The Broken Earphones Crisis

W

ords are failing me. It’s the end of another wasted day, in which the main feature has been the broken earphones crisis, which has forced me and one of my roommates to share earphones much in the manner the Graeae used to share their common eye. It’s raining here in Portland, and water runs over the sidewalks and into the gutters like small but substantial streams. That doesn’t affect me much here in my basement suite, but I know it’s going on, and the damp seeps in at least in spirit, if not in the physical realm.

And words continue to fail me. They’ve been failing me now for at least two years; as though my access to the realm of symbols had been somehow cut off—nonpayment of dues or something. Having my library tucked away in some metal chamber in a different state doesn’t help either. I reach for familiar volumes that aren’t here, and honestly the internet doesn’t help much in this. I had those volumes for a reason, and at least one of them is that the information in them isn’t readily available in other forms.

I keep hoping the words will come back. They haven’t so far, and forcing them to dance for me isn’t really working either. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; and so it goes. Maybe tomorrow. Sorry about that.