July 31: future (21 minutes)

In the future, things will fall apart with the flip of a switch. Somebody down at the Office of the Ministry of the Internet will get pissed off about something, and a button will be pushed, the big red one with the plastic case over it, with the big letters spelling out DO NOT TOUCH on top of it, and everything will go dead. Silence. Computers won't work, cellphones, Palm Pilots, iPhones, video games, security systems, automatic doors at grocery stores and apartment buildings -- the kind with the ID chip in them that only let residents past a certain point -- elevators, clocks, the Stock Market, electric cars and trains and buses, public transportation of all kinds. People with electronic parts inside of them facilitated through the Internet, overseen by their doctors via the Internet, will just keel over. Cleaning machines will cease to operate; swings and cradles will stop swinging and rocking; store keepers will power down, registers will lock up, meat counters will freeze over; the Sun will go into a state of hibernation; rocket ships will fall from space, passing up jet planes and helicopters and other forms of air travel. Homeless people will rise up and walk through the litter of the Earth and eat freely out of peoples' bags, the ones that were not properly locked down before the button was pushed. And God in Heaven will say to His Son, "Now is the time." And Jesus will descend upon the planet in a magnificent light show of rainbow-colored and golden beams, in His white robe with the blue sash, shoes off to show the Holes in His Feet, Hair and Skin immaculate, Sexy even, but no one will see because everybody will be looking down, looking around themselves at the things that run via the Internet, saying horrible things, curse words, taking the Lord Jesus' Name in vain to spite whomever is responsible for this tragedy, and Jesus will turn His Head to the side and He will Cry at what is left of this pitiful planet with its lack of natural resources, with all things man-made and reformed by scientists in the image of the original items created by God the Father, the Endangered Species Replications and the Third World Childbots and the Oppressed of Religious Beliefs. And the one Joe who pushed the big red button in the OMI will climb out of a window he had forethought to leave open to aid in his escape, and he will carry with him an antique "gun," one with no automatic locks -- one of the ones kept in the Historical Section of the OMI -- and he will make his way to the place where Jesus has landed, where the earth is charred black and the replicated plants about have melted into piles of gooey green-blackness, and he will hold the gun to Jesus' Head and will say, "Take me to your leader," and he will laugh, and he will be the only one laughing because this is a long-old joke and he will be the only one who gets the punch of it. Jesus will know, but Jesus will not laugh because Jesus stays calm always, and Jesus will ask the lunatic, "What is it you desire, My Brother?" And the man with the trigger-happy finger will say, "Take me to Heaven, to a place where things really exist and are not replicated by man, where things are made by God." And Jesus will do as the man says, but only if the man promises to leave the gun behind. After a long time considering this, without any further Word from Christ, thinking about the books he has read describing Heaven and the way Earth was before man ruined it, finally he agrees, and up the two of them float, but without the same fanfare (because no one is watching). And in the Great Beyond, Jesus karate chops the lunatic man and he floats in a cartwheelie sort of way out of the orbit and forever floats in an extraterrorestrial Hell. In the future.

July 30: curled (20 minutes)

All the postcards tacked to the center of doors and middle beams of the double windows -- haphazard decorations -- are curled. The magazines won't sit still, broken backs, arching up, drowning, catching the breeze of the box fan in the window or the oscillating fan on its own stand at the door between kitchen and living room -- both set to number three -- doing a little dance; but it is a lazy dance, an uninspired dance with all of this moisture in the air.

The desk I sit at was refinished a few years ago, coated in a thick layer of polyurethane to accentuate the deep grain of the pecan wood. Now it sticks to my hands, my forearms, gives me a moment's pause to consider whether I spilled a jarful of honey on it and didn't bother to clean it up.

My brain is curled at the edges, softened like a piece of bread, old and molded, hardened first then softened by the moisture, an unrecognizable piece of matter, breaking away, flushing down into my spine, my central nervous system, shat away, discarded, forgotten (but then, how could you keep track of missing pieces of brain?).

The towels don't dry.

Every room has a series of fans, blowing the moisture around, trying to displace it, trying to send it to the considerable dust, in hopes that it will collude to make one big, easily removed pile in the center of the room. The other rooms are worse for this, for the dust, than the bathroom. You have to wonder if there is no dust in there, or if it goes somewhere else, somewhere unavailable in the other rooms. But of course there is dust in the bathroom, that's where the cat goes occasionally to do his business -- unless he does it outside, which he often does, and I believe that is his preference, but in those cases doesn't he bring back the dust, dirt even, on his paws from covering up his business in the yard?

He is not alone in his bathroom business. We humans shed more of our skin in the bathroom than anywhere else. Sure, an amount of it is flushed down the drain with the shower water. But do we really get it all? Isn't there something left to scrape onto the bath towel? And when the towel dries, don't certain microscopic things fall from the towel? Like pubic hairs (which admittedly are larger than microscopic) and/or pieces of discarded epidermis?

But the towels never dry, not completely, not lately, not even with their own personal oscillating fan set to number three; from shower to shower, if there isn't at least a little bit of moisture left in them, that's a good day.

But what of the times we go to the bathroom for other business, not to shower, not to run water and flush our discarded external parts down the drain? What about when it is our innards we are discarding? I won't venture too far into that world, but I will say that we shed our clothes, at least to some degree, to "sit on the pot," as my mother always referred to it (in order to avoid more descriptive language -- though she did say "B.M." quite often which I thought was unnecessarily descriptive in its avoidance of the subject). We pull our pants down, some to their knees, some to the floor, and surely we release a dry spray of human dust, dust from our legs, the hairs, the fabric of our pants, whatever has made its way up or down the legs of them.

So there is dust in the bathroom, that's the only point I wish to make.

But why am I making this point? How did I end up in the bathroom?

There are posters and postcards and drawings tacked to the walls of the small bathroom, many of which have curled in the humidity so prevalent in these days of nonstop rain. A drawing of feet on a blue sky background curls as the wind of the fan hits it, twice every five seconds, as the oscillated breeze finds it. It's as if the feet are dancing: right foot curls up off of the wall, then left, then repeat, then pause, then repeat, repeat, repeat.

July 29: can we (11 minutes)

Can we change the subject?
Can we move along and get a Life?
Can we speak in tongues but not tell anybody about it?
Can we assume the position?
Can we say what's on our minds, what's truly on our minds?
Can we flow like the ink of a pen, move along gracefully, mostly, except when we don't, except when things get kinda gunked up?
Can we see beyond the horizon?
Can we take things for granted, just for a few minutes, and then we'll act right again, can we?
Can the end of a pipe---nevermind.
Can we make sense of all of this?
Can we make sense of any of this?
Can we get a witness?
Can we stop and smell the coffee/roses?
Can we have a moment to ourselves?
Can we be totally honest?
Can we live with that?
Can we open our eyes wide and really see?
Can we afford the life we're living?
Can we keeping going without looking back?
Can we spell hippopatomus?
Can we laugh at ourselves, individually or collectively?
Can we admit that we're probably a lot better than we think we are?
Can we concentrate?
Can we rhyme five words with "bible?"
Can we cover up a cough in a quiet public place so that no one knows it even happened?
Can we draw black lines on a piece of paper, vertical lines --
not necessarily perfect, but none of them touching each other
-- so that the entire page is filled with black and white?
Can we say that with our mouths closed?
Can we register for the Draft at this late stage in the game?
Can we hear the ball point writing these words or is that our imagination?
Can we stop this now?
Can we count on tomorrow?
Can we fly?
Can we talk like we write?
Can we question the sentence?
Can we push ourselves beyond the point of mild discomfort?
Can we give 110%, I mean really?

