AUSTIN, Texas, May 1, 2006 — I am posting this over a month after the date indicated. I'm doing this because I am frustrated with my blogging site today (June 5, 2006) and thinking that I should be posting content somewhere else.

In my private journal (written on the above date) I said: "The world is a strange, connected, disconnected, scary place. When the word gets back to us from Dafur or Iraq...it's not like we really wanted to hear it."

On this day, I spent a bit of time with my dad. Getting him to a doctor's appointment.

I said: "I just don't feel a lot of unrestrained joy at things like a cool, sunny morning; a trip; lovely food; reading something interesting. Which I used to do. "There is always something to take the joy out of life." Dad says that. Imagine if I was actually sick or dying. Of course, everyone is dying. But still."

This was a day when I tried hard to cheer myself up. A trip to the mall. Well just Nordstrom's. A meal at Eddie V's and dessert and a drink at Jeffrey's. It didn't work, though.