I'm exhausted. At least the rain drives the tourists off the streets, penetrates the pavement and turns it black, the dirt washed away. I would like the rain to do so with my mind, cleanse it of the bad memories, the bad bits, too many bits, all them bits that make my head so weary from remembering them.

I wrote on a notecard, in big letters with a Sharpie, GO ZEN DOJO. I stuck it above the owl clock with his eyes that go this and that way, above the dissertation schedule and the 101 reminders, the radio I forget to listen to, the art magazines I can't bear to read.

On Sundays I read Terry Pratchett because I don't have to write notes. Maybe other postgrads do what I do, too. Along with reading, they bite the pages(see dental indentation, pp. 68-72). Is it that good? Laughing, even as an apocalypse approaches. And somehow someone manages to save the world, despite its ingratitude.

GO ZEN DOJO. It's only around the corner from my flat. The last time I went, I felt, for lack of a better word, evacuated. Free of memories. Able to be here now, and write, and read, and not mourn. Facing a stone wall, in my body, rather than facing the stone walls in my head.

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