June 16. When I was twenty, I was so afraid of ruining my life by some stupid mistake. I could have spared myself that fear. My life is quite robust, not to say stubborn.

June 15. It is the task of the writer to find words where there are no words yet. If you think you have nothing to say, that is the surest invitation to find what can be said at that point. – There is an opposite attitude, which says that one should write as little as possible. Only that which absolutely cannot be avoided should be written. – I find both attitudes plausible, and I have long wavered between them, but while doing so, I have always followed the first one.

June 14. We are tearing our hair out as to why so many people are not curious, why they do not change their life when they are dissatisfied with it. You have to do that even if you don’t feel like it. And that’s what we don’t understand: Why some do it even if they don’t feel like it, and others don’t do it because they don’t feel like it.

June 13. A co-worker wants to go out for a beer with me after work. I find that puzzling.

June 12. Bought binoculars with image stabilization. It’s wonderful how the image suddenly steadies when you push the button. And then there are the telescopes that let you go to any point in the sky on command. I’d like to buy one of those someday, but I don’t know if I’ll still be interested. It’s like Data playing a classical concert on the Enterprise.

June 11. First time barbecueing in the backyard. The leaves on the tree, the birds, the clouds, all for the first time.

June 10. Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra, Play of the Waves. I see people who seem obviously unqualified for such a concert, and my own disqualification is immediately obvious to me. I wonder what draws us there anyway, if it is not the mere appearance of status.

June 9. Paradigmatic discussion in the writing group. J mentions casually that in the orchestra she turns pages with a pedal, which just as casually means that her sheet music is on a tablet. The others are simultaneously puzzled and excited about this. Almost instantly they ask why not everybody in the orchestra does this and why the orchestra doesn’t provide tablets and pedals for everyone.

June 8. Narcoleptic day. Where is all that sleep coming from?

June 7. I’m staying in Newburgh today. It was not because of the smoke that I came upstate yesterday. Today I feel a sense of guilt that I escaped the mishap, just as I did when Sandy hit and I had moved to the Upper West Side two weeks before the power went out for a week.