No, I told her, that dream was about Death
This is how it was:
I was at the Capitol Hill Library, or rather I was at/in a brand new library that was around 13th & East John, a beautiful building & big, with lots of wings & sections. Much bustle, I think it was opening day. I wanted to find a computer to check my email, but some were occupied, some were blank-screened, etc. & I suddenly "remembered" that I had left Tomas all night & really should get home (
I woke up happy, and thought: home is where the cat is (Cat = heart-y-beast).
*
I like to think that the dreams are coming back. (One last night I've forgotten—because it was forgettable—but it was there). Now if only I wouldn't wake up with my tendons crackling like old paper sacks.
*
The sun comes out of a lovely fat cloudbank, and the flash heats up my face...then Hilda comes in.
Time to go-oh.
It wasn't Forgettable, It was Freddish
Or potted.
Fred or someone who looked like he could be him & a woman, his wife, were sitting over there in the Caffe Ladro, exactly the way Judy S. & consort used to, and I ignored them, while wondering, exactly as I always did with Judy & consort...is it? Well, we’re all older, aren't we, and I didn't feel a need to chat. Then the guy came over to ask if I was me, because of course it was F. & I was so incensed I woke up. And forgot the whole thing.
*
Last night was punctuated by the yodeling morons ("Hey Jason, follow the fucking pied piper...Hey, Jason," etc.) Plus what sounded like Big Rigs grinding their gears to make it up to
But I woke up surprisingly cheerful.
The weather changed—it even rained a bit. Not enough to suit me, but enough to wet the (dead) grass. Even after a dull, do-nada Sunday, a mild euphoria sustains me. Yes, even after running into Messenger Arlene P. with her litany of grievances (she's going to file one, appropriately enough). But it's easy to be happy when you don't have to go back to work till Wednesday.
What I'd like to know (& will never know if the Answer is Yes) is if that feeling I get at night that I'm about to die is True or not. Well, ha ha, so far—not. Or—so far, so quick.
Face plus Feet equals Fate
Don't believe me? Say It. Try It. Sigh It.
My favorite pen, the watermelon one that has lasted 3 or 4 years gave up the ghost. Ghost of fruit pink markings. Gone dry & dead as the trodden bristly bone-brown grass. The daylight is that lovely dilute urine color, I mean champagne, and the green of the leaves rushes to meet. it. Opens. The air opens. Everything bleaches. Light or heat leaches the saturation.
Etiolates.
Not all at once. But once you see it, the anti-vernissage, you know summer is going/gone.
I want to draw the autumn light but the loud girls going jah jah nah jah are distracting me.
They're playing baroque music with tootling brass which goes nicely with angled sun.
*
Everyone out on the smoking platform/deck looks mentally ill. Always.
Bway «Bux
Another Earthquake Dream
At the family home (maybe for Mom's birthday? I think the whole family was there) & after the first jolt, everything shook & then the house slid sideways till it ran into the garage. Didn't even bump as it came off the foundation. The lights didn't even flicker. I was going to go to mom but I didn't, I just stood in the doorway. (Ooh, was that the Big one?).
*
I've been reading a bad book about a good subject (Aldous Huxley by dumb baby-boomer Dunaway, not quite up to the subject). I had an idea that I didn't write down & I also didn't work on “Obtuse Margin”....
Something (from reading about Huxley, his mescaline trip) about light, for have I not already written somewhere (on a scrap of paper, if I know me) that I am in love with light? Icarus, Lucifer... Odd duck Aldous, smart as he was, he couldn't remember his childhood, even with hypnosis.
OK, a beautiful day—how so? Sunny & cool, with the angular shine that gilds.
*
Very short people should not wear bright green (unless they want to look like leprechauns).
Bway «Bux
Nothing Doing
I made plans—I guess that's doing something. Like building castles in the air—you just have nothing to show for it. I intended to fix/finish/rewrite that story. And to go to Cost Plus for cards & tea & maybe buy a brassiere at the Bon & stop by the library. But it looked like rain & that story is too wet to carve & & & ... I'll go to Cost Plus tomorrow, on the bus & buy envelopes on the way back. Maybe.
I'm never going to buy a brassiere.
*
So I read a useless book (about cuisine! imagine!!) & took a walk.
And on the walk I saw a Mas cat, the one with the russet coloring at 16th & Prospect. Just like magic—the eternally returning Mas cat—when I least expect. I often least expect, on principle.
*
By the time I walked down Broadway, the pandemic of ugly had claimed many victims. They didn't seem bothered, maybe because they couldn't see themselves, and I proved immune. For today. Then, for distraction: a pain in my chest, right upper back, but inside. Oh, I don't like that. Not right after my cake.
Bway «*Bux
Lull Null Pull
I won’t keep on till I get to Bull (or cul!) much less Full & that's just as well because even as pull surges forwards in the mouth to pool, so does full become...me.
Slow. Monday, early fall. I dinked away the weekend, reading about Huxley in
Nothing happens.
I ran my errand & couldn’t find a good card for Mom. I bought her a bad one & determined to go on looking. I got tea & gravenstein apples—way overpriced—at the Pike Place Market because there haven't been any at the QFC. Along
*
I rode buses, I was not amused. The man who sat next to me on the 73 moved as soon as a seat opened up.
*
Then coming back from my walk, I saw Judy S. & husband. driving off in an ancient blue VW. That was nice, but not as nice as seeing a Mas-cat.
Bway «Bux
What you do you call that?
The quality of light at
I proofed an essay for Jana about her Mas cat Hillary Clinton. Jana uses my "bunny fur on the belly” phrase, but I haven’t copy-righted it—& those damn Mas cats do have beige bunny fur tummies.
*
I'm reading James Thurber letters with less enjoyment than last time (but those previous were "selected"). The early humor is forced compared to later & his attitude toward women infuriates me ("My attraction is your obligation." — too common).
*
Yesterday everyone was stumbling; today everyone is limping. Not the same people. I got a haircut (I look more loopy than butch) but/and I need glasses.
I will be in a better mood if I do some work on "Obtuse Margin" —I've promised myself I'll have it all but done by next work-day, Wednesday.
Bway «Bux
[Tao]
It's not exactly the dream state, or the hypnagogic or -pompic state, though they are indicators ("pointers" in a simpler age) [cf. "index" finger]. It's that feeling when you know something is going to happen & it does. Or you scope out a situation in a flash. Or when you tumble to something, some perplexity that has stymied you & suddenly, you know not how, you have the key; the answer is there.
It's feeling/knowledge. It's magic in a sense. It's that thump, stab, slap, bang, flash—when your brain/mind shows you how much more there is than you realize.
Or it's when you write something so good, you know it's bigger than both of us (or all 3— me & my 2 hand-puppets). It comes from quiet & fearlessness, but it also gives quiet & fearlessness. That awareness.
Also there are intimations & "funny feelings" & blessed assurances. The more I know, the more — aye/no. Sometimes inwit doesn't agon, doesn't bite
Sometimes purrs.
*
There was something else. Something about the woman (guess who) channeling Her/It, as she shakes her head & says, "Enough."
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