September

Real Magic

There’s Something about riding the express bus to Tacoma: zipping along 10 feet off the ground with the view streaming past. From up here even the chain-link roadside fences decorated with potato chip bags & plastic sacks look scenic—especially when you’re listening to some great tunes through the headphones.

The world stretches out as if crouching to receive your weight—how about a piggyback ride! Smoke cushions the distance & spirits away the mountain. (Funny, it was there yesterday.)

A road ascends a hill & you would give 10 years of your miserable life to fly up that hill, if only in a dream. But before you can even cry “wait,” it’s gone. Passed into the past.

Another song, another scene. It all delights: even the pre-fabs and the reader boards, & no prospect [pro spect] but the unimaginative, unintelligent, uninspired un-something blight of hometown, Parkland. Pierce County, Pierced to the heart. Being there sucks, but getting there is a trip.

Look: the faded green crown of a maple tree, a black crow like a mild oath or half-hearted curse. A rude retort. Dead tall grass combustible yellow.

Isn’t this where I came in?

15^th Avenue Starbuck’s 9/15/02

How Perfect? Too Perfect

One clear day after another, maybe a little haze but that's part of the package, right? Out in the morning cool at 8 or so to find the kids waiting for the schoolbus. The little dark-haired girl, about 6, with the big pink backpack says, "He's not my friend." to her grandmother, the way-faded, sour-mouthed blonde who gives (me) such bad service at the QFC Deli. It's yellow like butter, the light, & soon will be clarified to trumpet-color.

I like! I walk around all brisk, ignoring the plaintive groans of my ancient feet. Something small-good happens (won $4 on a scratch) & everything is transformed. All is well & all is going to be better. Really, now I'm sure of it, I know. My luck will turn & I'll find a decent place to live & start taking, oh I don't know, dance or yoga classes or I'll start swimming & shed my chubby bell, and get my notebooks (or something) published & be cured of all my ills (including the jowls) & will take off for the wide world.

Don't you think?

Meanwhile, today I have enough $ to go to the store & buy the things I couldn't afford yesterday, and that's a kind of beatitude. (Not to be confused w/ the bee-attitude. Busy, buzzy, dancing, stinging if disturbed & then dying.)

Olive Way/former Boston Market «Bux 9/17/02

Back Again

Goethe wanted more light. Man, he should have come here! Because there is enough light to float him to heaven, & plenty left to dazzle me coming down the hill on big throbby feet. We love this time of year, Goethe & I. Warm & bright during the day & cool enough at night even for feverish hot-flash me. When I wake up, even if I surface vaguely disgruntled, the comforter gives comfort. Some. Nights are long. I dream flat (or shallow) dreams & never remember more than a situation or a character. The extravaganzas of yesteryear have gone south, along with my libido. Odd, this woman business. And no one tells. (Or do people tell & no one wants to hear?)

If I were that girl over there with the top-gathered reddish brown hair & Julia Roberts smile, I wouldn't care. I wouldn't believe. No, even if you can remember the change from girl to woman, you won't believe.

Olive Way«Bux 9/18/02

Out Tonight

The 6 to 7 p.m. lingerlight angled over, and everybody who can is out enjoying it. I like the couple just outside the windows, 2 of the portly (she with serious-rimmed glasses & slick-into-a-bun hair). I like them because they suddenly start laughing & doing weird rhythmic things with their arms.

*

Thinking of JHY whith wom (with whom) I sat practically at this very table (2 tables down actually) & how he told me he couldn't write for nobody (or—implicit—for just himself). So he kept a sort of online journal directed to a friend until the friend told him to quit it. It's twue, JHY, you're too much. Maybe he doesn't understand process? B'which I mean sketching. Turning the world into squiggly lines. To try to describe what it's like to live in the shadow light of equinoctial nights. Dim, that's what. And the bleached blonde punkie in the black motorcycle jacket sitting on the bick, the bike rack. Just a rail. [drawing] Butt (ha!) a place to balance (yer butt) & feet on the rail. Or is that the dog-tying rack? Dog & bike? Multi-purp. Bi-crack!

