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Day: Jun 16

By Paul Ford

1 interval from 16 Jun 2001 (Consumption Directional Elsinore)

11:14 pm

Today is 16 June 2001.

This afternoon I quit a job I worked with my ex-girlfriend and told her I wasn't going to speak to her for some time. She told me she'd been with someone else, and the door was finally opened and I was free to go.

I walked 5 miles. I went to the Brooklyn Bridge. I visited with my neighbor and we came up with a plan for conquering the world. I ate fruit and vegetables even though I didn't want to eat at all. I went with a friend to dinner and had steamed onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, broccoli. I tasted everything, the flesh of the mushrooms, the snap of the carrots. He and I planned to meet tomorrow at 11am to jog through Prospect Park, unless it rains.

I will not be able to run far. It is hot and I am out of shape. I'll go as far as I can, then I will walk. But I will run. I used to say I was going to do these things, and never did them. Now I do them, and they suck and make my body and soul ache.

I strategized as to how I am going to make the entire Web better and more useful, how I am going to make Ftrain into a narrative that serves its audience.

I called another woman and apologized for a way I'd been, the jealous anger I'd poured onto her. I asked her if she would have me back as a friend. We'll see.

I asked a third woman on a date. "I am very much a gentleman and have no intentions," I wrote her in an email. No reply, yet.

I called several people and told them how I was feeling, and they said they would help me if I'd let them. My friend L is going to cut and highlight my hair. My friend X will come over and sleep in my apartment some night soon, to keep me company. Her visit gives me a way to be quiet near another person.

I wept, and then I felt fine, then I wept, then I felt fine.

I wrote an essay about speaking to the river, called Bridge and River Consecration.

I asked a friend to give me information on building houses with Habitat for Humanity in Harlem.

I gave a sheep (http://catalog.heifer.org/sheep.cfm) to a third world family via the Heifer Project (http://www.heifer.org).

Dear Paul Ford,

Thank you for your gift order of:

Item
   Quantity
  Price Each
   Total

---

Sheep
  1
         $120
          $120

Grand Total: $120

It will be used for wool, to make clothing; it will be fed, and bred, and cared for by people for whom a flock of sheep is a way to survive, to eat, to raise their children, moving them towards enough to eat, helping them be educated.

I gave the sheep in honor of my father, because it's Father's Day.

I gave the sheep in honor of the fictional lamb I killed in a recent story about Tim McVeigh's execution.

I gave the sheep because I want others to have food, clothing, and income, even strangers.

I just quit my job. I cannot, strictly, afford to give away sheep. But who cares?