went to the beach today at 2 pm when the sun was high but there was still a lambswool mist of the marine layer along the sand and rocks. there was a good deal of tar on the beach and afterwards my friend and I dragged our sneakers across the grass and asphalt and just now I went to the car and noticed the smell of oil still in the air.

the summer is my favorite because the days are long and I tend to have fewer obligations. I have been estivating. It is sort of a dreamless estivation -- either very deep or very shallow -- no long strides in between. I have fewer words. the line makes shapes of non-words.

I am grateful for your work.

on why I am behind in the tests

one of the things that has suprised me is that the data collection is difficult. the learning curve is steep, and I most be focused and in possession of a sufficient amount of emotional energy if I want to ensure a certain level of accuracy or "truth." Although one of the things I'm finding is that truth or the feeling of truth is completely unreliable (of course, therefore more interesting, thus raising the stakes and producing an increased level of anxiety). It is difficult to be honest honest honest with each word, and it feels as though to scrutinize each thing, as though it were only a slip of paper held daintily in silver tongs, is sometimes so serious and profound that I want to cry and at other moments so absurd and ridiculous that I want to laugh. And so I try to record these feelings and impulses but perhaps it is like an x-ray of a magnet or guts -- the densities of these things fluctuate so.