Notes from my daybook, 27 October 2010

Wake
Breakfast
Coffee, read

Work-out

Shower

Walk neighborhood

Work on rough syllabus

Write letter to friends
Book—stuff re: embassy

Blog entry

Email PR with blog post

L. on Iranian liberalism

* * *

My Algerian daybook is remarkably uninspired. Each entry begins with the same litany of tasks: wake, breakfast, coffee—read. If I instruct myself to write, I will then move to the computer, from the breakfast nook to the dining table, before wasting myself, in thrall, to one project or another. Some days I generate enough momentum to keep at it well into the evening. More often than not, I am exhausted by lunch. Words come easy, but purpose does not. One point rarely leads into another. My thoughts are febrile; my face is flushed.

The days are extraordinarily long, distended even. They have shape only to the extent that I give them shape; to the extent that I make notes for myself about what I should be doing, what I need to do, what I want to do, where I need to go, what I need to buy. There is food and all the rituals of food. There is coffee, and then there is tea. I work until dusk, or until I hear the muezzin call for maghrib. I make dinner. I read a book. After dark, the city stops. From my window, it is fluorescent and it is orange, all shadow and reflection. It is wind and the absence of wind. I stand on the balcony and watch the dogs forage through the trash. There is a heavy tread on the stairs, slow and brooding. Somewhere, next door, something falls.

Silence lives in Algiers. At night it creeps into the house and rearranges the furniture. Rooms echo, doors rattle. Here and there, something will pop. I turn on the radio. I go to bed.

* * *

This is a character I play. You will know him by these signs.