July 28, part four: (abandoned)

a dozen floozies flapped their hems and sang in a raspy smoke-choked chorus the joys of clitoral ecstacy. They started a group called Clit Clutch to reclaim their bodies. Who has the right to push us around---

Twelve, thirteen, sky scraper
Flapjack, hot potato, pencil neck
Fission, fizzy, filibuster,
Fantastic fact checker
Salsa sensation---

Scarecrow walked into the bar and sat down with a thud on the dusty stool. Poof! a cloud of dust flew out from---

July 28, part three: still there (15 minutes)

Grand Central Terminal is still there, though the restrooms on the east side of the food court are closed for renovation.

Times Square is still there, if you can recognize it at all. What's easy to recognize are the fat American tourists and chainsmoking European ones, a little less uncomfortable since the renovation.

Central Park is still there. I walked through it on a cool, sunny day, found something new that has been there a long time, I'm sure: The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, with a running/walking track around it.

My first apartment is still there. I saw it from the bow of a boat, a party boat I went on with the people I work with. They're still there, I'm a satellite worker now.

Chelsea is still there. I visited the Housing Works Thrift Store and found a shirt, a pair of pants and a book. (I brought the book home with me but forgot the other two items.)

The A train is still there, but they're doing work on the tracks, blue lights throughout the tunnels tell you this. And if I got on the train after 10:30, it added an extra half hour to the hour-long commute to Inwood, where I was staying, up on 200th Street, just down the hill from the Cloisters, which I assume are still there, but I didn't visit them this time around.

The second apartment I lived in is still there, like a shy kid, short and quiet in the midst of new, cheaply built apartment buildings.

The main post office is still there, shrouded in a dirty tan gauze like a Christo artpiece, under extensive renovation.

Penn Station is still there, still unappealing, still ugly in the shadow of Madison Square Garden.

Cowgirl Hall of Fame Restaurant is still there. I met Suzanne & Chris there for brunch.

Angelika Kitchen is still there, too; I always visit there, but it was closed for their yearly "clean-up."

My fourth apartment is still there, the last New York City apartment I lived in. I left nine years ago. Polly's name is still on the next door apartment. I buzzed her but she didn't answer. I'm sure she's still there.

My third apartment is still there, no longer overlooking the Hudson River, surrounded by behemoth glass apartments, beautiful, expensive residences.

Battery Park is still there. I saw Drive By Truckers play in the Castle Clinton Monument with Kathrin and Stacey.

Harlem is still there.

Washington Square Park is still there, full of jazz musicians and dope dealers and people reading Harry Potter everywhere you look.

NYU is still there, still swallowing up the neighborhood.

The Lower East Side is still there; the shops are different, restaurants are more trendy, more expensive. I sang karaoke in an old boarding house.

July 28, part two: the dance (10 minutes)

The pier has been renovated, bricks laid in a decorative fashion, some smooth, some a bit rugged to enhance the design. I had gotten an email about a concert on the pier, some sort of disc jockey and live drummer combo.

My friend and I met at Columbus Circle, had a snack at the Whole Foods -- how ridiculous! (I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about the owner of Whole Foods that makes me prefer Wheatsville I think).

But anyway, we walked to 70th Street and there were a couple of people -- a woman alone and a toddler, a little Asian boy -- dancing, that was it. Other people were standing around, moving past the stage to the far end of Pier 1 to look out over the Hudson River and the changing New Jersey shoreline.

If you want to see change, turn around. New York City is changing, growing, expanding; condos going up, million-dollar efficiency apartments for sale. No room to expand in those. You could take in a lover, but a roommate would be out of the question. And who can afford a lover anyway?

The music got louder, a tribal sound, a heavy rhythm, a white guy with dreadlocks and three black dudes with instruments between their legs, drumming along to whatever the DJs delivered. Two DJs taking turns, playing songs in tandem, never stopping, never slowing, slowly building on the beat, rising, rising to a frantic pace.

I danced, took off my shoes, danced till my feet hurt from dancing on the rugged bricks, put my shoes back on, took them back off because I felt constrained by them, danced some more, danced through my throbbing feet, keeping the beat. (Later when I got home they stung in the cool shower water.)

My friend said she had to leave, she's a New Yorker, she has stresses that I don't have, don't want, she had a headache. I stayed and danced. For three-and-a-half hours I couldn't stop.

I ran my hand across my head to wipe the sweat and I wiped the sand and dirt from the shores of the Hudson deeper into my skull. I wanted to say "Eww!" wanted to hold my dirty hand out to show somebody the dirt our sweaty bodies were collecting in the open air under the fantastic purple and orange sky, but nobody was looking, all were intent on their dance.

July 28, part one: late (5 minutes)

She looked up at me, her eyes two smiles behind rimless glasses, her strawberry hair bound up above her, her fingers still busily scratching along the page, a pen in tow, blue lines, blue letters, blue words, blue thoughts, dots, periods, commas.

We're just doing a quick five minutes, she said, and then her eyes went back to the page.

Alone I am in a roomful of scratching and thinking, trying not to think, writers. Are we writers? What brings us here on a Saturday morning before enough coffee has been drunk, before an adequate breakfast has been eaten? To write, I suppose.

Oh no, now she has put her pen down.

July 27: home (10 minutes)

Back in the saddle, is that what I want to say?

Home again, home again, tra-la-la.

I came home to the seaport, or so it feels, rain for weeks, rain every day, a rainforest, green grass and wild-growing ivies, it doesn't look exactly the same but it looks good.

It feels good to sleep on my own bed, a firm mattress, a happy cat, content to sleep next to my feet.

Fans blowing, the smell of cedar, the bed frame, moistened and pungent in the air, a three-way lamp turned on to its lowest setting, red walls, red curtains, red sheets surround me.

Ticks and tocks and unfamiliar sounds of an old house settling, once familiar, soon to be familiar again.

Solitude and companionship held in one abode, opposite ends of the house, my best friend and me.

It's a good feeling to share a life with someone, so close and yet so far away.

Traveling takes it out of you.

Boredom takes you away, the search for things unknown, or visits to places that meant so much and now only mean there was a history there. And as soon as I get to the other place -- as soon as I get away -- I start counting backwards to the day when I'll be back.

Home, sweet home. Home cooked meals, whiling away the time watching movies or sitting in front of a computer screen watching combinations of 0s and 1s creating your present day life.

This is all there is and it doesn't get any better than this. That's not a curse, that's a promise, that's what's sacred about this spot.

It's good to go away and to visit people you once held so closely, but it's even better to come back.

July 22, part two: I remember... (fiction) (15 minutes)

...Caroline.

I remember her hair, her feet, the dress she wore on the beach.

I remember that beach, it was south of here, it was the middle of summer, it was really hot.

I remember wanting time to myself to think about what my mother had told me.

I remember that Thursday evening; I wanted to forget it, but I finally decided I never will.

I remember my father's face, through the window in the car, his sad look.

