It wasn't good for me to read Steve Amaya's journal today where he works himself over for writing an entry he's less than happy with. No sympathy, of course. These little monkeys come, they hang around, they pass. I am dancing with my own monkey at the moment named Fred. Fred the writer's block monkey come to sit on my desk, make faces and idly swing his legs back and forth as he watches me stare at the computer screen. The email from Goulart saved my ass these last couple of days, giving me the energy to at least write about the books, to write rather short entries about the books, but entries, none the less, with beginnings, middles and ends. Fred, however, shows no signs of leaving and basically, although the days go well, the writing doesn't.

Normally I'd just go to bed and read the rest of the Groucho book, journal writing is not a life sentence, after all, you can miss an entry no matter what resolution you've made about words in a day, every day. In May and June.

Still, if you sit long enough, punch out a sentence or two, rearrange the words, find a little rhythm, a little rhyme, you can fool Fred into wondering if there isn't something he missed in the refrigerator in the kitchen and he'll leave you alone for a while to write. But you don't have much time.

Thursday night is the night to take the garbage out and I have just done that, rolled the container to the curb perhaps two-thirds full. I am moving at the end of next month and I should be thinking ahead, putting junk aside, filling it up and then scouting the neighbor's cans for more room. But I don't because I can put it off knowing the deadline isn't for another six weeks.

Now garbage is diddley shit, whether it goes now or later isn't going to change the world, but I wonder: What else is on hold, that I don't have to think about until after I've moved? Lots of moves in a man's life, lots of things that won't happen for another six weeks so you wait six weeks and you wait six weeks and you wait six weeks and it never gets done. Am I doing this? Well, yeah, of course, but am I doing too much of this? Do I even have something I'm putting off? Questions for New Year's resolutions that I never keep. (Actually, I've kept a couple recently, but mostly I don't.) What is it I've been thinking of doing, but not ready to start until after the move next month or after school starts in the Fall or next year when the stars will be right? There are a couple.

But not now. I see Fred coming back from the kitchen so I'll wrap up this pitiable aside. One resolution I made was to write this journal and I'm writing this journal, but what of these other two and when do they get their turn? Not until I move next month. Right Fred?