I'm still working away at Adam Bede, thinking of reading some of James Baldwin's stories next, and I'm yearning to get back to my project of randomly copying out Dickinson poems. Rereading "Protestant Cemetery," which I posted yesterday, made me long to be writing again; but ironically, now that I've won a time-to-write grant, I seem to be snarled in tasks for other people. At the moment, Adam Bede is what passes for my private life. Without a book in hand, I would be as good as dead, which is a notion I've had since childhood, when I was fully aware that reading was only slightly less vital than breathing. Oddly, my need to have an animal living in my house has a similar urgency. On those terrible occasions when I've been "between dogs," I'm filled with restless anxiety, the choking sensation of being trapped somewhere with nothing to read, no dog toenails clacking across my kitchen floor, no air in my lungs.

It's strange how babyish we can be, all our long lives.

But suddenly I am in the mood to read Blake.