3-12-01 12:45 PM M

I can't find the photograph I want to draw on the last page. Maybe it's at home. I'm at school. I typed fifteen minut3es at lunch and read a chapter of the Sixty Minute Tax Planner. I'm no less confused about tases than I was before I read it. It looks like maybe we can deduct childcare, or I guess not. Or maybe I can shift some investment income into Ada's name. Who knows? I just wish the fucking forms would arrive. Maybe I should try to file a W-4 before I go home today. I ate some microwave Swedish meatballs. I've done all this paperwork already today, and there's still more to be done. I have ELD levels to report and portfolio forms to fill out and a transfer survey to do, and it'll be a time-consuming pain in the ass that adds up to nothing. But that's the way things work around here. Whatever. [underwater color photo of The Bottom of the Sea, Under the Atlantic Off New Providence Island, Bahamas, 1999]

It's the kind of thing that makes you think of Mr. Limpet, who wished he was a fish. Yeah, right.

Ms. Richards, who has been so excited about her pregnancy, tells me she learned that the fetus has spinal bifida, that the brain is developing outside the fetus. She is crushed. I don't know how to comfort her. I say, it's a blessing that you can learn these things in advance. She says she will terminate the pregnancy. They will have a burial for the unborn child. It seems to me that the Creator is imperfect. That spinal bifida is a mistake, an overlooked error in the proofreading of creation. Perhaps it makes the miracle of a healthy birth all the more beautiful. I do not know. Pablo wants his mom to take him to the beach so he can see the Titanic on the floor. I tell him he would need millions of dollars, unlesses he wishes to be a fish and his wish comes true. I don't know if there are any fish that can go that deep, but maybe there are.