I remember thinking I'd never seen him cry before, but then I remembered Nana's funeral. That was different really.

I remember mother saying she had to talk to us girls first.

I remember thinking that was odd. We had never been a terribly close family, but we didn't usually leave people out.

I remember wanting to ask about Jeff.

I remember thinking I would say it wasn't fair.

But then when she dropped the bomb I remember it didn't matter.

I remember the anger that started in my stomach, a small annoyance like I'd swallowed a handful of smooth, shiny stones. They went down easy enough, but then there was the matter of passing them out.

I didn't really swallow rocks, but I remember that's what it felt like, like rocks in my stomach, in the pit of my stomach.

I remembered the beach, Rehoboth Beach, I remembered a vacation there when I was twelve, Rebecca was fourteen, Jeff was seven. He was small for his age, small for our family. An anomaly.

I remembered that vacation like it had meant something. It was the best time our family had ever had together. Becc and I were closer then, close like girls always are. But now we're in our thirties, we haven't seen each other in over five years; occasional phone calls don't really do it.

I remembered this when mother called us home. She's got her family now and I've got my stuff.

I remembered exactly the beach our family was on that summer. I found it and that's where I met Caroline, long brown hair, long feet, a long cotton dress flapping in the ocean breeze.

She approached me, I guess, because I sat down five yards from her and stared at her, watched her spinning, her dress flying.

She approached me, she introduced herself.

I remembered nothing of my family's problems.

I remember Caroline's smell as she sat next to me, body odor and sweet perfume.

I'd never kissed another woman before, but it seemed like the most natural thing to do.

We kissed, two women alone on a beach, the breeze was the same as it had been twenty years earlier.

With my eyes closed, I remembered my family all the more.

I remember now the kiss.

I remember Caroline's hair getting caught between our lips.

I remember her tears which she said were for me.

June 22, part one: horn (7 minutes)

I had the opportunity to join my teacher (Ethan Nichtern, who has been an important influence in my life) in New York at a one-day meditation and writing workshop which is part of the group he started called The Interdependence Project (http://www.theidproject.com/). In the workshop, we meditated, did a couple of Natalie Goldberg style writing exercises and read some of our work. It was a great day.

Red thing in his hand, a brass cone coming out of the rubber, a squeeze, a honk, the little girl laughs, her mother gives her a stern look, that raised eyebrow she knows well, but with it the mother smirks a little. He's a funny man. What's he doing here? Is he up to no good? The man honks his horn again and rides away on his bicycle. A little piece of plastic, small, black, shiny, on the ground, on the gravel embedded cement, not there before he came around. The mother notices it and stares at it. What is it? She stares at it for a long time; the little girl runs off to chase the breeze, the screams of the children on the far side of the park, the wrought iron fence, black and stoic, the yellow cabs honking on the other side, relentless little pecks, like birds with loud beaks. Nobody seems to notice, least of all the little girl watching the older kids on the swings, wishing for a turn, wishing for someon to push her high, not her mother, another kid, a big kid, someone she longs to belike, will no doubt be like in a couple of years, another of the neighborhood kids. her mother says she's too young for those kids, They play games that aren't nice for little girls, her mother tells her. Like what? The little girl asks, but her mother doesn't answer, her mother ignores her; her mother is intent of the piece of plastic.

July 21: iPod iNspirations (10 minutes)

mortal,

dirty,

fellated,

finished,

fascinated,

constructed,

constipated,

waited,

not sated,

lost,

flown away,

disappearing in the mystery,

the mist of imagination,

miserly,

sing-song,

in the path of destruction,

detected,

convection,

silly,

feelings crop up,

tears of joy,

sad song,

still waiting,

watching,

whispering over a piano solo,

strings come in,

it follows a line that rises slowly,

sensuously,

lazily,

Saturday morning comfort,

a dry hand on a naked stomach,

lights flickering on and off,

bring it on,

roll over,

delight in the flesh,

a pillow lost over the cliff,

to the floor,

sheets tangled,

feet on cool carpet,

berber tickles the bottoms of feet,

a classic sound,

foreign instruments,

drums,

tribal,

a rush of water,

smiles all around,

sun streaming through the window,

against the curtain back,

cutting through the center,

pouring onto the floor,

drawing a bright golden line across the room,

over the rumpled pillow,

the side of the bed,

the exposed feet,

laughter,

a practical joke,

gentle,

sweet,

loving,

so as not to upset this Saturday morning comfort,

this mystery,

the mist of early eyes cracking open,

fingers across closed lids to clean out the sleep,

speaking in tongues.

July 20: seven days... (12 minutes)

...to see the city, that's enough, maybe ten, to ride the trains and take a boat to see a monument, pick up a show or go to a bar, have a drink, get lucky, go home late at night, feel yucky, sleep catacorner on a bed that's too small, on a mattress that's too soft, people yelling, screaming, happy, angry, outside the window all night and day so there's no sense sleeping all day or hiding away, you might as well rise and face the day, do some work, look people in the face, try to catch their eyes, and if you do, to smile, to hope for a return smile which rarely comes so you go on feeling kind of numb, fumbling down the sidewalk like an abused child with his abused mother, mouths tight, eyes pinched, ticking like two bombs or two July Fourth fireworks, pretty and explosive but not really dangerous, unless you get too close, then you can definitely get hurt, blow a hole in your hand, tears of pain and tears of fear flowing down your cheeks but nobody will say much to you because they won't know what to say, they would surely like to say something, wish they knew what to say but are incapable of such emotions, incapable of anything at all but a blank stare perhaps, a stare that wants to say what can I do, how can I help you?

Seven days is enough time to make your way from one memory to another, to stop at the subway stations where art decorates the walls and entertains the eyes or ears, and people don't even seem to notice, just look past it and past you to the next place, the next thought, the next mumble to the person on their left, the next grumble at the person in front of them, in their way, their life, their difficulties, how fucking difficult it is to get anything done as they crumple up the wrapper from a 625-calorie candy bar and toss it on the ground not even thinking that somebody else will have to pick that up, and he will be grumbling too.

July 18: 5Rhythms (30 minutes)

Last time I came to the City, I was sad, bored and restless. This time the City is my friend. Everywhere I turn a smile comes back to me. Friday night I went to Pier 1 (not the store) with Chris for a dj & drum combo. We danced. I felt like I was with my people, beautiful men and women to dance with, bare feet, sore feet, bricks and boards. I couldn't stop dancing for three-and-a-half hours.

One woman looked so familiar, like an old friend, like Libby in Austin who turned me onto Body Choir. I wanted to approach her, wanted to ask her if she knows Libby, wanted to ask her if she was an incarnation of Libby, even if she was somebody else. And she was.

We talked after the dance. She asked me if I dance 5Rhythms, and I told her I haven't but I want to (and I was familiar with it because Body Choir came out of 5Rhythms), so she gave me the info, her info. We connected further and today was Tuesday -- even though it's not Tuesday anymore -- and that was the first 5Rhythms I went to. But there's more before that.

Saturday I met Chris and Suzanne (and later Kyle) at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame for brunch. Just like old times, being with Chris and Suzanne (my two longest NYC acquaintances), and being at that restaurant because we used to have parties there, birthday parties and Y'all parties. Those were the days, and these are new days. And there was a lot of time between then and now.

