1995 What I learned on this road trip: I am not “over” Katy [kitten, dates, datelines, the radio all speak of her sharp smell] (any more than I am over her body) I still want a mistress or a slave to fill up my empty spaces I sometimes like country music; it is familiar and you can sing along at the drop of a hat, and they say truly helpful things like: “You got to sing like you don’t need the money Love like you’ll never get hurt Dance dance dance like there’s nobody watchin It’s got to come from the heart if you want it to work.” This country is ruled by an inherited-rich oligarchy whose cleverest trick is to pretend they don’t exist. Then they get about 20% of the pop. to get educated and serve them, and the rest of us, as the man on the radio says, are just rats in cages. They give us the enemy of the month to convince us the pentagon should be taking all our money, they rag on other nations so we won’t question what’s wrong with ours. Acc’ding to at least one guy (I didn’t believe it when Taelin told me the same thing) we’re living in a pre-revolutionary age. This stuff, broadly termed Politics, is a new obsession for me. I remember when sex & love was a new obsession, I didn’t feel I had the words or the knowledge to really talk about that, either, and look now. Question: do I [write, make friends, etc] because I really enjoy it, or because of what reward I might get, what I might be able to use it for? Answers: it’s both, or neither, and probably a bunch of other reasons besides. The way to a poem’s heart is to ride it, sleigh-ride across it, touch it, suck it, drink it down like warmed up honey, the way to kill it is to nail it down and stare at it until you’ve memorized its lifeless crispy carcass. (i got thru all kinds of blue-clenched fears up ramps and down inclines past all manner of stops & signs, eyeing every few yards or miles another perilous reminder in the form of a jacknifed truck or backwards van, and finally, six feet away from home, my car got stuck in the snow) It’s never too late to go flying off the road! the space bar chisels softly thru the snow of this