15th Ave «Bux 9/20/02

Uwajamiya with Carol Canter

Two nights in a row now, I've dreamed, clever me. Maybe from turning off the fan at 3 a.m.? They aren't good dreams, but I'm pleased to know I can still make pictures with my brain.

I dreamed Carol Canter was visiting with her 2 daughters. We went to Uwajamiya which was a big labyrinthine wood building/market in Oakland. Chaotic & crowded. There were details (I think the shops were like the commercial exhibition space at the Puyallup fair, combined with a souk. In other words, a fire trap.) but I don't remember them now. Carol was just as the last time I saw her, only she was somebody else too.

*

I'm not Spinoza, which is okay, but I'm not Rembrandt either. I wish I could draw. Heck, I can't even photograph very well. I wonder when it all drifted away.

Of course it didn't all drift away at one moment. "It" drifted away in bits. Like milkweed fuzz.

15th Ave «Bux 9/21/02

Crazed Eggheads

"Now here's a funny thing," the man who was something like my dad said. He wasn't exactly like my dad because I can't imagine Dad saying anything quite like that. And it wasn't Uncle Lloyd either, though he'd certainly be a candidate for speaker. So, who was it? Somebody's dad. Maybe Sheila's? Maybe it was someone imaginary or read-of, say Julian Huxley, blabbing on, thinking (mistakenly) that he was fascinating Greta Garbo. Greta would wear a bunch of carrots at her waist like a cluster of vege-dildos, at least for picnics.

Maybe that's what Julian thought was a funny thing (he didn't know the half of it). Except Julian being a VSM (very smart man) didn't notice much what was going on around him when he was among humans. He only noticed the girl(s) he most wanted to impress.

Nature's way.

*

Now there's a funny thing. —Maybe I said it.

*

Remember Ariana, the girl with the face bones? Nobody knew what she thought either (so they thought she couldn't think), nobody except me—& I hardly knew the half of it. But unlike a Very Smart Male, I knew I didn’t know.

What does beauty matter, and why? It's pan-cultural among humans, but is it just or even mostly based on signs indicating health? (Fine bones aren't any healthier than coarse ones...) Do the chimps have aesthetic preferences? Do other animals? Dogs? Cats? (All cats believe themselves nonpareil!)

[I'm worried about Lee.]

15th Ave «Bux 9/21/02

Lee Had a Doctor's Appointment

It was today, but I suppose they won't know anything until the test results are in (he hasn't told me what, if anything, hurts, so all I have to go on is how thin & miserable he looks.)

Worry tends to stop all my other (non-worry) thoughts in their tracks. In fact, they leap behind bushes while worry struts.

The days run down the drain now that the sun has left these parts (7:30 last night).

So I worry, instead of writing Weird Essays, using my many house-litter [letter-litter] note pads with phrases such as Stepping Back written 6 to a page. And it all means something. Though I suppose even nonsense means... Well, it means foolishness, Shakespeare's fool, comic relief and— Nonsense; 1 sleeve up, 1 sleeve down: Anne Margaret's sweeping un-uniform.

BM «Bux 9/23/02

Still September

There's a Name for That

And it's not onomatopoeia or splut! Maybe it is onomatopoeia, name-making. Labeling, the old Adamic pastime, assigned for to please the old Adam (says old Eve) (All-Hallowed Eve). (It wasn't until all the animals and plants were named that Adam started to mope.) The needed name is to describe/define the mental state of two-fold, i.e., both the mood oscillation and the conviction (which wavers) that it means something. Also to the waver itself. (It's a waver! It's a particular!)

Mut (Mutti!) for Mut-ability. Or mute - ability (The skill for Saying No More) Who has it?

Point: She has it. Philomela (& her sister too!) Jug jug said Mr. Eliot.

I'll say no more.

BM «Bux 9/24/02

No Name Trees Filter the Twi-Light

And my unfavorite crazy (Charley Manson #3) sits down right outside my window. The stillness of evening gathers. He leaves. I rejoice. He comes back! I...gar, we've been through this before. What does it say, that I always (okay, often) have only a pane of glass (I was going to say a page of sass) between me & the mad? —Well, we all live in cities, we all love coffee. Crazy homeless people need a place to sit.