After brunch we walked to Chris' office -- Suzanne & Kyle are buying an apartment through her -- then Suzanne & Kyle and I went to MoMA for the last forty-five minutes it was open to walk through the huge, amazing Richard Serra sculptures.

I saw the boy from the subway of a day or so earlier, but he didn't see me, he didn't care to see me; he didn't need to see me, it was my thing and not his.

Then I went to The Job and worked for a few hours. I thought I'd go home and hang out with the cat and get high and chill in front of the TV and eat Chinese food (Tim was out of town for the weekend). I did all of those things but didn't enjoy myself too much because Tim has the Parental Guide set on most of his TV channels so I "got stuck" watching two bad shows -- "1 vs. 100" and "The Surreal Life" with Tammy Faye Baker, Ron Jeremy, Gary Coleman, Vanilla Ice, the Hispanic guy from "CHiPs," and some other unknown "has-been" celebrities -- I couldn't decide which was worse, and I couldn't pull myself away from it till just after midnight. It's like I was trying to get entertainment but wasn't, so I was watching and watching and waiting for something that never came.

Sunday morning I ate at the neighborhood diner then went to work for a while.

Also on Saturday, on the way to Cowgirl, I stepped into the Gay & Lesbian (etc.) Community Center and picked up a couple of bar rags; I need the listings for reference, and decided that perhaps I would go to a fetish club or two (for research), one of which (a men's spiritual-sounding massage group called Touch) was in Brooklyn on Sunday night.

I had early dinner plans with another Chris, this one a Christine, on Sunday. She lives in Williamsburg, next to what used to be L Cafe...more memories of a fun performance space in the early years of Y'all. It's no longer there. But the memories are. We ate at a French restaurant called Juliette, which made me think of Florida -- not the restaurant or the food...the name. Ah, more memories. I met Christine's Brussels Griffon Valencia, which I tried to talk her out of getting a couple of years ago (pure bred dogs...). She's a cute dog and Christine is crazy about her.

She's also crazy about handbags.

Monday, work, then Ethan's meditation group at Lila Yoga Center on Houston and Bowery. I stopped meditating around the time I came to NYC the last time, didn't see Ethan, that could've been part of the problem.

Oh, and I went home after Christine's, didn't feel like Touch, wanted to do laundry instead, which I did, but the super locked the basement fifteen minutes early so I had to get my clothes on Monday morning. Tim and I watched some TV together (he has the password). We saw an amazing campaign for HBO called "Voyeur." Eight apartments with the outside wall "removed" (or missing, perhaps) with eight four-minute scenes going on in them, some of them overlapping, most not. We watched the whole set of eight (which apparently were projected on the outside of an actual building in the City as part of the campaign and perhaps they still are) then we watched the others in sets of two. Pretty cool.

Monday's meditation topic was Anger. I took a personal vow to meditate every day for the next seven. So far so good.

After the group I made my way to the Eagle for the Foot Friends' weekly gathering. I met a guy named Morris, cute, my age (surprisingly). I asked him if he liked feet particularly. He said, "I don't know, they're okay. I mean, I guess. Sure." I said, "Me, too." We made out a bit, played footsie. It was a strange but nice connection. We may get together again.

Today is Tuesday (or was). Work was frustrating. I'm training for a new aspect of my job. Learning new, unfamiliar things (particularly having to do with computers) is frustrating.

Fortunately, I had 5Rhythms to go to. It's not totally Body Choir, but there's enough of a resemblance that I felt at home. My new friend Stephanie was there as were other people from the Friday night dance on the pier. Gabrielle Roth, the creator of 5Rhythms, led the class. It was more of a class than Body Choir. It was also $20, which I gulped at, but it was worth it. Gabrielle did a very inspiring talk, explained the five rhythms (flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical, stillness) of the dance, and led us through a guided dance with a live percussion group. It's a bit fresh and recent to really justify with description right now.

Stephanie encouraged me to hang around after and go eat with them at a nearby restaurant. I went with a couple of other folks and Stephanie didn't show up, but it was a very nice dinner, lovely friends, a dozen or so.

Now the long train ride home, which is coming to an end. I have had to take the A to 168th Street and transfer every night; it adds considerable time to my trip.

July 13: subway ride (25 minutes)

It's late in the morning, the train is sparsely populated.
I have on my green T-shirt.
There's a man looks like George Clinton next to me eating a frozen blue strip of water in plastic; sweet, unnatural.
Somebody's dry cleaning is swinging on the overhead handrail.
Late risers, tourists, ne'er-do-wells.
The floor is sticky.
I'm wearing my Chacos to work today.
George Clinton has a Kangol hat on with a faux panther tail coming out of the crown and Mardi Gras beads, long rings of beads.
Two women with babies just got on the train, one in a buggy, one strapped to her front. The woman reading the PC World magazine put it down to look at the baby strapped to the woman's front.
George Clinton is eating a red frozen sticky thing now.
I've got on my black pants, they collect lint like crazy.
A young couple sat behind me, the man put his arm around the lady and touched my arm. "Pardon me, sir," he said, very considerately.
The rails are screaming as the train turns a big corner.
The conductor is announcing the upcoming street, the next stop, the trains we can transfer to.
We stop, he repeats, says, "Stand clear of the closing doors."
The man in front of me looks slackerish, if that is even a word.
People are shuffling around each other.
"We're being held in the station; we expect to be moving shortly."
I took a boat ride around Manhattan last night.
The woman behind me said a little too loud, "Stop talking in my fucking ear!" Does she want him to fuck her?
Everybody seems so young or so old. I'm right in the dead center, everbody's older or younger. Younger mostly, I guess. I can't help the way I feel. I don't feel sorry.
George Clinton is eating a frozen green thing now, artificial lime color, the same color as my shirt. I surprised myself by buying this shirt. This color. My pants are black, that's acceptable in this city.
Blue lights, single, and strips of white lights are passing by my window.
I felt cramped in my seat and moved to the outside one. My knee touched the slacker guy's leg. Just in time; a woman wanted to sit next to me and I let her in instead of having to squeeze against the window.
I haven't even taken out my iPod so far this trip.
There's a black man in a white suit looking sharp, standing where the dry cleaning was hanging before, as if he manifested out of the dry cleaning.
I haven't looked up much, just briefly.
I'm going to 42nd Street and then I take the 7 train over to Grand Central and walk the rest of the way.
My sandals are sticking to the floor.
I got off the boat at 11:30 last night and got home at 2:00 a.m. I walked across town because it was a lovely night and then up to 42nd, stopped at Penn Station and Port Authority (for research).
There's an infant behind me singing a little dittie: a-doo-ee-doo-ee-doo, a-doo-ee-doo-ee-doo, ahhh; a-doo-ee-doo-ee-doo, a-doo-ee-doo-ee-doo, ahhh...
There was a long wait for the A train going uptown last night. An hour or so. And then we got kicked off at 168th Street and had to wait a bit longer. I didn't drink too much, just a couple of margaritas. It wasn't really my kind of a party, the boat, but I made the best I could out of it...for me.
There was a man singing Motown hits on the 42nd Street subway platform. People were hot and tired and drunk, but sang along anyway. It's hard not to sing along: Honey, youuuu send me...honey, youuuuu send me...honest you do, honest you do, honest you do.
The infant is learning "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."
There was a thin young man in rectangle framed glasses, navy blue shirt, faded black jeans, worn out black cowboy boots. He had brown hair, not much beard growth, beauty marks like a constellation on his jawline. Not freckles and not moles. He captured my attention. Something to do while we waited for the train. I could have been cruising the Port Authority toilets (for research) but that wouldn't have made me feel very good.
I took a dump at Penn Station and read my tattoo: Compassion. I said to myself, "That's for you."
59th Street Columbus Circle.
The young man only glanced at me once or twice but he wasn't offended (it didn't seem) that I was "observing" him (for research).
Too much of this or too little of that. That's where I'm at in life. Being myself seems a conundrum. My physical self looks/acts one way, my heart/soul another.
The slacker and I are touching knees, {??can't read my writing} along the track to 42nd Street.

