Interference Pattern(s)

Interference Pattern(s)

The well-walked equinoctial well-being ( nuts pattering down from the trees like nuts in fall) sits down with the coffee & the song “Hey Now, (Don’t Dream it’s Over)” comes on, setting up a cross-pattern of memory/desire & the cortical itch when, hearing a song I know well, I can’t remember the Artiste. Can’t quite… I know it’s not David Bowie or Cheap Trick or REO Speedwagon or Bryan Ferry or Roxie Music or those guys whose album Laura Hazlett had).

But that’s what I end up thinking about (at angles, like in a net) instead of trying to tease out the supernatural good feeling (part of which is that I am a conduit of the energy flow in the field [“the field’ being that which more than there is not— ], in other words: Tat tvam asi.).

(Who’s it? I’m it.)

And all the little children go skipping down the sidewalk: they embody it without knowing it. And so do I.

The squirrels are acting squirrelly, and the nuts patter down from the trees.

*

I have an idea I want to broach to Lee: to get him to illustrate my Lee notebooks.

*

Did some work today: have a version of “Obtuse” that needs to sit, so I can see what must be fixed.

Meanwhile (you see what happens when you get to work), I think of pulling out Sue’s Father’s Death story and fixing it. And I don’t even like short fiction. (It’s that damned honesty, it’s ruined me.)

Bway«Bux 9/22/03

Same & Different

Which is another way of saying compare & contrast. Back at the 15^th Ave Starbucks just before sunset on a partly foggy fall day. Balancing the satisfaction of a day off & chores done (old clothes picked up! Laundry done! Volcano book read!) against the prick of a new sharp pain in my hip as I take my walk (better not try kicking at that particular prick.)

And thinking as some Starbuck’s managerial types (NY accents, blaah blaah blaah) go on over amongst the display racks—& Hilda appearing like a dream leprechaun (only in red) –thinking of Lee.

And it doesn’t only seem like it’s getting dark. It is getting dark.

15^th Ave «Bux 10/20/03

Ex Actitude

A hope: that the status quo will be maintained (5 people sitting, 5 in line, 6 counting the baby) , whitish evening sunset pre-glow & no Hilda. No music & no fork either, but I can live oh I can live. With that.

I finished the volcano book & now I’m reading the letters of Geo. Sand & Gus. Flaubert--& that’s why I am thinking (about) Exactitude. Gus’s big thing (one of em. I understand he had a big bottom too, at least according to a Goncourt. Which one? Oh, does it matter? [What Mme. Sand would say, sans doute])

*

The character of the quiet on Friday night: it makes me miss Lee. It could be his night off. I should have called him today, but I can do it tomorrow. He might be in Chicago. I’d like that.

*

To my left is a woman with long, honey-colored hair & dark lipstick reading the Stranger. There’s a man at the window corner (where the plant used to be—Lawrence, according to Lee), a man who looks familiar: baldish & mustached & glassed, jowled: he looks like I thought Tom M. looked before I decided he was Judy the Librarian’s consort. He also looks like that amiable librarian who used to work in Art & Music & knew a lot (about music). The one I see occasionally at the Convention Place metro platform—with his bike. So who is that bald, mustached, bespectacled guy over there tapping on his laptop?

Ans: I dunno.

15^th Ave «Bux 10/3/03

Pictures & Words

Not every picture tells a story. Not every string of words (even 10,000) will show you something. So.

So, is this worth going on about? The crowd clears out and I jump up to charge (in the electrical-monetary sense) my Starbux card. And get a sample of scotch-dry scone. Pumpkin doesn’t redeem the yesterday’s-porridge consistency. I eat my lemon cake (much better than a bit of scone) & even that is not enough to cheer me. Not enough to cheer me as much as I want to be cheered. Solaced? Then the cute lad studying Xerox sheets to my left turns around to ask how to pronounce “Hoisin” –it’s a sauce. I tell him a picture is worth six dim sum.

Outside, esp. under those pepper-like trees, it grows very dark (foggy all day) & my bright lamp makes a mirror of my window. Hey, it’s a clean, well-lighted place—a café.

And that reminds me of E. Hemingway & the cat in the rain & Junior Honors Lit & Larry Roshau & all the rubbish that got packed into my capacious head. I wonder if not getting it up was the worst thing that ever happened to Ernie until he found the words wouldn’t come (either).

*

I talked to Lee today. He was unlovable in his crabby mood I remember the days when I’d go into the café & not speak. He said he’d send me a picture, but I don’t care. I do love to fool myself. It’s the world’s rigor, I often bruise myself on it. I wish I could draw.

B’way «Bux 10/4/03

Ready to End

It, not me. I feel the call of, what’s Her name (Ate?) who wants: exalted valleys, tumbledown mountains. Cracked pavement. Wholesale destruction. Ruins

Well, they’ll get theirs, we’ll get ours. Or the fever (only not me or mine…or not yet.)

See, all the evil ranges further. I capitulate: Oh, let it.

