting this now since I’m going to have t pick up the kids off the yard in a few minutes. I guess I’ll have to suspend this when the bell rings, mark the time, and pick it up for however more minutes I need when I come back.

That was a waste of writing. I feel like crap. I’m tired and weak from the flu. I watched a movie about an obnoxious crusader called “Erin Brockovich.” When it was over, I turned off the light and went to sleep. The alarm went off immediately and it was morning and time to get up. I showered and dressed. Took a vitamin. Ate a bacon-egg-cheese sauce-and-death toaster-pastry. Added a couple of lines to Jim. I crossed to page one hundred thirty-eight. I drove to school. Bought a newspaper in front of Taco Bell. Opened the door early and let the kids use the computer. I read the paper. The Supreme Court has revealed what a political backscratcher the judicial system really is. Scalia’s sons work for Olson, the attorney who represents Bush; Thomas’ wife works for Bush. It’ sickening. Alex Rodriguez signed a $252.2-million-dollar contract. It wounds me. I thought I forgot my lunch and got my heart clogged with cheese and grease at Taco Bell. We investigated thousands. I finished the paper. When I opened my backpack to get this notebook, my lunch was in there. Oops. We’re going to the holiday program in forty-five minutes. Humbug. I asked the kids why we celebrate the holidays. “To get presents,” was the unanimous response. I have to grab a tree after school. Rochelle has caught the flu. The baby might have it, too, Ugh. That breaks my heart. I have to order that New Jersey Devils sweater for my mom. We go for portraits tomorrow.