Things went downhill from the dead cat. I did indulge in the extravagance of buying a hardback edition of John Updike's Early Stories, but other than that and the article in the New Yorker about Ingmar Bergman and my glorious breakfast this morning at Bob Evans (eggs over easy just the way I like them, silky and shining, but with the whites cooked through), it's been a thoroughly shitty week.

Last Friday my boss went off on me for no particular reason, and in so doing made it perfectly clear that she has no idea how much work the paralegals (not I) do just trying to keep the office afloat. I've gotten to the point where I find myself having to work around the law rather than using it as my medium, in order to avoid proving her wrong about a certain statute.

I suppose most people who work for lawyers reach the same nadir: the point where their sycophancy exceeds even their own personal ambition. I feel like I'm there, and that's no good, but fortunately I was tentatively offered a job teaching next year, so there's always that. Most of the time I like my boss. Most of the time I love my job. It's been nine months, though, which is the exact gestation period for Seastreet's Creeping Dissatisfaction, so time for other pastures.

Last night I had a vivid realization that I don't talk about sex in here, and it's not the first time I've had that thought, but it hit harder yesterday somehow: how can I profess to write in a diary without mentioning the quiddities of the people I screwed, back when I still had a sex life? The way one breathed, the rough grainy flesh just over another's cervix, the various places and people and memories that even the texture of a paper towel or a certain smell of body odor can trigger?

Solution: fuck more.