8:05 AM – up at 650, dreams of a car accident (though i did not remember until later while on the road) and fleeing the police on foot over rooftops. i put on the coffee, take pills, mix the protein shake. an apple, a plum, a strawberry, a bag of mixed nuts.  

on the way in to work i see eleven crows circling above a dead and bare tree that leans out over the highway like an omen. 

10 AM – i am being plagued by the point today. the point pokes me insistently, what am i? what am i? answer! i am sorry, point, i don’t know. i don’t know what you are. i would appreciate if you would just tell me. the point of writing is to be read? no, that can’t be right, otherwise i wouldn’t write the kind of things i do. the point of writing is to preserve memory? no, that can’t be right either, otherwise i would not write in this obscure and elaborate way, but would instead simply note a list of the day’s events. the point of writing is… to entertain? perhaps, but entertain who? myself? writing is self pleasure? if so, then why do i insist on doing it publicly… 

a strange tree leans over my car, directly over the spot where i park every day. its bark is split and peeling all over the trunk and limbs, and is the color and curl of peanut skins. the exposed wood is a bright green like lime flesh. this is the pacific madrona, or arbutus menziesii, and although it is native to this area, this is the first one i’ve ever seen in person. the strange contrasting colors of the red bark and green flesh, the curling and peeling everywhere, this effect gives the impression that something is wrong with the tree, that perhaps it has some illness. but this is just how it is. always peeling. 

what is my job? i realize i never write about it. in these posts i arrive at work, then leave for home without a hint of what i do there, beyond it taking place in an office. i don’t describe work because it doesn’t matter to me. i feel nothing for my job, care nothing about it. it is something that eats my time, and i do as little of it (work) as possible. instead i think or read or type into this document whenever no one is looking. money and its necessity are a stain on all life, but especially on art. so i prefer not to write about money or work, or acknowledge it in any way that i don’t have to. 

3PM – how many times can i write about the same trees and the same bloodred car that i see out the same window? perhaps the answer is twice, and you’ll never hear of it again. this time there is a bee outside the window trying to get in. i wonder what it sees. 

i try to read some, but my eyes keep closing. i drop my kindle, twice. something about this afternoon hour makes me sleepy no matter how much caffeine i’ve ingested. at one point i thought it might have been due to medication, so i swapped one of my morning pills to an evening pill. nothing changed. in the end it is probably just being human. the siesta was invented for a reason. 

9PM – on the drive home from work i experience a bizarre vision: a big, curly haired, jd vance meme driving a car past me in the opposite direction. it goes by so quickly, and yet is so vivid and strange that i say what the hell to myself out loud in my car. 

as i pull into my driveway i find that the squash and some of the zucchini are wilted under the continuous and unforgiving sun. i give them all a good long soak, and watch the leaves begin to stiffen and rise even as i stand there with the gushing hose in hand. 

then we drive down to the local mall with the aim of doing some walking out of the sun. i buy a light jacket that is almost identical in color, style, and fit, to a vintage jacket from the (i think) 80s that i purchased some months ago at a vintage shop in seattle. and i pay nearly the same price, too. S buys some shoes and shirts. we eat at the food court. the man working the stall that S orders from doesn’t seem to understand that she is Indian, and tries to explain to her what gobi manchurian is, then when her order is served she is given chicken tenders instead of chicken tandoori. what on earth. needless to say we won’t be returning there. 

11PM – silent night, alone with my books. if only i had more time to read them. the truth is i do have more time, i simply waste it. vidoes, games, music, staring at the wall. though i’ve heard it said (and said it many times myself) that time enjoyed is not wasted, retrospectively it so very often feels wasted anyway.