I sent off the Nietzsche response paper to my advisor (who has been M.I.A. for days now) and I have moved on to Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving. I engaged Thus Spake Zarathustra from the vantage point of N's rejection of the doctrine of sublimation as I mentioned I would. It turned out okay, I think.

Fromm's contention is that the theory and the practice of love, and the necessity to be a master of each of these realms is what prevents most people from ever reaching their full capacity to love another. Who has time? Oh, and drug addiction and the obssesive quest for an orgasm? One in the same. It makes sense. The man is not anti-sex or pro drugs, he's simply pointing out that all forms of release and high are our attempts to stave off isolation.

Speaking of wonderful books, Catchka's birthday presents [to me] arrived today. Emerson's Collected Journals and Jane Austen's last completed work, Sandition. I could not be more thrilled... now I just have to make time to read them!

After I got home tonight I set about putting some things away on my bookshelf and I came across the birthday card my father sent me this year, written in his shaky script. I had been looking for it for days, so of course I found it in an unguarded moment, when it was the last thing on my mind. In it, he said he loved me and signed it as he did every card, with the year in quotes "06."