I am finally facing my taxes. I can literally feel the descent of thick, honeyed sadness through my body, a wash of almost overwhelming despair, as I struggle through the tiny tasks involved with filling out a FUCKING 1040EZ FORM. Assuming that I don't want to report the interest on my student loan, which would be to my benefit. I would list the points which complicate what should be a simple operation, but it's too tedious. Oh, and the IRS is still telling me I haven't filed my 2001 taxes, though I've submitted them twice now. I am ignoring them. At my peril.

I'm rendered almost paralyzed by the mundane details of existing. I have to go home now.

Today walking back to the office from lunch I took a shortcut through perfect, atmospheric alleys, brick paving underfoot showing through the uneven patches where layers of surface had peeled away, creating a strange jigsaw of bricks and stone and rain puddles. And on either side of the wide alley rose big, old-fashioned brick buildings with arched windows, hung with fire escapes. The kind of dockland buildings that probably used to be inhabited by export offices and port authorities.

In Pioneer Square I saw, one after the other, a crow, a gull, and a pigeon. In the space of an hour there was grey mushroom soup and blue tile roofs and a woman with long white hair.