January 23

House-sitting, while they weekend in Seattle in tuxedo & gown. Even alone in this house, I feel ghosted, tarnished, the way a coating film malingers in your mouth, a stain upon your fingertips stains still after each wash. I expected their absence would prove some compensation for enduring their presence, but instead, access to their liquor cabinet aside, there is no reward here. & so. Where to go. Perhaps I’ve let my gaze dote upon detail, settle too long upon those small outcroppings of wonder I have found here, & in so doing, somehow I find myself in this odd position, wondering very simply where we ought to go. Orcas. Austin. Maine. Canada. Alaska. Priorities demand some cultivation, some constant care. & here I aim to write the dissertation, though suffocated in the gaping space of this house, it becomes more difficult, their thumps above, the woofer of their ceaseless television just above my room, seeping Fox news down, some horrid toxin. I am up against myself, again. Excuses or actualities, indolence or reason, & finally pride or sensibility. Where to write this looming thing. It will not be here. The options look a bit like this: move out of this particular situation but stay on Orcas until its completion; move out of this mansion & immediately seek employ elsewhere in the country; simply & immediately move somewhere else that might afford us both a better chance at happiness. The question becomes when do we leave Orcas, now or further along in the year? Well, it becomes a labyrinth, & the aforementioned access to free liquor does little to help my navigation tonight. Until morning, then.

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