what happened to april? had it in my pocket just the other day. now it's gone. must have had a hole.

today erin dropped a note to wonder if i'm ok. yesterday mom did the same. guess i've been kind of...busy isn't the word. though i have been taking care of school business, i ain't been taking care of other business. what other business? oh....you know.

so i wrote to erin (sorta):

thanks for the good thoughts, erin. i'm ok enough, but i can always use the good vibes.

i could have written a journal entry this weekend but i've just been lazy lazy lazy. and i'm obsessing about my apes' big test tomorrow - some aren't taking it. one says she's not because i have not prepared her for it. alas. [she's right, no doubt.] on top of this, it's prom weekend. on top of this, one of our teachers died on friday - suddenly at home in the morning of asthma complications. lots of shock and sadness over that one. a nice [good] lady. [our loss.] i only knew her a little bit.

lots of pressure from various directions. i keep wishing for april and may - and then when they get here i remember how much they suck. lots of stress....but a little good news: the drugs have knocked my cholesterol way down.

i have been looking into yr own journal from time to time. very sorry to read about yr panic stuff. no fun. i shoulda got in touch at least to send you good thoughts. did you get 'em anyway? i was trying to psyche 'em over to you. yr piece on joliet priests was very strong...as are yr ruminations on eric and love and all that.

so...i really appreciate yr little note to me. guess i've been acting and feeling kind of islandy. yesterday mom sent me a note wondering where i was. so i gave her a call.

....then i wrote some more, but i forgot to save it. just as well.

one symptom of my present laziness is this new index i'm working on. not the one my ap class is doing - another one just for me. i get lost in it. i don't have to be anybody while i'm making it. i like when i don't have to be anybody, don't you? and then i had to pick paperback texts for next year's classes. that was fun. i found some good ones. that means i found some new stuff that will keep me on my toes.

in general, i'm doing ok. in particular, i'm just like the rest of you slobs. chasing the golden ring. i know too much and not enough. i'm this good but not that good. if i were a better carmelite brother i'd be a better.....what? something... a better me... this stuff... springtime blues, just a little rounder than cold winter blues.

listening to wilco's new one which is just fine. and tom waits puts out two on tuesday. just finished reading hazel k. bell's delightful Indexers and Indexes in Fact & Fiction.

Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something - an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago, for a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man's, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.

F. Scott Fitzgerald