Early December

--We're in a cave now, this time of year, in Corvallis. It's dark on the way to and from work. The rain comes down in sheets and ropes and spray--it doesn't stop. The creek by the high school is swelling to its banks. The last time this happened, four years ago, the freshmen started a rumor that if the water touched the bridge they'd have to close school. Tonight, ordering from the drive-thru window at La Conga, with the window down, my arm soaked completely in the time it took to order the chicken enchilada combo with rice and beans.

--In class today, during a timed-writing activity, a fourteen-year-old girl sneezed so hard that she fell out of her chair. For two full minutes, it was bedlam. I stopped my timer and allowed the class to settle down before we started writing again.

--I go to bed early, sleep well, wake up at a normal time, and am still exhausted by 11 a.m. I'm up to three cups of coffee these days.

--Ben Hamper's memoir "Rivethead" is both hilarious and devastating. His account of working on a General Motors assembly line during the 70's and 80's is an alcohol-fueled story of monotony, poverty, and insanity. My friend Kevin, a shop teacher, recommended it. Reading it, he wonders how any car made in that era runs. Hamper recounts getting drunk at lunch and on the line, firing his rivet gun at company digital reader boards, scamming the timecard, and playing floor hockey on the job. I'm on Chapter Eight right now, and the book's only getting crazier.

--My cats, we recently learned, have fleas. The vet says that they probably contracted them when we moved to our apartment a few months ago. We have to shove pills down their throat every day and streak the back of their neck with goo once a month. When I think about all this, I start to itch, but my med-school-student wife says I don't have fleas, that it's only the cats. She better be right. The last thing I need right now is fleas.

--The fact that the Oregon Ducks are going to the National Championship is bad enough, but then we learned that one of their pompous blowhard fans set fire to Reser Stadium's turf after they beat my Beavers. It's been a rough few months. I threatened to give up on college football altogether and start following NASCAR: it was that kind of season. But things are settling down now. Next year, Beaver Nation. There's always next year.

--I haven't gone on a run since Thanksgiving weekend. I blame the weather, but there are probably other reasons. Today, when school got out, I hurried home and took a nap.

--Last night I had a dream that I was on a boat shuttling across Scotland's Orkney Islands. My brother and the rapper Lil Wayne were also on the boat, of course. The three of us sailed through rising morning mists and yellow sunlight, the boat cutting silently through calm waters. I realize that this was a dream about summer. What is summer, if not travel and family and good music? What better things to dream about, in this dark December?