January 2003

Down Down Down

That's the rain, falling three times as hard as it ever does when it’s cold & blustery, a good soaking downpour that began when I was halfway up the hill by my old apartment. Just sprinkles when I came out of the Montlake Library, I caught a 48 bus along 23rd Ave & thought, observing the other passengers (huge fat white guy in exploding T shirt, little North African kids looking bored, picky middle-aged ladies looking depressed, hip-hop guys looking...stupid & criminal), I think I shoulda walked.

But when I came out of the Safeway (another public space I could do without), it was pouring & so I hopped on a 43 bus down the hill to the Olive Way Starbucks. Why didn't I go to the one on 15th? Because I had just run into Hilda in her same old polyester & decayed teeth, who told me she was on her way over. Okay, happy new year, see you around.

I get no mail. And when I get calls, I wish I hadn't (Liz wants ever to get together for coffee—at 9 a.m. That girl gets up too early.). I'm finishing typing up the 98-99 notebook & wondering if those unpleasant sensations in my chest (mostly, but one just now in my thigh!) mean anything. Anything about protracted suffering & death, I mean. High medical bills.

I'm gonna be sorry, I'm almost sure.

Olive Way «Bucks 1/2/03

Sure

It could be my teeth. Oh, it could be anything. Today a good hard rain, then a nice blow-apart & I had Overhead Anxiety. Came out without my umbrella, realized a block from home, didn't go back. Then thinking about extinction (extinction starts with Death), looking up at all the kilo-volt power lines stretching everywhere. Thinking what a drag it would be to have one fall on you (you, not me). Then as I approached Montlake in the winter gloam, the crows were doing their mass-&-fly-&-caw-their-fucking-heads-off Thang. Mostly where I was walking (ha ha, I know it only seems that way) & I was concerned, as the occasional white glob splotted on the pavement, that I was going to take some crowshit in my cheveux.

We just hate it when bad things rain from the sky (Oobleck!). And you never know when it's going to happen or where exactly the rain of death will fall.

*

Then I come to the café & the nice young man (handsome, clean-cut, from Texas) asks me where I'm from because he likes ice water too & out here, he tells me, he feels like he's from Mars. "Actually, I'm from Mars," I tell him. We understand the pleasures of ice water with lots of ice.

Broadway «Bux 1/4/03

Saw a Movie

The movie I saw, “The Pianist” (3 syllables), made me cry but not too hard. Made me hide my eyes several times. Made me yell, "no, no!" toward the end. Liz & I both sank down in our seats until we were sitting on the small of our back (L2-L3 interval). Then we walked out into a nebulous Friday afternoon that reminded me of leaving the theater after "The Tin Drum" all those years ago.

But Szpilman's war was much worse than little Oskar's. I wonder where Roman Polanski got all his wonderful Jews & Poles. There was an older deranged woman who looked quite like a woman I've seen on Broadway. (I used to look like everybody, now I don't even look like me.)

*

Did I tell you about the bird I saw in volunteer Park? I know it wasn't a red-tailed hawk because it didn't have a red tail. It may have been, as Anne W. suggested a sharp shinned hawk, but I don't know, I didn't see its shins. It was as big as two woodpeckers (one riding on the other's shoulders [if birds have shoulders]). It struck in the air. Whatever it struck fell into the brush & I wished I had a Lab to send after it. Is that atavism? How about if I felt the wish then, but only realized what it was today. Atavism in the second degree.

15th Ave«Bux 1/13/03

Sacred Cow Tipping

I've been carrying that one around for a bit—don't know if I made it up (doubtful) or stole it (possible). Or if I put it together from 2 disparate sources. Naah. I probably stole it. Was it Jana first told me about cow tipping as a rural "amusement"? Those country boys—they have, or had, a lot of long dull evenings, & you can't screw the ewes (screwe) every night...oh you can? Baaaah!

Then perhaps the gratuity left at the temple (or fane) might be considered, an alternative.

*

This is silly but not silly enough to justify the ink. Should I dive up through the covering and into the air of the present moment? In short "surface"? No. Probably not.

But I will.

Sunday night. Dark, but not total dark until after 5 p.m. & MLK holiday tomorrow. I will have nothing to do (& may go to the movies). I had many dreams last night, all work hassle dreams, that seems to be what is left to me, & today I walked half as far as I should have. My ankles hurt: my Achilles heels being my Achilles heel(s). But I limped on into the lowering evening (beset by ing-ings) & saw Mas of 13th Ave with his eyes big as cat eyes. S/He let me maul him/her quite thoroughly before taking on that I'm-going-to-attack air. I was happy despite bodily decrepitude, of which I have too much. Odd that I have all those work dreams but not the body falling apart dreams—because I'm thinking body falling apart thoughts much of the day.

15th Ave «B's 1/19/03