"He's there all the time," the nice blonde girl in the green apron says. "Then he's not following me?" I ask. She sidles away. I want to see Lee, but it's only Wednesday, so I came down the hill & ate cake.

Broadway «Bux 9/25/02

It Doesn't Stop

Which is, of course, "its" strength & my weakness. I catch a pretty part—catch sight of a pretty part—as it were, on the fly, & I want to grab it, keep it, but what I catch is never quite the bushtit of paradise that I saw hopping around in the jacaranda tree.

Even I. (Especially I, for if all this fluency isn't washing through my apertures, then where? Everywhere.) I will stop, after one or two (or three hundred or four thousand) more attempts to catch "it" — or some fragment, vestige, hint, thrill, shadow or riff. And then...how odd the mind is. Truly Buddha, but a screen. No, not only a screen. A screen in 2 senses (in 6 senses) as well as the beam of light piercing the darkness. The theater itself, the audience. But: what about the film, the projector, the projectionist—a bored skinny guy reading pulp magazines. (Who? Izzy? Iggy? I can see him.…but I don't think it does to extend this metaphor too far.)

Caffe Ladro 9/27/02

Frog Singing

Even a Frog singing "I'm Looking Over a 4-Leaf Clover" doesn't sound quite cool, though it might if you didn't know the song is/was/is a part of mind-mincing & macerating popular culture from the 50's. I got minced & macerated the first time around, thanks.

And now I want an inflow & upsurge of shing- shing shining light life likeness. Darkness lysis. And a vision (Hey, why do you think they're called visions?) (See? See??) I see the yellow light. Light yellow light like expensive butter, no color added. The very best.

*

I've been waking up again (badly this morning because of the 500 drunken idiots milling around outside & all of them revving their stupid engines & roaring up Mercer). I turned off my fan too soon, had to get up & switch it back on. But then I went back to sleep & dreamed that Meredith Getches was wearing an Indian/Paki dress (like that blue-purple one I got at Cost Plus in 1973 or so, only long) & a head scarf. It was to spite everyone, I think. Then I woke up all mushy & relaxed like I used to get—and I got up actually feeling pretty good, as if everything was all right. Well, that didn't last long in my cage, but still. To wake up any way but full of dread...it's enough to give a girl—hope.

BM «Buck’s 9/28/02

None For Me, Thanks

That's what I said again & again, and they wouldn't listen. In fact, they laughed. And here I am—still & always/ever—so I suppose they knew what they were laughing about. The joke's on you.

And you and you and you.

But not on my kids, the ones I didn't have (o what a good girl am I). And now don't I bear my tribulations with...

sweet & sour sauce. Hold the plums. No, but I do bear my tribs & hardly complain at all. I do, however, look daggers at cell-phone boors.

*

It's the first day of Jacket. I hot-footed it over to the Montlake Library wearing my coat & did not get too warm. Did not sweat.

Last night I dreamed an awful woman at the temp job (sort of cross between RTA & PLU Library) told me I'd gotten a telegram that I could pick up after 7 & I realized this was their sneaky way of asking me not to come back & when I tried to tell the woman that all they had to do was say so, she snapped, "Get over it." like I was protesting being fired—when I didn't care about their stupid job anyway.

*

Cool & quiet—my idea of heaven. Just add Tomas. Sleep on my pillow? Sure, you can sleep on my pillow. I'll make room.

No word from Lee.

OW «Bucks 9/30/02

October 2002

The word No

I got Lee on the phone today. He has AIDS. He sounded funny, tho I'd never talked to him on the phone before—& didn't he tell me he doesn't like to talk on the phone either? It may be the drugs. He tells me he's on em, but not what kind. So I was talking to him & also not, I mean he isn't as he was. I don't know what to do. Run away? Assume that Katherine will be there for him—when she has a 6 month old baby? Or Liz or John or somebody I don't even know about?? I know he has a lot of web/email friends. So, how bad is he? I guess I just need to ask him and hope he'll tell me the truth. He's going to a specialist tomorrow (Should I just butt in where I'm—possibly—not wanted. I've got a real aversion to that, all the way back to childhood. I don't know what to do, & so the temptation is to do nothing.

OW «Bux 10/1/02

The Leaves are Falling

, she said, and burst into tears.

