14 DEC 81
For the sake of my students I carry on. Before going to class I make myself look presentable. I try to sound prepared for my lectures and for their questions, but surely they see through me. They aren't children anymore, they are emerging adults.
I see them talking among themselves when I've been rambling on, losing my train of thought. Out of orbit. I should update my notes, there's so much new data since Hubble, but I haven't the energy. Better to let them do the research - they have the passion, not I.
Thank the gods for tenure. What would I do without my chair at Burgoyne?
Sit in my easy chair in the study and grow mold!
15 DEC 81
Last night was so sorrowful for Virginia. She had bought a new sexy nightgown. Silk, from Victoria's Secrets (I saw the box this morning) I didn't even notice it on her. She had on a new perfume as well. I couldn't help but notice that. And when she put her arms and her leg around me, and I could smell her desire, I was so inert, so indifferent. I just wanted to shut my eyes and sleep and not be bothered. People are such an intrusion.
Why hasn't she learned that I have nothing to offer her?
Later I could feel the bed trembling ever so gently as she cried. I wanted to reach out to her, but the gulf between us was a hundred light-years across.
I was the proverbial horse that hadn't courage enough to jump the canyon.
She finally cried herself to sleep, and I sat up in the study looking out on the frozen yard. I don't know if I was ever awake or asleep. My days are the same - sleepwalking among the living.
Virginia deserves a real man. She always has. But she's an old-fashioned Catholic girl. Loyal. Always trying to cheer me up with little surprises.
I sometimes wonder if even I have pushed her past a saint's endurance.
The problem is, I don't know how much I care about that either.
23 DEC 81
The doctor has started me on medication for this thing. I doubt that I will feel its effect for some time. Not until the end of the millennium.
18 FEB 82
I do believe the medication is beginning to work. It's been seven weeks now. I'm glad I agreed to take that "rest" over the winter break. The place wasn't too bad - no padded walls! Really, the staff was first rate. I should write a letter to the CEO. Will add it to my list.
Thank god the new students are eager and trusting. I may live through another semester.
6 MARCH 82
When I awoke this morning I went to the window and opened it and breathed in the chilly air. The lilac bush, the one I planted for Judith when she was born, was showing its first buds, and I smiled remembering that and thinking what a big girl she's become.
When was the last time I smiled - 1942? Well, perhaps not that long, but a long time.
It's been a very long, cold winter.
9 MARCH 82
Shelly, one of my brightest students, was very kind to me today. Such a lovely girl. Such a divine, hourglass figure, I wished that I were a thousand grains of sand!
Now if only Billy could find a girl like that when he's a little older.
Shelly told me she thought I was looking less tired and she asked had I been ill. She was quite close to me when she asked. I was in my office chair, my eyes were at the level of her breasts. She was wearing a dangerously tight sweater and no bra. Such an earthy, unadorned beauty!
After she left, the exquisite curve of her breasts lingered in my thoughts like images on a developing plate. It was marvelous to feel desire again. Simply marvelous!
I do believe my evening lecture was rather good.
2 APRIL 82
Good days and bad, but isn't that par for the course with depression? I have low moments and flickers of joy. Yet and all, it's a damned bit better to be hopeful at least part of the day than gloomy the whole 24.
I pruned the rose bushes and gave them a good soaking - it's been a rather dry April. I hope we don't have another water shortage. I cut my finger on the thorns and didn't care. The blood was sweet when I sucked the wound.
My blood. Just like Christ, isn't it? Red and sweet. No wonder the early Christians threw rose pedals at His feet. They were red and sweet like His blood.
My life is full of thorns, but I'm alive at least. I've survived another winter. Alive and tenured, and perhaps not so complete a failure as I'd feared.