saturday in the middle of the afternoon i set out to play basketball a couple hours ago but my body wasn't up to more than a few trips up and down the court and after one sour game where the proverbial team leader clearly frowned at my lack of mojo my man on man defense of let's call him "tim" not quite working out i left to come back rehydrate take a shower and return to full bore lizard position i had plans to go the gay pride parade today (post-script: it was actually sunday and i made it wowie i've never seen anything like that in wisconsin) but forget it i'm beat it was a really full week and i'm not saying that because yours was or wasn't but because its just a lot of talking and 'teaching' if that's what they call it and it wears me out so that by the time my last hour of pronuncation workshop came late on friday evening i asked the students if i could go home my person in front of me brain so tired and pretty much kaput but its saturday and later i'll finally get a chance to read people's poems that have been building up while i've been working the rough drafts of the memoirs from the other class thank the god of syllabuses for writing late work will not receive feedback because that's the only way i possibly could of gotten everything done but next week it will begin to taper off the friday the fourth of july a non-school day and the three twelve all class workshop getting into gear but i'm excited still mostly about the semester two good groups of students in my opinion last thursday we talked about haiku about basho and sent them out to do a narrow road to the interior type journey i'm excited to see how it comes out and translate a poem from the chinese wang wei deer-park hermitage that too i'm excited about but its time to rest now i'll try to do that without hurting myself

yesterday a student informed me that i used 'um' upwards of forty five times in yesterdays opening salvo lecture about sonnets the logic being that we start off talking about form before we get into content the idea that content will take care of itself as the writer one assumes has their own axe to grind or at least doesn't have the same axe as me but this is a matter of philosophy so we'll leave it open to the jury and other figures of speech to mark the day after the longest day of the year and yes its been a goofy long week and after this afternoon will mark the most teaching i've done in a week tweleve hours in a classroom and the connection between fatigue and the amount of times ones says um but in other news it was hot is still hot a haze wakes up the morning and traffic sounds go and go and go writes Witold Gombrowicz, "It is man who obliges man to work." and woman.

so saying 'um' or not actually has a lot to do with whether i'm tired or not or where exactly my motivation lies say the two o two class i taught yesterday the inevitable come down i felt in the transition from three twelve to the next day in a new building without the enthusiasm or at least not as much brings out signs of fatigue say 'um' but at least there is a santa claus virginia compounded with a study group for typography for which i embarrassingly had no answers to offer and instead offered aphorisms from the instructors mouth as a consolation but oh well we'll get them next time next life the half one or second one some kind of digital universe but to say the space in-between these places the morning as it shines my head to the north meets the sun rising from the east its all part of the wake up scheduale or its automatic when the sun begin to bake me laying in this small little box of a closet but also about school that the writing lab on tuesday will have to be cut because there was just nothing left absolutely nothing i can concentrate for a little while but in need to eat and eight hours straight of 'teaching' makes for mush mouth mealy mind today i'll plan class in the morning then take a trip to oakland to see my confidant if that's french the sun will be out all day if not we'll reconsider o lay

whell the semester started yesterday and it seems like it will be busy with a support class on noon a typography class where there's four panicking students thus far terrified of the instructors british accent that meets monday and thursday then after that its three twelve the creative writing class which also meets monday and thursday then today tuesday its 202 narrative documentary and also on friday but after today is writing lab and then the study group for the typography class and then wednesday will give me time to prepare for the upcoming classes don't ask me when i will be able to grade papers then friday afternoon its speaking lab all that to say that it will be a busy month and a half month but this is good because i've had a little too much time on my hands not in the form of the break but in the form of the last semester which was good but doing all kinds of support classes and having plenty of time for writing but it makes me think of that stephen king on writing book where he mentions that after his first big success he bought a gigantic oak desk and put it in the middle of his living space and it turned out that he didn't write anything after he did this the writing as the center of one's life metaphor that is to say its good to be busy and maybe the entirely polished lodestone of a writing practice that i've been fine tuning latey is good and dandy but it will be nice to take a break from worry about the relatively unimportant merits of what's happening inside my own head because i just won't have the time that is to say my new thing that i'm trying is to avoid saying 'um' and that requires that i just get it out before the whatever you call that has time to go back and filter through all my critical judgments and set the tone sort of say it don't spray it something like that to forget about tailoring one's speech to one's audience and instead to present oneself as one would have it it sounds simple but its not exactly a student i mentioned this to yesterday mentioned that they said cool a lot and i suggested we work on this together escaping our in-between thoughts and speak directly