July 10: lucidity (10 minutes)

A rare moment of clarity at the end of my fingers. Little things fluttering about my face in the darkness, touching the hairs on my leg, my arm. I rub my sleeve up, my upper arm is scattered with hair, a tattoo, a vaccination scar. Vivid memory of children standing in line, sleeves pulled up, school nurse saving our lives. There is terror in our eyes, in our vivid imaginations. Nothing takes away the sting, nothing prepares us for the feeling, the four-pointed circle, needles poking four holes, delivering the salvation.

Jesus at the pulpit, unhappy man, he won't be able to help us...unless we make Him our one and only. Cardboard cutouts of the sainted characters tell us why we need to try harder, why we need to be better, better than we think we can be. An untouched Bible living on the bookshelf next to the Buddhist books and the writing how-to's. Dust everywhere; you can't take anything off the shelf without a sneeze. God bless you... Wooden cutouts of flames, rising high, the flames of Hell, Eternal Damnation.

Stray dog walking down the sides of a two-lane highway, stumbling along, confused, lost, left behind. He'll never know what he left behind; in the next life, he'll have better things to choose from.

July 8: canary melon (12 minutes)

Sitting on the floor under the kitchen table behind a chair on wheels a melon, kind of the shape of a football but more round, like a deflated basketball, but not that color, not the color of a football or of a basketball, pigskin. No, yellow, bright yellow, canary yellow. I didn't think canary yellow, but when I bent down to pick up the watermelon under the table behind the chair on wheels, I saw it there. A hard balloon, tap-tap. Not a balloon. Some sort of life in there. Perhaps an egg, but, no; bigger than an ostrich egg. And yellow, bright yellow. What's this?

What's what?

This down here, I asked.

Oh, that?

Yeah, this.

That melon?

Yeah. Is that what it is? A melon? A honeydew, I asked. (Yeah, it was about the shape of a honeydew melon.) But I had seen honeydews before; not in a while, and only at the store in the pyramid stacks of fruit. Never in a garden the way I'd seen watermelons and cucumbers and tomatoes. I had never seen a honeydew in its natural habitat. Maybe this was another kind of honeydew, a cousin to the honeydew. Is it a honeyedew?

Oh, no, he said, honeydews are more green. Whitish green.

I know that. I didn't say it out loud, but that's what I was thinking real loud in my head, with a sarcastic tone, as I heaved the oblong very green watermelon up from the dusty corner of the breakfast nook.

What is it, I asked again, as I carefully rolled the watermelon across the table.

He went on, honeydews are pale green inside, lighter at the rind, like a watermelon, you know, except a watermelon is red in the middle and lighter at the rind, pink then white, then green. Unless, of course, if it's a yellowmeat watermelon, which is--

I interrupted with the rest: yellow in the middle.

But he wasn't satisfied; he completed me: Yeah, then lighter at the rind, not so much pink, just white and then green. He stabbed a big knife into the skin of the green freckled fruit before him and slid it across the watermelon; a crackling noise issued forth and then he tugged the two sides apart. Crack! A fresh snapping sound. My tongue watered. I could feel my sinuses engage. A juicy tongue, a tear at the duct in one of my eyes, saliva running down my throat, salty sweet. The inside of this watermelon was ruby red. I figured it would be yellow, the way he chose his words and cracked it open just at that moment. But he wasn't the type to display dramatics of that sort. He was straightforward, simple even. And not easily reigned in.

But this.

What?

This melon?

Down there?

Yeah, this one.

That's a canary melon, he said, and continued cutting the watermelon into little triangles.

July 7: pecan (12 minutes)

Wrinkled like an old man's face, or maybe a brain. A brown brain. A crevice, a slit. Two slits down the middle. The crunch of Pat's apple, adam's apple, hum; he's got a low voice, can make a sound like those monks who split their tone and make me sit agog wondering what I'm hearing, what's that coming out of there? Where's that coming from? Baked apples cored and filled with butter, sugar, cinnamon and chopped up pecans. Yum. Sticky buns. I want to eat this like I don't care. Driving down the street with a Cinnabon in the passenger seat, tiny little seat belt around it to protect it from a crash, little air bags poised to save it from side impact or head-on collision. But nothing can protect it from my long, bony fingers, reaching across the car, keeping my eyes on the road, feeling across the seat, leaving a sugary trail like a Willy Wonka snail across the bucket seat to the paper box, over the edge. Goosh; middle finger dives into the thick mixture that is warm enough almost to be indistinguishable until I'm half a knuckle deep into it. I hit a bump, a Cinnabon pebble in the muck, a piece of pecan trapped like a prehistoric insect in a piece of amber. I chase the bump around, wrestle it out of the slime, carry it to my dripping, salivating lips, leaving a spider web connection across the seat, from box to face. A light is suddenly red. It's not suddenly red but I suddenly see it. I grab the steering wheel, hit the brakes. Squish! The dimples in the steering wheel cover scoop up the sugary mess. I'll be noticing this for years; every time I get in the hot car I'll smell the cinnamon, the slightly rancid smell of carmelized butter. I'll want to drive with my mouth, steer down the road, the steering wheel in my teeth as my tongue works like a bee into the many compartments, drawing out the life force. Or maybe it would be more like a worm that I clean the steering wheel. Or some alien being, clamp and suck, move over one micro-measurement, clamp and suck, move over one micro-measurement. Perhaps I'll be featured in the next Richard Linklater film.

July 6: pollen (8 minutes)

Pollen stain on my thumb and fingers from the lilies in the bathroom. Somewhere there's a shirt with a smear of orange across the middle from carrying the flowers, some already in full bloom, from the car to the front porch. A gift of sorts from a sick friend who is allergic to them. What a shock to look down and suddenly see myself dirtied in such a vibrant way. When I worked at a restaurant in New York City, the manager was always plucking at the fuzzy tassles of pollen around the sappy stamen. It was a fancy restaurant, Midtown, clientele in fancy dresses and white collared shirts. We don't want the dry cleaning bill for that!

The deep yellow on my hands reminds me of the mustard stains I used to get at lunch in school and didn't notice till I was in fourth or fifth period, bored, distracted, Oh, a mustard stain! I would suck at the webbing between thumb and forefinger for that salty, vinegary treat. Was it a treat? Not really; just something to do instead of learn what Sam Houston did on his big white steed.

