I have resisted writing sort of stubbornly these past days and weeks. I think it may be impossible for me, for my mind, to focus, when in a relationship, on anything but the relatee. Even in Beloved Husband's considerate absence he is ever-present to me, as my attention fixes on encounters and confrontations past and to come.

I find myself, for three-and-a-half years now, in a slow, steady descent into a soft, shallow, nonclinical depression - a resignation. From time to time I fight it, I rise up and toss off a flurry of verbiage, but it all goes nowhere. As do I.

It's no one's fault. It's the byproduct, I suppose, of my ADD - which requires an unnatural and absolute isolation for any project to approach completion - and our poverty, which renders impossible most obvious solutions - separate residences, a retreat, help with housework and meals.

If before my 58th year I'd known about my neurology - my high placement on the autism spectrum and concomitant attention deficits - I'd have avoided most of my life's pain and suffering, avoided inflicting most of the pain and suffering others endure because of me. No marriages, no children, no partners. I might have known better than to risk them. For all the joy and wonder I have known because of these, I have given joy to no one - not intentionally, but because I only perplex. Strange person in an alien world, a creature everyone misunderstands. Especially myself.

I whine like a teenage girl today. Must be the weather. Grim, gray, with ferocious winds.

Dim memories of dreams from overnight. I do remember that the worlds were vast and acutely detailed, as they have been for several such vague nights in a row. I lived on a mountainside, in the midst of evergreens, under snow. Children ran about. Eight-year-old neighborDeaven was there. He stood at the side of a busy road and peed in the shoulder snow.

In real life, book sales have been booming. As an adjunct to this business, I volunteer at the local FriendsOfTheLibrary thrift outlet. Most of my stock comes from there. It's heavy work. My health seems to be holding up, though, although handling so many books aggravates the arthritis in my hands. For this, I find quercitin-and-bromelain supplements sovereign.