2002-10-16 - 4:43 p.m.

So little has happened between today and yesterday. The rains have returned. I really like this poem by Lawrence Joseph entitled "It Will Rain All Day." I think that's the title. We went to the same high school, and he wrote a poem about how his black activist classmate was found murdered in some hovel in Detroit in the late '60s. Now he's a professor of the law. I found his books in the stacks in Ann Arbor and checked 'em out. I don't really like reading poetry, though, it's just not efficient. I trip a lot and have to return to the beginning enough as it is with prose, but poetry, forget about it. But this stuff was good. I like poetry about dirt and trains and stuff, also murders and all-day rain.

Not a very happy day for some reason. Not sure why. "Nameless dread" is a term I learned by reading all those Matt Groening "Life in Hell" cartoon collections when I was 13 or so. What a great introduction to the aspects of '80s California culture that never made it past the first rewrite in Hollywood scripts. Also, Akbar and Jeff were pretty disgusting to me at the time. But I did love their fezzes, and I came around eventually. I wish I had those books now. I need some cartoons to look at.