July 5: 2-for-1 ( 5 minutes)

Order a beer, they bring you two, no questions asked, no thought about the fact that you just drove about 1,000 miles in less than 30 hours (not driving that whole time), no matter that you thought you might go out for another beer later tonight, no consideration for the fact that this town depresses you, that's suddenly apparent as you're driving around old neighborhoods you used to live in, when the second call to the one romance you'd hoped to see, had plans to hook up with, blew you off. Fuck that, and fuck you. And thank you, too. You don't really want to have a reason to come back to this town. There's a boy back home who makes you blush, ties your tongue, makes you say to yourself, "If he's there tonight, I'll say something to him." He's there, but you don't say anything, not really, you don't say what you want to say.

July 4: Jackson (15 minutes)

Lying in the back of the truck, feet sticking out the back getting wet, more rain, rain all day, parking lot, stopped after eleven hours to take a break from driving, to watch a movie, but I have to wait a while to see something I want to see, "Evening," a chick flick, looks good, don't want to see a Stephen King thriller because that might make me anxious!

There's a police car across the parking lot, he moved from a different spot to get in the spot he's in now, trained on me, it seems, but I've got nothing to hide, I guess you could call this loitering, but I really think he could only tell me to move on, but he hasn't bothered me so far so maybe I'm just being paranoid, maybe he's just there to make sure I'm safe.

I got gas at a convenience store today and the lady at the register was in her late sixties probably. Her name was Maryann and she had a well-lined face, a blond bouffant and glittery fingernail polish, purple and blue and silver. She told everybody to be safe and come back and see her. She swiped my card and said Here's your card back, and now we wait. All I do all day is swipe cards and wait... People say we're the masters of the machines but they've got it wrong. We do whatever the machines tells us to do whenever they tell us to do it or they don't do nothing. People got it wrong; it's the other way around.

I passed a Mexican restaurant with the sign: LUNCH SPECIAL, WE COOK IT AND SERVE YOU.

On the radio, on All Things Considered, there was a story about a rest stop in Kentucky on I-75 which is considered by many to be the best rest stop, definitely the best on I-75. A travel writer said if he had to eat off of the floor of any rest stop, that would be the one he would eat off of (or want to), and a long-time employee is responsible for the fresh-cut flowers in the restrooms. We have all these flowers growing on the property and one day I said to my boss, Would it be all right if I went out and cut some of them flowers and put 'em in the restrooms? And he said Yes... We put the brighter colors, the pinks and the rose reds and the yellas in the women's room and the darker colors in the men's room, the whites and the pale yellas and the browns and more of the greenery, and maybe a touch of orange, just a little.

I heard Jimmy Swaggart Junior preaching about Hitler, a demonic possessed man who wanted to rid the world of The Jew, and that was his only purpose, because if he could rid the world of The Jew, he could prove that the Word of the Lord was not true. But God would not let him. World War II was about Good vs. Evil. He also preached about how Britain has fallen down in power since then because they tried to keep The Jew from getting back to their Promised Land, but God said, "You can't mess with my property," and now there are so many Protestant churches in Britain being bought for cheap by the Moslems because there aren't enough Protestants to fill up the churches anymore. God did that.

Later, on another station, I heard Jimmy Swaggart Senior talking another bunch of crap. I was entertained by it.

Now the police car is gone and I'm gonna dry my feet and go watch a movie. Maybe I'll brush my teeth too.

July 3: entries (120 minutes?)

This is work for chapter twelve, diary entries from Randy's point of view after he's landed in Austin. It wasn't a timed exercise but I just wrote without stopping and then later realized I had been writing for two hours or longer!


#1 (Monday)
I don't know what I'm doing. I just moved into an apartment because I need to sit still for a while. I'm living in Texas, of all places, because this is where everything fizzled out. I can't go anywhere else. I'm paralyzed. New York doesn't seem like an option. I don't feel like I ran away from New York, but I left, felt like I needed to leave, had to leave. It seemed like the most important thing to do since I moved there 11 years ago, since that seemed like the most important thing to do. I was eighteen then, I can't really trust that I was doing the right thing. Look where it got me. Here: Texas, of all places! Not that this is such a bad place, my cute little furnished garage apartment on the sketchy side of the tracks, the "tracks" being the interstate that runs right through the middle of town. On that side of the tracks is the state capitol, downtown, nice things, the University of Texas, rich white people; on this side of the tracks, poor black folks and a little redheaded homo with AIDS.

Yuck! I've been sitting still too long, I've been sober too long, it gives me way too much time to think about my situation, my current situation. My thought was this: rent a cheap apartment for a little while, save up some money then head on to San Francisco. I don't even know why San Francisco has become so fucking important, I don't know anything about San Francisco, I've never been there, have only seen the pictures, the maps in the atlas , scenes in movies and in the opening sequence of "Too Close For Comfort." But anyway, it's the goal. I don't see myself ending up in Texas. I don't know anybody here so my ashes wouldn't get sprinkled anyway, they would probably just sit in the box on a shelf in some morgue until the end of time. Maybe that's my punishment for what I did to Mona.

I'm exhausted. I found a clinic not too far from here (in the yellow pages). My phone is gonna be hooked up at some point this week (I'm told), and then I'll make a call, make an appointment, take care of myself, I guess. I'm pitiful but I'm not so pitiful to just let myself die here in this cute little apartment in the little bed next to the little desk at the window overlooking 15th Street, and the kitchenette and bathroomette. An apartment like this would easily cost five times what I'm paying here ($300), and here comes with air conditioning!

Shit, I need to call Anita. My lease isn't up till the end of the summer but I don't want to, can't afford to keep paying rent there. But all of my stuff is there. It would cost me a fortune to ship all that stuff here. And do I really want any of it anyway? Orphan's practically blind so he wouldn't even recognize me (if he made it all the way unscathed), and man would he be pissed! I'm thinking, hoping Simon will just take over my apartment. Keep all the furnishings and feed the cat. Poor old cat. He's not picky. He doesn't care who puts his food down or whose lap he sheds in...

My cute little apartment is like a treehouse (that would cost extra in NYC!). It feels like I'm floating on top of the oak and pecan trees and the crepe myrtles with their constantly weeping pink flowers, which takes me back to Florida-- but I don't want to go there! This ain't San Francisco but thank god it ain't Florida either. It's halfway between. I'm halfway there. I'm still halfway there.

I'm thinking that maybe Anita can help me get some freelance work. She's got her irons in so many fires, and she's practically an editor at Travel. That would be good, if I could write some articles to tide me over. Austin is a pretty hip town (hippie town), I bet I could pitch an article on Austin. I better start reading the paper!

July 3, part eight: Tuesday entry (?)

Brianne Bridges, that's her name. She came over last night completely unfazed by my rudeness, and she brought a pie! A cherry pie that she made and it was still warm when she delivered it, and I ate it for dinner. She said it was a "Welcome to the Neighborhood" gesture. She also said if I ever need anything, if she can be of service in any way -- giving me a ride somewhere or picking up groceries for me or whatever -- she made me promise, made me say "I promise" to call her, either over the back yard or on the phone. I promised.

She took the pie back from me, set it on the chair at the top of the stairs right outside the front door where we were standing (because I'm a rude fuck and didn't invite her inside) and she hugged me. It was kind of weird. I felt like I should tell her I'm a homo, but it wasn't like that, it didn't feel like she wanted anything from me, she's not even really fag hag material, so I was baffled. I pondered my bafflement through a third of the pie!

