i'm reading jesse ball, autoportrait. i drift off the page. something hitches to a memory. i think of the kid on the corner in mt. zion who strangled animals, a pair of swans i heard, and then my turtle which i found strangled in a tree, hanging in a branch by the neck. he said it hung itself. i wonder what became of the kid, wonder what other creatures he killed, if he grew up to kill humans. this is macabre. the book is rather dark in spots too. the jacket days he's an absurdist, but it's a memoir. life is absurd when you think of it, though it's ordinary too, that makes it more absurd but it seems normal unless you read it or write it, then it becomes extraordinary, or absurd. i know the picture's creepy. i'm in a somewhat funereal mood. i know i've written the same things down over time but i trust that time changes memories even if they stay the same.