One of my first memories is riding in the backseat of our family’s Oldsmobile station wagon through southern New Mexico, along I-10. We were somewhere between Deming and Lordsburg and Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton were singing about islands in a stream. Momma, Annie, and I were returning home to Sierra Vista, Arizona after visiting…

I’m in the office by myself most days. I have a lot of time to think. Everyone is nice. Mr. Olsen — the man who owns the dairy — is, I’d guess, in his sixties. He is tall with lots of grey hair and a big pot belly. He wears overalls everyday with a plaid,…

It’s been almost four weeks since I moved to Brownwood, three weeks starting at the dairy. I moved into a house near the college that’s in town. The house is older — it’s one of those short, flat houses with small square windows with air conditioning units in each of them. But, it’s brick and…

I’ve gone to church the past couple weeks that I’ve been here. Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings with my roommates. I don’t have anything else to do so I go and sit quietly in the pew.  The sermon last week was on the fall of man. Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge.…

I started work on the first of the month at a dairy outside of town. I’m the office manager. I work in a converted old house next to the dairy sheds. When you walk into the house at the front, the dairy owners converted the living room at the front of the house into a…

It’s been five months since I’ve been here. Writing in this stupid little diary. But, so much has happened. I moved to Brownwood earlier this month to work as the office manager on a small dairy just outside of town.  I worked on the same farm where I worked last summer and saved enough money…

It’s been two years since I started this diary. Seven months since she died. I’ve had two birthdays. She would’ve had a birthday, too. Just a couple months ago. The days will continue to pass whether she’s in them or not, and eventually, I’ll be lost, too.  I was an entirely different person, and I…

Baby was cremated. My joy. My sorrow. All of it with her. I still don’t understand what happened. She was here, we heard her crying, cooing, and laughing throughout the day, even the day before she got sick. The walls in our house are so thin that she could be heard in every room of the…

Baby’s gone. She died last week. She lived inside of me and out in the world for only nine months, and now she’s gone.  She started getting sick on Sunday evening, but I didn’t think anything of it. She was tired and fussy. She had a fever, but babies have fevers all the time. So…

I went to town today and picked up an application for college. I’m going to apply and major in English. It’s too late to start for the fall but I can get ready to go in the Spring. Besides, it’ll give me time to get everything set up. I’m thinking that I’ll take just a…