July 3, part seven: Sunday entry (?)

I got an idea for a play I want to write but then I made a fool of myself in my excitement to get up the stairs to my apartment and fell halfway down them and forgot most of my idea. But I did meet the neighbor lady. I think I may have been rude to her. Well, I know I was rude; I think she might have taken it personally.

I was at the cemetery walking, I came up with a sort of august chagrin-inspired (or -styled) play with Mona, Rona, Nedra and Anita in it -- you know, all the important women in my life! -- and the neighbor lady was in her back yard hanging up laundry. Her back yard is across the alley from my front yard, which is on the back side of the garage where the stairs to my front door are. I was deep in thought, trying to remember something somebody would say in the play because I didn't have anything to write it down with or on.

Halfway up the stairs I hear a very loud "Hi!" right behind me. She was at the bottom of the stairs, frumpy in her flowing outfit and henna red hair. I slipped and rolled down the stairs to her feet, my head looking up between her legs at her bloomers. I said, "Fuck you!" (But I really wasn't talking to her bloomers, or her.) She helped me up apologizing for scaring me and I pushed away from her not in a very receptive mood and she finally left me alone to climb the stairs again on my own, mumbling without even looking at her, saying "fuck" and "asshole" a lot, and I'm sure she thought I was talking about her, and I'm not so sure that at the time I wasn't.

Somewhere in the middle of the episode she introduced herself but I didn't acknowledge it, didn't tell her my name and promptly forgot hers. Now I kinda wish I hadn't been so harsh, wish I knew her name so if I saw her I could say, "Hello, Betty Sue," or whatever her name is, as a way of sort of apologizing for ripping her a new one just for saying hello to me.

But life goes on and I've got a bruise the shape (and almost the size) of Florida on my left thigh, so now both of my legs are fucked up!

July 3, part six: Saturday entry (?)

There is a very old cemetery barely a block from my apartment. It's called The Oakwood Cemetery. It's been there since 1839. It goes on for blocks and blocks. There's a city street running through the middle of it, it's so big. It looks like the richer folks stay in the eastern half, judging by the size of some of the headstones and the size and style of some of the many mausoleums. The po' folks and the Jews are in the western side, closer to the interstate. Or maybe I'm just playing prejudice. Could be the western side is older, that they acquired a little more farmland when the west started getting close to capacity. I'll have to look more closely at the dates on the headstones the next time I'm there. Regardless, I like hanging out in the western side because it's closer to home.

It's a great place to take a walk, very quiet and peaceful, big oak trees and blue spruce and catalpa everywhere shading the dead folks. There are lots of birds singing and splashing in the creek that runs in a cement culvert through the middle of the graves, sparrows, mourning doves, grackles, starlings, cardinals, scissor-tailed flycatchers. There was a feast of fluttering bugs coming up from the ground and the birds were enjoying the all-you-can-eat buffet.

There is a lot of segregation going on in the cemetery, which I think is kind of funny: even dead some people don't want to be too close to some other people. The Jewish plots have fancy wrought iron fencing around them. Some of it has rotted away or been stolen.

I found a cluster of Hispanic graves with tacky headstones, which I love. One has a concrete cross, handmade, two-and-a-half feet tall, covered in a variety of tiles, marbles, pieces of glass and seashells. Not too far away from that one is a headstone that has been spray-painted black then wired with a cluster of fake roses, the outer petals of each flower having the image of the glowing Virgin Mary on them.

I also saw two wooden grave markers, side by side, like the two tablets that made up the Ten Commandments (that shape because I know the Ten Commandments weren't wooden). No words can be seen on them and the wood has been worn away by the elements pretty badly, but some caring soul along the way has tacked strips of (now rusty) tin over the tops of them to help preserve them a little bit longer.

Why is it so peaceful in a cemetery? It seems like it would be creepy or maybe even scary with all of the dead bodies, disintegrating bodies, bones turning and long-since turned to dust all about underfoot. I was thinking about that as I walked up the trail beyond the wooden grave markers toward the angel with her upraised arm and missing hand. I decided that most if not all of the people who are buried there had some sort of a ritual, some sort of a sacred thing, a blessing or something said over their body before they were put six feet under for the final sleep. And whether or not you (or I) believe in that kind of mumbo-jumbo hippie talk about spirits and vibes and all that, I think there must be something about the grounds, there must be something to the idea of most people coming to this place with some sort of reverence, respect for the person or persons buried there, or at least for those who mourn there. It's not likely that a lot of people over the past 154 years would even show up if they only had contempt for the dead.

Maybe I wish I had been able to give Mona some sort of respectful closure on her life. That crazy woman, she had a hard fucking life. Whether or not it was her own fault doesn't really matter so much anymore. I wish I had been able to do something better by her. I tried. I was on my way to give her a good send off. It's really kind of her fault that I'm here.

Mona, if I make it to San Francisco afterall, I promise I'll take you with me the best I can, if that only means so much as emptying an ashtray off the shore of Alcatraz Island in your honor, so be it!

July 3, part five: Friday entry (?)

My cute little apartment came "furnished" with a bookshelf overflowing with feces! A Living Bible, a dictionary (published in 1968), a mess of romance novels by the likes of Barbara Taylor Bradford, Danielle Steel, Judith Krantz, etc. (which maybe aren't as bad as Mona's Harlequins, maybe, but still, bad enough). There are two Leon Uris "historical fiction" novels, a couple of Stephen Kings ("Cycle of the Werewolf" and "The Eyes of the Dragon," there's a reason they were left behind!).

I thumbed through two books by Erma Bombeck: "If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, Why am I in the Pits?" and "The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank." Oh, brother...

Then there's all of these food and exercise books. Cookbooks and diet books and exercise books. Weight Watchers, Southern Living, the Frugal Gourmet, and the Beverly Hills Diet, the Pritikin Diet, the Rotation Diet (huh?), and Body Principal by Victoria Principal, the Jane Fonda Workout Book, etc. Maybe once I tackle the cookbooks and learn how to cook I'll have a use for the diet and exercise books, but I don't see that happening too soon.

Self-Help titles:
"Any Woman Can!"
"I'm O.K., You're O.K."
"The Mary Kay Guide to Beauty: Discovering Your Special Look"
"How To Be Your Own Best Friend"
"How To Prosper in the Coming Bad Years"
and on and on... which makes me wonder: What books did this woman take with her??? Or did she commit suicide? Judging from this collection, I wouldn't be too surprised. I'll have to look around for blood splattered bullet holes or plaster pulled loose from the ceiling or razor blades behind the shower stall.

July 3, part four: Tuesday entry (?)

It's so quiet around here except for the constant mumbling of my disgruntled roommate, the one with AIDS! The TV died. I clicked it on to watch Murphy Brown last night -- my bowl of chunky soup heated, my crackers arranged on the plate in a floral-reminiscent pattern around the bowl, my ginger ale iced and fizzing in the glass on the TV tray in front of the chair turned around to face the tiny little black-and-white screen -- a Butterfinger commercial was on. Suddenly the screen dissolved into a tiny piercing white dot in the middle of the screen, like a laserbeam brightness sucking my already limited brain matter right out of my head through my tear ducts, nostrils and earholes. Bart and Homer Simpson were jabbering on the commercial and they continued for a few seconds more before all of it was sucked into the Black Hole, all was gone, light, sound, everything television. Dead.

