I tried to chase it by lifting the stovetop so that I could peer down into the gridwork of the burners, where the pilot lights are, but as soon as I did so I saw it dart from one corner to another, and then disappear down behind the stove, where there’s a gap between the oven and the wall. After that I no longer saw it, though I looked and listened carefully for a few minutes. He’d been brownish in color, and very small, and I felt no hostility toward him.

Last night I saw the mouse in person, with my own two eyes, rather than just the little black pellets it has been leaving here and there, as evidence of its existence. What happened was that I came out to the kitchen when the house was dark, after I’d already gone to bed, and when I turned on the light I saw it scurry across the counter and onto the stovetop, and then down through an opening in one of the burners and into the stove itself.

It snowed again most of the day. I drove in the afternoon to a bookstore that specializes in science-fiction literature, and it was nice, but not very well-stocked. I looked for works by Philip K. Dick, but they didn’t have any. Nor any by Arthur C. Clarke, or Samuel Delany, or Ray Bradbury, or Isaac Asimov. They did have a few by Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood. The genre they appeared to carry most was what is referred to now as ‘Fantasy’. Which I do not mean to look down on, but which generally I don’t think is very good, or anyway very serious. The only exception I can think of are the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, though perhaps there are others that I’m forgetting, or am unaware of.

This morning I’m going to Home Depot to buy some mouse repellant, for the mouse or mice that have been making themselves at home in A.’s and my kitchen. I don’t want to get a mousetrap, to kill them, but just something to deter them and keep them away. Though if they don’t in fact keep away, after I’ve used the repellant, I’ll have to rethink my strategy. I think I already mentioned I need the cats out here.

Our house is on a corner, and the neighbors whose property is behind ours, on the other side of an alley, have two dogs and a cat. I stopped by their house yesterday with a bouquet of flowers I’d purchased at one of the grocery stores here in town, because, while A. and I were away, these neighbors collected our mail for us, so that our mailbox would not have overflown, or become overstuffed. While I was in there I sat with them a few minutes in their parlor, and caught up with them about various things, mainly about what A.’s and my plans are, with regard to coming out here to Cheyenne on a more permanent basis. Though I had to admit to them that we still do not know to what extent we will be out here, rather than back in New York, as we have not yet been able to make that determination.

After that I walked the rest of the way uneventfully. I saw only two other pedestrians. Once, while passing a house that had a tall, wooden fence along the perimeter of its yard, I was barked at by a dog who I could glimpse only fleetingly through the slats in the planking. I said hello to it, but did not turn toward it, or otherwise pause to greet it, for fear of aggravating it with my presence and my voice. Although I don’t think it was being aggressive, just territorial.

At a certain point in that walking, just before the road I was following met up with the outer edges of the neighborhoods and the town, I arrived at a train crossing whose gates had been lowered and whose bells were sounding, and whose lights were flashing, as a locomotive in the rail yard there, on the tracks, shunted cars back and forth, so that I found myself standing on the sidewalk for ten or fifteen minutes, watching the proceedings.

Earlier, in Denver, after my plane had landed and I’d disembarked and had made my way through the concourse to where the shuttles wait, outside the terminal, I’d rented a car from a location near the airport, and had driven the ninety miles or so, up through the northern part of Colorado, along the interstate, to Wyoming; so that this morning, not long after I’d woken, I’d returned that same car to a branch office here in Cheyenne, about a mile from where A. and I live, and had walked home along a quiet winding street out near the highway.

I couldn’t find time to write yesterday, as I was traveling west most of the morning and afternoon, and then was occupied with certain tasks once I’d arrived in Cheyenne, which had been my destination. The battery of the vehicle that A. and I keep at the house out here was dead, so I had to arrange for AAA to come out and jump it. Then, to make sure the battery kept its charge, once the AAA guy had departed, I drove around town for an hour or two, listening to the radio and not stopping anywhere I’d need to turn off the ignition.

After I’d showered and gotten dressed, and had had something to eat, I sat down at my laptop and tried to write, and did write a little, though at some point I was distracted and spent much of the afternoon looking online for publishers to whom I might send my fiction manuscript, Whiskey for the Holy Ghost. I do this from time time, whenever it occurs to me to do so. If the manuscript is ever accepted for publication, I’ll be very happy.

When I came back up to the apartment and opened the door, one of the cats tried to escape into the hall, but I caught him just before he was able to maneuver around my legs, causing him to meow indignantly.

This morning I went down to the exercise room on the second floor of A.’s and my building and lifted some weights and rode the stationary bike. It was my first time doing so in about a week. I’m starting to feel better. While I was on the bike, pedaling, I looked at the wall and at the strange, accidental forms that certain details in the paneling seemed to evoke, or that my brain seemed to arrange and suggest to me, as I perceived the areas in which they appeared. And I thought then of those inkblots that psychologists show to their patients to assess their mental health, or to infer something about their personality, based on how those patients describe them.

Maybe by acknowledging it I’m able to get rid of it, or anyway to place it in front of me, so to speak, so that I can deal with it in a way that isn’t hostile to my mental health. Though I’m not certain I believe that statement, or that it even needs to be true in order that the writing of these entries have the validity I want them to have. Meaning, not every act of journaling needs to produce its own aesthetic or therapeutic reward. Sometimes all one needs to do is convey information.

I know I’ve spoken of this feeling more than once, in these entries, and I suppose that’s just the way it is, that I’ll speak of it at recurring moments, or at intervals, not because I want to be tedious but because I don’t know how else to manage the feeling when it arrives.

I just took a basket of laundry down to the first floor of A.’s and my building, where there’s a room of washers and dryers that residents can use. No one was in there except one of the women who is employed in a maintenance capacity and who I often see and always say hello to. Now I’m back up in the apartment, waiting till it’s time to go down again and transfer the items from the washer to the dryer. I’m feeling vaguely useless and depressed.

The statuette in question I got from a gift shop at the shrine to Our Lady in Fátima, in Portugal, when I visited there with A. a couple years ago. It is a prefabricated item, made of a cheap material that is supposed to glow in the dark, and that does in fact glow somewhat, though not very strongly. On the statuette’s head is a little plastic crown that tends to fall off because the glue or adhesive with which it was attached has eroded. I will have to try to glue it again, with whatever product I can find here in the apartment, or at the house out in Cheyenne.

I’m still thinking of beginning that photo project that I’ve been talking about; I’ll write about it here in these entries if I do begin it. I’ll bring that statuette of Our Lady with me out to Cheyenne, in case I decide to start taking the photos out there.

On TV it’s been mostly inauguration coverage, so I’ve watched that. Now the coverage is over and I’m eating a piece of chocolate while trying to figure out what to write about next. I’m leaving for Cheyenne in a few days, so I’m feeling somewhat unable to fix my mind on anything very substantial, writing-wise, as I’m distracted by the prospect of my departure from the city.

I haven’t done much of anything today, but mostly have just lay on the couch in the apartment, watching TV. I’m starting to recover from the flu that I’ve had but I’m trying not to exert myself too much, or push myself more than is necessary, because I’m not all the way better yet and I don’t want to suddenly get worse again, which I could imagine happening, as I’m still quite fatigued, even if my body aches have resolved themselves, or gone away.

I may end up doing this, beginning in a few days, once I’m feeling better, who knows? Or I may end up not doing it at all. Though if I do end up doing it I hope that I’ll take it seriously, as a project, even if it might sound frivolous or absurd.