11.20.2006 - 1:36 p.m.

Two showers later, I still cannot escape the stench of bleach and paint, the strange adhesive smell of blue tape. I have Pale Sand (I) smudges on my fingernails, especially in the places where my ripping off the manicured tips tore a layer of keratin with them.

We don't live in the house yet. There is no gas--heat, hot water, stove--and no bed.

The other night, he dreamed that he was sleeping with the realtor and I was falling in love with internet friends, two at a time. Last night I dreamed I was trying on dresses that made me look terribly fat, to the point where I wondered if I was pregnant, and kept kneading my stomach looking for a lump, and telling everyone but him because I could never get him alone.

Everything in this year has been about changing, about grappling to hold certain things steady while everything else flies off like a baseball through a pitching machine. I'm starting to see what everyone meant about how hard this part is.

I have two sets of papers to grade tonight. That's why I'm writing here.

Not because I have time to be creative. Time is something that has passed on from my life, never to return.

-stonebridge

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