I called my landlord this morning thinking he would give a shit, but his wife picked up and asked what I wanted and she gave me a bucketful of deep-fried defensiveness: THE APARTMENT DON'T S'POSE TA COME WITH A TV, THAT'S JUST ONE THA LAS' TENANT LEFT. Well, thank you, last tenant, for getting my hopes up, and thank you, TV, for making me realize that Murphy Brown's not really any good anymore anyway. "Goodbye to you-hoo," in the words of Patty Smyth.

July 3, part three: Saturday (?)

Saturday

Intestinal mucosa, peripheral neuropathy, KSHV, T-cells, viral load, CD4 count, blah-blah-blah. I don't even wanna know, okay? I just want to get a new dance card each visit and see how long it takes me to fill it up between appointments. And now that I have a dancing stick (a.k.a. "cane") I'll be dancing Fred Astaire style, thank you very much.

I'll take the pills I'm supposed to take as long as I can afford them, some for the AIDS, some for the pain, some for depression. Depression? Do you think that's a side effect of the AIDS?! But I'm not gonna keep a log of all of this crap. I refuse to keep an AIDS Diary. And I don't want to have a panel in the AIDS Memorial Quilt, for fuck sake, alright?!

July 3, part two: Thursday entry (?)

I don't have to worry about my apartment and I don't have to worry about my cat. Simon is going to sublet, and Orphan is dead. I got my phone hooked up and the first call I made was to Anita and she didn't say anything about Orphan until after I brought up the apartment, and it sounds like Simon was already chomping at the bit about that, and then she was like, "Oh, hey, I'm sorry but Orphan died." It sounded so out of the blue, I had to practically beg her for the details, which she was reluctant to give me because of my "condition," which seemed totally fucked up to me, but whatever. She was all guarded about it, and because of that I figured out that Simon was sort of to blame for Orphan's death, or his suffering at any rate. Orphan died from a urinary tract infection that came about after crystals completely clogged up his urethra. Simon told Anita he thought the cat was yowling so much because he missed me! (And I bet he was pleased about not having anything to scoop in the litter box for two weeks while Orphan suffered to death, fucking asshole.)

I was too upset to ask Anita about work, but I'll have to call her back anyway to get her to send me some of my files. I have an interview at the Chronicle (Austin's Village Voice) next week. I can't keep living off of credit cards -- though I just sent off an application for a new one yesterday (I can't, but I have to for now).

I also called and made an appointment with an "AIDS Specialist" at the clinic here on the East Side. I don't know what qualifications this person has but I assume it'll be a better experience than it was in Waco. This time around I stepped up (because it was on the phone and relatively anonymous and therefore safe...because that's always been my belief: ANONYMOUS=SAFE!) and said, "I have AIDS. I just moved to Austin and I need to see somebody." The young-sounding, African-American-sounding woman-sounding person on the other end of the phone put me on hold then came back a few seconds later full of confidence and set me up for an appointment with the "AIDS Specialist" who is there on Fridays. I asked for bus directions and she said she would look them up on the computer and call me back, and she did.

July 2: timed writing (20 minutes)

Twenty minutes, blank page. I don't love the blank page. I like it to come already started, a thought overflowing in the mind, spilling onto the page almost before the pen touches the paper.

My brain works this fast... As fast as my pen can write. If I come ready, it flows. What gets in my way?

Oooh, I've gotten all philosophical!

Brain matter is working overtime. As I brushed my teeth I was thinking of things to write, as I was taking my shower I was thinking of things to write for an exercise called "timed writing." I wanted to stop thinking about it, stop the flow of ideas, but I couldn't. That's not what I meant by "coming ready" to the page. That would have more to do with having an idea that hasn't been tainted with all the chitter-chatter going on up there.

I like the way I'm writing. I don't mean (necessarily) the words I'm writing, but the way I'm writing. Physically. I am enjoying watching the ink flow onto the paper. My favorite kind of pen, my current favorite notebook.

But I have to rethink my pen love. I had a bad (and bizarre) occurrence yesterday. I had one of my favorite pens break [Pilot G-2 05, if you're curious]. Not in half. The little ball fell out of the tip and a hypodermic -- sub-hypodermic -- sized needle came out, the little wire part that lets the ink flow to the ball, stuck out about a quarter inch. I was like, "Well, that's a drag," because it still had a fairly full ink cartridge in it.

Later, I went to Spider House to write (maybe the previous occurrence happened the day before), I grabbed a pen, and then I thought, "I better take two, Spider House is a long way away if something happens to my one pen, and now that I've said it out loud, it's bound to happen." (I didn't really say that out loud.) And so I did. Take two. Pens. With me to Spider House. And it was a long walk, and I did get a lot of good writing time.

But right toward the end -- and I was pretty ready to go because I'd had an iced coffee, a grilled cheese with veggie crumbles on focaccia, a bowl of chips and salsa, two beers, and a lot of water, and I had a sore head because I stoop up from my table when I decided to move out of the sun right into a low hanging, very sturdy pin oak branch -- I had moved to the deserted back part of the patio, where they show movies at Spider House, and I wrote a sentence or two, then all of a sudden I felt the ball pop out of the pen tip and it wouldn't write anymore. All I could do was make dots with the tiny wire sticking out of the tip.

I thought, "That's odd," and picked up the other pen, and its ball was already missing and the ink was starting to back up into the chamber, getting ready to make a huge mess.

Do you think I have grounds for a suit?

July 1: eyes (10 minutes)

mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord

the eyes of laura mars
sad eyes, turn the other way, I don't wanna see you cry
these eyes have seen a lot of love but they're never gonna see another love like the love that I have with you
don't it make my brown eyes blue?

My eyes are feeling weary, punch drunk. I've spent the last several days using them, using them to the extreme degree, spending twelve or more hours a day staring at the computer screen or sitting hunched over a notebook not sure if my glasses on or off is better, for seeing I mean. I'm up to chapter eleven! Or actually I should say I'm up to chapter twelve -- up through chapter eleven. There are probably little things I want to change before I even consider it first draft done, but eye got through it, got through seven and nine, figured some things out, went back to seven briefly after eight was out of the way, then ten just happened and eleven was work but I was flowing so it didn't matter that it was work, it's the kind of work I like. And I was happy that the other work, the work that I don't hate but that I don't like nearly as much, the work that pays the bills, hasn't been coming too steadily, so I've had a lot of time to just focus on the work I love. After I finished last night -- at 11:30 -- I looked in the mirror, three-quarters of the way done with my novel, and said, "My goodness, you really are a novelist!" I guess that really was the reward. To know that.

On Wednesday, I'm gonna drive to Nashville for a party with a dear old friend who's helping me (and Steven) get there. He's flying in on Friday. Then we're coming back together the following Monday. We'll get back on Tuesday. On Wednesday the following, I fly to New York City for two weeks. Work and play. This job that I don't like nearly as much as the one I do when I'm writing sure does treat me nice, or the boss man does, I should say. He's taking us on a cruise around Manhattan on a small party boat, just the company; alcohol, food and dancing. I'm thinking this will be a good way to see the City I've been writing about so much lately, to get a few more of what Natalie G. calls "original details."