Spent yesterday afternoon in bowels of local Friends of Library "Bookworm" used book trailer clearing shelves of decades-old compost to make way for (finally, at long last) fresh stock. Much of what we removed will be "recycled" at local junk store or landfill, but I was privileged as volunteer to skim the cream, though not as completely as I would have liked. Found a couple of volumes that will go for 50 or 100 dollars, but I may spend tomorrow rooting around in the stacked garbage-book boxes (awaiting Monday pickup) for more.

Today we continue - I have offered a free corner of my storage unit for the group to store the boxes of high-graded material soon to be donated to another FOL group 50 miles to the north, which is starting its own shop and needs good stuff to get off the ground.

I am so incurably mercenary I can't stand the thought of any possibly valuable volumes being lost, even though the idea of returning to my old bookseller daze makes me queasy. It was something I did while my mind recovered from emotional breakdown mid-2000s, when I couldn't think well enough to do anything else. I enjoyed it. Eventually though my physical health broke down, too, and in 2010 I got rid of my entire 20,000-volume stock to make space in my hovel and to rest for a few years. I can't believe I'm into it again, but the profit potential when one is knowledgeable is seductive - especially if, like me, one is barely surviving on minimum-wage dole while attempting to create "art."

Flat dry heat and relentless hammer of UVs returns. The plants burn and curl no matter how moist the soil.

I dreamed last night of an old African woman who fed the famished inhabitants of the drought-stricken interior from the gardens around her hut beyond the mountains, in a green moist crescent up against the sea and sand.

Nights chock full o' dreams lately - New Moon.

Yesterday was midsummer gift of overcast and cool breezes. Soft and almost unreal. Gratitude was boundless. I had been reduced to sobs last week to see my outdoor canopy and umbrella thrashed and smashed by wind and my plants deer-nibbled. The oppressive heat and sere desiccating everything, my brain, my skin. I couldn't water hard enough to make it up.

I feel better now, indoors working and determined to keep detached from results of yard work. I water, I cultivate, but I no longer invest hope. We redouble our efforts to escape the grim desert plateau we've been confined to for far too long.

Set back to work on opus part 3, which will be done now in a minute and lobbed into those offices all unprepared to receive it. Resume was updated and cleaned up, but I find I can recall no reference names from back in the day, and the venerable Rolodex has gone missing. So - stalled. Again.

When you give birth there is a stage just before crowning called "transition" where many mothers weaken and give up, ask for drugs, anthing, in their fear. They are told, always, "Too late. It's almost over." And so it is, in a joyful rush.

And that seems an apt metaphor for this work: I grow discouraged, convinced of my words' unworthiness, and certain I labor under delusion. Then I pick up one of these biographies and learn that every hopeful artist gets to that point - repeatedly, with some - and gives up, goes underground, hits the rails, whatever, to escape his or her failure. That's when, inevitably, everything comes clear, and the work gels.

I must remember that.

Rare high desert midsummer gray, cool soft skies wrapping us in kindness.

I have deserted Sylvia after several months of trailer life. Made my bed in the Little-Big-House livingroom instead, and the past two nights I have slept (sort of) back in my creatures' midst. Awoke today with all five cats and one dog pressed against me, very welcoming.

I have taken this room over now during the day. If I need complete isolation for some work that actually begins to flow, Sylvia is available, but such a creative breakthrough seems unlikely. I polish old work here, and, yes, polish my resume as well. It's time to get real. The thyroid supplements have taken hold at last and it's time to earn money again somehow now that I have clarity of thought and vigor of body.

My tower computer died briefly last week, refusing to power up. I had written it off and resigned myself to iPhone computing until a laptop could be acquired - how, I couldn't imagine - but then a brainstorm sent me cracking open the computer case and hunting around for a tiny gray button somewhere in the innards. Sure enough, a quick press of the PRAM reset got the beast back to its feet, and it looks as though we're good to go for a while longer. I haven't had to reset a PRAM for 15 years ... I'd all but forgotten about it.