*

Then it starts raining. Hard. There is a class of loud laughers in the Starbucks & I don’t share or wish to witness their merriment. Such loud merriment too.

Micah is show-biz. He draws out a girl from LA—a dancer. She doesn’t like the rain either.

Bway «Bucks 10/6/03

But Nature: She Goes On & On

Will she ever stop? It depends on what you mean by—no, not stop, we know what that means—what you mean by She. For the parts lie down and play dead (convincingly too) but her whole rolls on & on. I’ve said it before: individuals aren’t her thing, process (i.e. making more) is her thing.

So: There Always: Is More.

There is always more. Always there is more.

When I lie down (and Arlene—oh dear. She is having surgery in 10 days—a mass on her ovary), my legs ache, my hip hurts, there are pangs in my chest, and after I finish my lunch, I burp. Yes, it was chili. Tho sometimes it is fish oil. The pings & twanges in my right upper chest are the ones I don’t like. Oh, or the wall of rock in my descending color. Bah, get outside. Away from the bad vibe (EMR) in the apartment. Sky white in the west, pretty as post volcano, or pre-apocalypse. What does it mean? Rain? I dare say.

Wednesday eve at café:

Marcus looks at his watch, leaps up, folding his paper, says goodbye. Hearing Bach at the café always makes me wish I had better speakers at home. Oh—all the Things we do.

15^th Ave «Bux 10/8/03

Jaded Perfectionist

Not me! I came in from the rain (pitty, just starting but darkening day to night at 6 p.m.), thinking as I came around the corner of Group Health, wondering why that benevolent Asian smiled at me (is he Ben in a knit hat? Carrying mums?), but thinking about Mitsu Sundvall & the dispersal of objects. Things. Possessions. How we make & gather items that then take on something of us, as we take on something of them over time. Reflection in a sense. And when we die they are handed on, at which point they contain much/most of what remains of us. The dead are embodied their estates & in the memories of the living; the memories are quick but less substantial. The things are substantial but inert.

And so I was thinking about how Mitsu’s junky brother sold their grandmother’s Things to finance his habit. And so the things, in being sold, gave up her mana provenance. And so things become heirlooms & then junk or antiques & eventually (fire, earthquake, flood), most of it becomes dust & shards. Or archeological “finds.” And that’s why I love archeology. (Why? For treasure? No, for what things mean. Esp. when we don’t know what they, the things, meant.)

*

People. Our heads are full of this or that & the nature of the this/that determines what we do. There is a limit to what we can do, to our repertoire. (Can’t fly….) Today festination/czardas also led me to velocity & falling bodies: Icarus, Lucifer.

Can I sing?

*

The couple to my left distracts me with their jabber of studying Spanish. More jabber than Spanish.

Now, good hard rain, full darkness.

15^th Ave «Bux 10/11/03

Scintillating Scotoma

That’s what I get! So, I got look it up on the web & see a scary thing about glaucoma & retinal detachment (as well as the “horse” [as opposed to zebra] of migraine aura), because mine (at 10 this morning & lasting about 20 minutes) didn’t lead to or herald a headache. But, I remind myself that I could “see” it with each eye, covered, & in the same place. To the left, about 8 o’clock.

So what does that mean? I have ophthalmic or visual migraine.

Oh, I am a clever girl.

And then I found a 10 dollar bill on the floor mat at the 7-11, amongst the blown-in leaves. Windier than a mo-fo., with the sun shining through blown-along clouds. No cats to speak of though, & a long trek down to the O.W./B.M. *Bucks because Hilda was sitting in the 15^th Ave one (nice of her to wear a bright red jacket so I can see her right away—& keep on going) & the Bway store was packed. So I just kept going, stopping to read all the For Rent signs. Most are coy about price, but the big brick on Belmont had 1 bedrooms for $735. I should look harder up over the hill, but…oh my Achilles!

And there, reading the free Sunday paper, just a little more broken down than last time I saw her—the Great Appellant, Shirley Mesher. Should I say hello?

No

Olive Way «Bux 10/12/03

The Deep Thing

Feeling. I can describe (imperfectly) but not define. It settles like the owl of Minerva—& it might fly at dawn too, but I’m not out to summon. Or to pray. But when I walk out into a warm wind & the sky blows with due haste due North. And the world seems to be speaking to me—in signs, which is the way the world speaks. You have to be quiet & undistract to listen, to hear.

Then comes the re-action. Walk & feet hurt. The beautiful gray cat sees you & ducks back under the wall. You wind nothing. You come around the corner on 15^th by the Starbuck’s & there is Hilda heading straight for you. You dart left & go around the block, but as soon as you’ve got your coffee, there she is again.

The feeling fades. From deep to flat. From signal (signful?) to meaningless. You do not despair; you’ve done that & it bores you. You don’t hope either, cause you’ve don’t that & know where it leads. You ignore your feet & go back into the wild windy evening, thankful that no rain is falling.

15^th Ave «Bux 10/17/03