I'm about 20 pages into the catalogue of my books, much less than half-way. Of course, I have to stop and actually read some of them, so the process is fairly slow. I am going to find, I suspect, that I own more books by Leopoldo María Panero than I really need. He basically writes the same book over and over.

I still am missing books from my summer's move. I'm hoping the next move in October will restore these missing items to me. I have a nagging sense that one box of Very Important Stuff is lost forever.

***

Fish once diagnosed the self-loathing of academic humanists in "The Unbearable Ugliness of Volvos." There is a kind of contempt for what we ourselves do, most evident in a lowering of expectations. On some level we think we deserve our comparatively low salaries and windowless offices.

***

I'm beginning to think Olvido García Valdés is the Spanish poet of her generation, of my generation, that I need to read most assiduously from now on. There was a barrier I needed to get past to read her work, which can sound aloof or inconsequential at first. Two of her books are missing, though one I had very recently, after moving to the apartment, so I'm sure it will turn up.