people should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms

I went for a run at 6:30, in the light rain, in circles around the abandoned campus. I was compelled by guilt, because Kelsey asked me at 5 if I'd go to the SRC with her and I declined. Then I thought about it, and felt, a.) that I wasn't going to do anything more productive with my time, b.) she might be judging me for not exercising, c.) I feel sluggish. It was a nice run. Jens Lenkman and Okkervil River pushed me on, up the slick bricks and around the campus buildings and down stairs. A meager accomplishment, but an accomplishment just the same.

I was filled with envy tonight when I heard that Rachel, Elizabeth and Brittany are getting a dog. I want a dog. I dreamt about them last night, dozens of homeless sweet dogs that I had to guide down dark hallways. Emily mocked me this weekend for saying that dogs brought me a deep sense of joy. (We were going back and forth on what things in life we considered restorative, leading to rest. I still think answering "dogs" is entirely legitimate.) My votes for her name: Kenya, Mecca, or India. Perfect names for a black labrador. Will you let me come over and play with her and walk her? Because I miss having a dog something tremendous.

I finished a short story tonight.

I hate it when every paragraph in my blog entry begins with "I."

"Her mind was like her room, in which lights advanced and retreated, came pirouetting and stepping delicately, spread their tails, pecked their way; and then her whole being was suffused, like the room again, with a cloud of some profound knowledge, some unspoken regret, and then she was full of locked drawers, stuffed with letters, like her cabinets." -- "The Lady in the Looking-Glass," Virginia Woolf

I love reading Time magazine. It fills me with hope for the state of American journalism. I think you will rarely find well-written news elsewhere.

Today Emily and I made a list of all of the great writers we could think of who were homosexual. Basically all of them were. We're fated to be mediocre.

We watched the presidential debates last night, flopped on our stomachs on my bed, riveted, trading commentary over the host's questions (we called him, whoever he was, The Crazy Uncle). Barack calling McCain "Jim" and "Tom": hilarious. McCain giving tedious history lessons when The Crazy Uncle wasn't listening at all: also hilarious. Overall: who can tell who won? I know where my allegiances lie, but I am so deeply Middle Wing that I'm afraid I'm too trustworthy to say. (Emily naturally chose Obama, but tonight namely because of his impeccable pronounciation of "Taliban" and "Iraq" and "Pakistan.")

Hearing: "Lump Sum," Bon Iver, and "Mykonos," Fleet Foxes
Reading: The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James; A Haunted House and Other Stories, Woolf
Eating: the amazing trail mix that Emily made today (dried pineapple, cashews, chocolate chips)
Thinking: I am restful. I like that I am wearing my yoga clothes now, without any intention of doing anything even mildly resembling yoga.