But surely they could find work elsewhere, right? Surely I don't have to lurch around like these people, living in a surreal dimension. Surreal to who? My reality is just as surreal.

We camped last weekend on the Puget Sound, waves washing against the clay cliffs below us. Huge firs, swaying above. The rain falling now, the sloppy sweep of windshield wipers and the dark city streets. Winter jackets in September.

Life falls into routine.

I rub fingerprints off of my flute and stare up at the posters on the classroom walls. The thick smells of graphite and pre-teen sweat, disinfectant from the freshly washed hallways of the middle school. Driving home listening to talk radio, other people's problems, hoping to either feel better about my life or to solve my problems.

Partly wishing I were alone and empty and depressed. That I didn't have a warm inviting bed and friend to return to. Because there is something achingly beautiful about being single trying to find love in the most inappropriate men. About kissing and pressing your naked body against someone not because you love or even like them, but because you need to feel human skin and their hands on you, because you need to be devoured.

I've read so many books this year. I'd forgotten the easy escape into different worlds, the way of words through my mind and imagination. I'd forgotten how much writing means to me. Never any time to put something real together. Never time to show you the inside of my head.

Raining. I haven't turned the heat on in the cottage yet. My feet are numb, but at least I can feel something, at least I can feel that I feel nothing.