Fellow on the sidewalk, on his cell— “...I have a phone interview on the 26th, but my phone’s getting turned off on the 17th... yeah... and I’m not getting any checks until the end of the month...” —then walks out of hearing.
New birds in the backyard, I think some kind of warbler; when I play the piano they come up to the window as if they want to talk back to it.
But no money for anything. Every time I look at the financial file on my desk, Marvin Gaye starts up: “Natural fact is / I can’t pay my taxes.” Daily life starts to seem more and more like a low-budget BBC comedy. I’ll spend spring break around Harvard, pretending I have justification to be around Harvard; just like I wear sport coats to teach and the students call me “Professor” and why bother correcting them?
Been avoiding my responsibilities with a lot of pleasure reading: Dos Passos, Cain, Disch, Isherwood, Gogol, Platonov. So much room in the big tent.