Everyone says 'burst' though it is not necessary plosive. Song (Song? "Lean on me/when you're not strong/I'll be your friend/I'll help you carry on...") makes me cry too. What I meant was sometimes I sink, melt, droop, or flop into tears. Sometimes I sing—and choke. Sometimes I just put my hands over my face. Or look down, so the tears, if they fall, fall on the table, on my hands, on my book.

I'm not really a wet cryer though, more a screw-up-the-face-&-gulper. Right now, I'm choking on my cake & I hope Deanna doesn't come in & ask me anything because I don't think I could Maintain. And I don't want to see Paul-Pablo at all, for I could not provide the usual foolishness.

*

Front moved in last night. Warm & wet. It poured like the "pineapple juice" rain in Hawaii. It stopped in the afternoon, but now it's started misting. Full dark at 7. And I looked at the calendar & saw where DST ends at the end of the month, which reminds me of when apt. manager John Fitch died.

*

Lee didn't go to the specialist yesterday, his appointment was today. He got a ride with a friend but wouldn't let anyone keep the appointment with him, though I told him 2 heads are better. I guess he's like a cat. Maybe I can get him to let me go to the next appointment.

OW «Bux 10/3/02

Escapist

To escape the unpalatable present (reality is sour with a bitter after-taste) I have been reading about volcanoes—Mt. Vesuvius to be exact. How nice to contemplate 2000 year old catastrophes. So I don't have to think about my friend who's going to

I'm sitting in "his" store but not on "his" shift because he used to leave at 6 on Fridays & I have to wonder at how stoical he was to keep on going for so long. And how I wish he hadn't been so stoical so he would have seen a doctor sooner.

You know how it is when I get a bad feeling: I have a bad feeling about this.

The boys here tonight (2 Af-Am, gay I think, cute) (one tall & slender, the color of mild chocolate, the other short with a butter-yellow bleach job), the 2 "boys" (ah, wait, I mean men, men), they are making each other laugh.

If I weren't weepy, I'd be enjoying their banter, but I feel, as it were, though a glass, laceratingly.

*

I had tea with Anne W. this afternoon—she was fresh from the Bad-Vibe Department, as the OHE has become. I left my bag draped over my chair but it was still there when I went back. Then I walked all the way down First Ave to Cost + & saw Tourists & Shoppers but took no notice. The elephant keeps blocking the view. I have to go call Lee.

15th Ave «Bux 10/4/02

Getting Used to It

If I could just tilt my head like that dog out there (Lee knows her name, I can't ever remember it), the one who belongs to the shy bald but young guy, you know, the one who never meets your (my) eye. My eye. Well, if I could tilt my head & wag my tail, then somebody'd give me a bicky too. Luckily I can buy my own cake. I mean since I can't look winsome, it's lucky...etc.

*

Sunday & 2 girls I've never seen before are working counter at the Sunday Starbucks. (I'll have to come in on Sat. to see if Jared still works here). So I'll get used to the new people—again—& make friends...or not.

*

Anti-(Iraq) war rally today. I missed it. Saw the people coming back. They're still coming back.

Oh, & here comes Hilda. Here goes me.

15th Ave «Bux 10/6/02

Guess What I'm Doing

Can't guess? Think I'm chasing my nonsensical muse? Can you tell by the growth of my slump that the short days have poked holes in my sugar sacks? The color bleeds away & the sky turns white. Cars have their headlights on. My slump increaseth.

Who's no slouch? Slouching is okay, slouching is appropriate. Slouching is nothing to be ashamed of.

Oh shut up.

Day is dying in the west. It's long gone from the east. Hey, it's a female who drives the sun-car. It's females who pilot those silver Zeppelins. It's a female who brought you here. (But you get to leave by yourself. Go west. Go south. Just go.)

*

Busy BM/OW Starbucks on an October night. How many Asians studying? Many.

BM/OW Starbucks 10/7/02

Rip It, Rip It Good

I bring with me one of my many lists of jotted ideas (gee, it seemed brilliant when it flared up in my brain…) & before the list fades to invisibility, I think I’ll put it here—for the sake of the record, you know. Then I’ll take the sheet & rip it from the tablet & send it to the pulpers:

List says:

Lumpen: a family history. (my view of the Ellingsons of Parkland, Washington)

*

Mind Stuff – Glimpses

Well that includes quite a bit, doesn’t it. My mind is like an oversize bureau with 6 long junk drawers. Reach in your hand & you could pull out anything.