You’re at your best when you believe or refuse to believe you or the idea of you, your self at your peak like your first kiss or paycheck. Your failings are your own, your problems to be dealt with by you, for you and nobody else. You mind your own business, you take care of yourself. You are healthy. You are clean as all get up. You feel good you feel proud of who you are, you are under your control, your watchful eye, your hands in your pockets fingering the money that you made on your merit, yours alone. Of course you don’t expect people to respect you immediately, but once they get to know you, the real deal, the real you, they’ll like you as you, your balloon says you, your clothes are so you. The you in you is the only you, unique and youthful, young and proud, brave and ready to move against weakness. You are a universal symbol of yourself. Your values are all you, no influence can corrupt you, the pure you, the unabridged entire you. Your smile radiates lakes and rivers and streams producing beautiful fish and insects on account of you. Your babies and your child, your children are you repeating as only you could. Adorable you you are adorable. Your hands mark your body, the beginning of your arms is in your finger tips. Your head is the size of your chest. Your grapefruit like eyes mark your vision as fresh as lemon juice. Your tight pecs and bi-lateral quadriceps make incisions of joy in your admirers, your friends are yours, buoyant because of you, the rock, your grit and steadfast ability to monitor greatness in others comes from your translucent you-ness, the essence in you is you. You know it. You make successful transitions from place to sea to shining waitress because you carry yourself well, your weight is your shadow and your shadow follows in your wake. You predict disaster for others because you know disaster, you devil you. Where you walk around, head full of ideas, your own thoughts like your dog or your clothes you take care of, wash meticulously and hang on the line in your back yard. Skip home you’re in love. Come home.

Writerly expressions with a big cursive bow on top of my head and music, softy playing while I casually massage a customer's shoulders and look up to see another come though the bell, a field of haze blowing my unholy mind into pieces: "Do you sell willful realizations?" and yes of course I jump up and destroy the distance between us, a thick gravy instead of legs transcending the space of a wallet's breath I show them a wall full of wrenches and screw drivers and tuck back into privacy to avoid saying "um" in between every breath and thought.

The customer wanes and I repeat myself in service, becoming the willow tree by the crystal river as a landmark of availability my watch says we're open for thirty more years and shoot lasers into the customer's Hepatitis B saddled liver or so I tell my doctor who doesn't believe me because I seem too "nice" to have dirty drug problems, but anyway, I lead them into the back room, cut off their hands and smear paint on their face and they thank me and I pocket a cool stack of appreciation notes.

Lunch time: everybody's favorite state of mind the realized swim about, I breakfast table the ambiance of a cat calling Wilco, the milk toast leprechaun, Chani, or other characters in Dune come through the doors slowly one by one and sign in rainbow script the will to turn mean evaporates and it's give give give with the corporate self consciousness, the "Indiana" of preventative measures the Anne Bancroft of hilarious stock room follies walks in and I practically give away pairs of jeans that fit perfectly a diamond 'x' pattern on the back pocket and a little hole on the waist band to signify an incredible style in tune with the very buttons on your shirt

because this is energy leaping over small woolen academics no more are we understanding embodied the skeletal remains of mix and match grouping herds according to cow stress the farmer transcends the dawn, puts on make up and barks orders at the chickens to "start clucking and put out some mother fucking roly polys" and I turn the sign around and count up my stack of nothingness and take some off the top and pull the metal grate down hard to attract attention from onlookers and passer bys and go home to my one bedroom summer cottage and turn the light on seen from the street seeming peaceful like a stranger winding down and getting ready for bed goonight.