'I am convinced that we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.'

- I don't have any pictures of you, I said. I'll be sad when we're not together anymore and I don't have any pictures to remember you by.

- Then I won't give you any pictures, she said, so you can't break up with me.

Now, no her, and no pictures.

I wrote little this year, most of it ephemeral even to me. But when the year is done and gone there will still be some entries I return to fondly:

- nine notes on Law and Order
- 'Some Things to Note About Robert Creeley'
- notes on Menippean satire, Pynchon's V., and two notes on satirical elements of V.
- baby steps into Adorno
- self-promotion
- artistic form of jokes, the promise of beauty

I'll return to them fondly because they'll serve as reminders of the writer I wanted to be (but did not yet prove to become, as my meager production attests), and they'll serve as places from which to begin thinking again.

What exactly do I think I would do if she did call?

'When these painful contradictions are removed, the question as to the nature of force will not have been answered; but our minds, no longer vexed, will cease to ask illegitimate questions.'

A fall breakup, again.

A guide to Beethoven research.

'They have lost the capacity of their predecessors to do anything in common.'

'as though a kiss were a cheap thing'