Dear Penelope,

Hello you.
Thanks for your commiseration about the chin hair issue. As it turns out there were no nut-thins to eat the other night. That was sad. It was a specific cheddary crunchyness I was craving. I think i compromised by having a stale rice cake. I did eventually straighten the books on the top shelves, 3 stacks of them reaching and wedged to the ceiling. And I threw another 7" of paper away. They were old bound copies of books, articles, notes, short stories, analysis- from film theory, an ethos and eros course, someones thesis, history of the presidency, art history... classes I really liked or some just provoking. There was something I attached to all that xeroxed paper. Time, expense, an accumulation of thoughts, a certain gesture of the professor to communicate a truth, an idea, or some joy about words, all of it compiled nicely, gathered together. It was hard to part with then. Easier now. I stared at the articles blankly. Kept one collection of short plays from a korean author. Your thesis. A book on world religions. Parts of life are an accumulation and simultaneously a distillation. We shake and filter and sort and add. An endless meditation on what makes up memory and sentiment and aesthetic taste.

The vial of sand from the volcano caught in the wires along with that same small vial of wisdom teeth removed. The flask labeled 'schu' and a dried out orange from some birthday. The etruscan miniature horse from the getty, teal and lovely. The costume jewelry from that dumpster, the candleholder from spain, the ceramic angel and the wooden shoe ornament. The lego man I found buried in the dirt along with an old glass bottle top. My match collection and that vermont teddy bear... for now. My 3 baby blankets and my pound puppy and all those boxes I have in the attic. Nevermind about those.

Yesterday I went to the opera. Which for all its lovilness is essentially tedious. An exercise in patience and excavation like reading Proust or going through all your keepsakes. Your mind wanders, things catch, and if you are very lucky you have gone away somewhere and come back with something to hold.

Now I'm going to go back to watching xfiles and thinking about writing those personal essays for talbot. I did apply to that job I didn't want yesterday. So that was good. Next up temp agencies? Or more job sites? The acupuncturist? Yoga? Swimming? Maybe episodes of 24.