*

Stepping Back

—This is me in my abstracting ability/proclivity, all over. But I’ve already written about it. S&S (short/succinct) in the 1998 notebook.

*

What’s so funny. —Completely dried up, that one has.

*

Culturally: Male is public, Female private.

-Female stuff represents the unconscious. Male the conscious. Female “monstrous” stuff (harpies, medusa, witches) is the return of the repressed/feared. And the stuff culture builds bulwarks against ® i.e. death

OW «Bux 10/8/02

Stupid Thing I Did

Now, it wasn't as stupid as unplugging an on coffeemaker while wearing a bunch of keys around my wrist; and not as stupid as diving into a thermal spring at Yellowstone to rescue a dog, though my stupid thing did involve animals: I stepped into a feline (Mexican) stand-off –& they was pretty much nose to nose & spiked up to double size & didn't I just get well clawed about the calf. (That's another animal.) Deeply snagged in two spots, and that was despite heavy denim pants. Well, I guess my immune system will get a little work-out. T.G. I wasn't bitten, you know how dirty cat teeth are.

*

October overcast & I walked up the hill to avoid the throng at Olive Way *Bucks. I forget that this one (15th Ave) is a nice place to sit, when I can avoid Hilda, or don't care—tonight I don't care. Not the same as when Lee was making me laugh, though I read back to August of 1998 when I started calling him by name & how the fun increased—incrementally. And how now the fun has decreased—excrementally. Sarah & Trish are working tonight & they don't mention Lee, so neither do I. What's that hideous troll on my back? Oh, that's—nothing.

*

This morning I got a buzz from Jana raving (well mildly) about the N.B. extract I sent her from a year ago (the part with Carole G. picking her nose). I told her I could send her enough to choke a horse. No, I didn't. I'm sending her the 7 pages I typed; that should be enough to make her cry "Basta!"

Then I found a stupid mistake on "Riches & Wealth." Something about how most people are not unable to refrain from something-or-other. Huh? Then the cat slashed my pant leg. Next time, I'll run at them, barkin like a dawg! Or mind my own bidness. (That will be the day.)

*

But the light is so mellow & warm in here that I don't even mind that the coffee is burned & the music brassy (Count Brassie, I think). It’s pretty quiet. All studious white people, young folks. No, I'm a liar: one Asian (and Sue: Sue wearing a cretin-cap. Fits)

15th Ave «Bucks 10/9/02

Filter

Or light meter...and love thermometer. Dim & cool today (ever-day we have-a the weather!). An overcast that didn't rain on me, but also didn't blow apart to reveal the face o God. Except for 5 seconds (but I was there!) The face of G. beamed on the red-turning maple tree/torch & made me almost forget for a moment that Lee is being evasive & untruthful on the phone. He keeps saying he hasn't been to the doctor yet. First the appointment was Monday, then no, Wednesday, then, no this afternoon. So, he's lying or he's already getting demented.

Maybe it's just the drugs....

*

Into the café to find new counterguys: very pleasant guy and gal & Trish doing the bathroom. Marcus tells me the work problems (Linda, the round-faced Af-Am woman has been acting crazy & won't talk, oh dear) (I bite my tongue about Lee—I know he wouldn't want me blabbing). Then Marcus leaves & the high metal roof creaks, making me look up suspiciously—say, do you think this would be a safe place in an earthquake?

Happy old-time music on the speaker ("Good morning Good morning" & "Hallelujah c’mon, get happy" —I do NOT yell "shut up, you dizzy broad," but I don't c’mon & get happy either.

15th Ave «Bucks 10/10/02

Coffee in Fragaria

There I was in Fragaria (a sort of Sausalito ghost town) for my newest temp job, off somewhere, maybe in the industrial part of town, so I stopped at the coffeehouse to get a cup of joe. Well, it was rather like the Meat Market only tacky broken wood & falling down (unkempt hippie concern) –& do you think I could get a simple cup of coffee? Would the space-case guys who worked there even take my order? Like the coffee urns were broken & they were dithering & meanwhile, I knew I was already late for work. But I really wanted my cup of joe.

