friday april 27 2001    |    6:40 p.m.

liminality is no picnic in the park -- victor turner might have said that, probably not in those words. the buddha talks about cycles of suffering. dante about the reflection of god's mind on earth, about recognizing the way of divine grace. art is a de/construction of reality, and maybe the opposite is true too. speculation. informed speculation. conditional certainty. things i've learned in college.

and they have not prepared me for what comes next. i have the tools, and i don't know what to use them for, what goes where, and when, and how. i can just fling them out with my eyes squinting at the distance, without looking for reference points, wondering if they will come back or drop to the ground with an unimpressive thud.

the last two days i've been listening to gentlemen and off the wall, if that helps provide some context.

jason (fritz's boy) is here. yesterday julie and he and i smoked before the 8:10 art history class, and brought the boy along. later in the day we took him down to the river and on a little hike up a hill behind the environmental center, and sat under the pines, and smoked more. maybe this is part of the problem. i don't have time to introspect this much when this amount of work needs to get done. but it was fun, and we want to adopt the boy. he's been a part of the group from the moment he arrived.

so having jason around has been fun. but walking around in my body for the past week has not. i'm not in the best state of mind. dreading going home, dreading having to leave here, at the same time dreading the prospect of staying here for another second. negotiating the impulse not to get out of bed in the morning and the need to get things done. putting off and smoking away. not feeling like much is being lost in the process anyway.

so i guess it will be over soon enough. but getting there won't be pleasant.

and i don't know, i don't have much to say. i hope summer sendoff and visits from friends will improve the overall feeling of this place, but as good as that will be, i doubt it.