That was yesterday. It was misty but I didn't get rained on. Cool & over too quickly. Then it was night again & I only woke up twice, but let the dreams go back under the pillow—and it was today.

Cold in the morning, so cold that after a walk (for the air and all) I got my gloves out. But by the time I went to meet Liz at 3, the sun had warmed things up.

I go along feeling pretty good, but every so often I step in a hole, one about a foot deep. Jarring.

I read but my mind wanders. I write but get tired after 3 sentences. My eyelids itch. Hilda comes over & tells me about her husband dying—all I catch is that it was 9 years ago (& I had to ask).

I talked to my Liz (she gave me a coat) & to the other Liz (she's going to see Lee tomorrow).

I wanted salami today, but I didn't have any. That's the kind of day it's been. Also Library evil: I forgot my disks at home & a stupid fat swarthy man annoyed me. What annoyed me was the fact that the hapless neophyte listened to him talk rubbish in preference to my good sense.

15th Ave «Bucks 10/11/02

Just Like Life

My dreams have returned, I'm glad to say. But not all of them. I haven't had a smutty or even romantic one for, I swear, a year. So they were caused by hormones too? I wonder what-all those chemicals do, I mean, I know they make you run mad & mate mate mate...but how? (Don't even bother with why, the answer to that is Because. Because I am/was the Life Force's patsy. Yes, call me Patsy.)

*

And Why might be the story of my life.

To love your god with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself (i.e., with at least half a heart). I think things go better with a reason, so or but/and could I come around to a god I could love...if it had to be OK'd by my intelligence (intellect + [plus]) (wisdom)?

Hagia Sophia

Is that (She) Mom Nature in a girdle? No. More like Mrs. Santa Claus. Veuve Cliquot. My best grandma in her best mood. Not the sow goddess. (To appreciate the sow goddess, you have to raise pigs.)

*

Clean October day, the slow fire of turning trees. Sun gone, leaving the sky blue white. The color of Ruh.

15th Ave «Bux 10/12/02

DextroCardia

That means my heart's in the right place, or it means my heart is on the wrong side. Levo = sinister, which might be a frightful kind of flight—for Halloween is coming. It's in the air. Brume & leaves. Much leaf-scuffling here on earth. Much brightness falling. Actually the leaves tend to be on the brown side of bright, because of the overcast sky (or my overcast eye?).

*

Down to my last $20 plus the quarter jar & the scroungings, last night I bought a scratcher of a new game, the kind with a "tripler" & scratched the square that said Triple, so I knew I had at least $3. This morning I scratched the rest—& won $90. I did not dance a jig of triumph, or even a smirky chaconne, but I certainly cheered up. And went food shopping.

Now think how obnoxiously cheery I would be if everything went my way. (No, I wouldn’t, I wouldn't. Try me. Try me. I'll be humble like a god. [True gods are so humble, we don't even notice them underfoot.]).

I still had to beg Mom for $200, but I'm not sweating it until the money comes. I asked her if they thought the Washington DC sniper was the one who shot up their cars last April. She didn't know, but she wants him dead.

Kay comes in & I give her a chance to feel good because she's off & I'm not. And there she goes. feeling good, I hope.

15th Ave «Bux 10/27/02

Coming Back Around

A day free, an extra day free as the year shuts down around us. If we don't go, we'll be left sitting in the dark.

Dreaming of the dead. Ghosts. When you consider the success of the most successful religions, the big 4 or 5 & the selling of them by the sold-on, what strikes this observer is: how they spread like (another) memic virus. Another example of how suggestible we are. (We people.) Now, dy’a think we are more suggestible for lies & snares & hokum ("snake oil") than for — well, for what? The plain truth? Nature's Law(s). It would seem so.

Now consider adherents of religions that are freely chosen: converters. What needs are satisfied: Faith, I'm faltering. For what can you say. In 16th century England, despite the monolithic sway of the Church, some doubted –and some paid little attention. Life as she is lived & “reality” as it is thought. Maya.

15th Ave «Bux 10/28/02