there is some kind of class battle going on in the teh-dsa. it involves rivers & politics, astronomy and capoeira, diaries and skittlebugs. one more smoke the020203n I go. this is the start of a new journal, which is of course the diary of a journey. this journey is to nypydyuan, and beyond, to the land of the sea of all things. in the n020403ew ship, an alias is a robot. i have no particular reason to deny that typing(+) is a ritual. it is a conjuring of serpents. o512ne more smoke & then i go my folder in the teh-dsa is the the teh-dsa. or maybe the teh-dsa is my icon for my folder in the teh-dsa, which is the teh-dsa. who the fuck knows. either way, it makes me happy, along with crossdressing, capoeira, photography, etceteh-dsara the girls are getting to020503gether in their own {folder}in the teh-dsa, in order to see each other, feel each other, talk, exchange pictures, listen, have some tea or coffee or drinks or whatever, maybe some touching. we just need to have this now. Olivia and Cholula and Esriel go out back for a smoke. * as of this moment, people in my main little tribe tend to have a Name, a custom icon and a parenthetical keyword. Of course, anyone can have any or all or none of that stuff. {Gatherings, situations, places, meetings, little worlds in worlds} If a punishment (or a reward, for that matter) doesn't work, discontinue it. Else it becomes a living hell for no good reason. by hanging out together in their own space, the girls are learning there is more to each other than their boyfriends. NOW I know why Wednesday isn't the best day for HiFi. The boys aren't here! There's a girl working, she�s nice and all, but.... a reason to keep making teh-dsa is, as it grows, so it continues to surprise me! I'm stayin here til like six fifty or seven. drink tea smoke type look, type again AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! the Eighth Note. This is where I come when either I'm broke or else I need a fix of college ambiance. 70020603¢ for a cup of coffee! Dude that's fuckin sweet! And you can smoke! And this battered old wood table is awesome. If I had a slightly more comfortable chair, I'd be on top of the fucking fucked up world! Or I'd settle for just a little more weed. "Hey! The movie turned into a play!" [eating popcorn] "Still good though...." --HJ Simpson My little cadre of smokin oriental friends just left. Time to go back to looking at the girls and the boys. Don't you hate journal entries that seem to be trying to prove something or to hide something? Don't you hate that macho cool aloof tone that masks the true voice? Don't you think it's funny how ridiculous the macho guy really is? And if only he could see himself! I really like this communal table idea. It brings people into your field of view who otherwise might not have arrived. this kid with his D.C. hat, two layers of warm t-shirt, bobbing head, reddish aura, cables delivering music clamped to his skull--he looks familiar. okay, right now, {this is a table} so i was driving in the tracker (to which i have semisecretly become rather attached, as ann has been driving "my" civic lately), and seeking thru the radio as usual (especially cuz the tape don't work), and i came to this thrashy head bangin version of that "whiskey in the jar" song that was on that clancy bros. tape. And I thought, oh, glenn would love that! and for an instant it seemed that what was preventing me from telling him about it was this door inside my torso, sealed shut by strings of muscle and tendon and guts, the pulse of the living, and for an instant i wanted to rip it all out * The feigned reluctance with which I report this irrelevancy: i boiled my pipes, collected the resinous detritus, am planning to try to smoke it somehow. Also drank the resinous pot-tea water; it tasted like burnt water. I don't know if it's the submissiveness of the ridiculousness of the act itself, or the residual THC that's given me a slight buzz already. Well, I'm getting smoke, but I'm not sure if it's anything but smoke. Sometimes in my angst-fueled drive to delineate my personal sexual territory, I've arrived at the point of saying it doesn't matter if I'm gay or whatever, the question is whether I want to be with the person I'm with. And there the drive usually runs out of gas. Women are so perfect. I see them walking by their backyard fences, lit by city lights, so proud, erect, contained, cohesive. Submissiveness emboldens: I smile. When they smile back, not necessarily sex but harmony erupts! Yes! It was all true! Yes, I'm bi, yes I'm a girl, yes I'm submissive, yes I want to slavishly devote myself to a sweet evil girl and be shit on and humiliated! But with you? The resin is working & I think I may call Kate soon. Kate. Even the way she asks to be addressed now.... The reason I wear her collar, even for my wife? because I am secretly her slave, she is my true princess, say what you want, to recoup: sometimes i think i'm gay, then sometimes i start thinking i'm female. then sometimes i think i'm bisexual, and all of it is just to get to kate. My princess kate who doesn't like boys. (of course, this may be a big bullshit story, too!) I'll say this much though: one huge advantage of my wife is that SHE's coming home tonight. Probably. Whatever plans I start out with, eventually I always seem to end up sitting here wondering if she's fucking him or not. (me) Well did you want to call me back a little later, then? (kate) Sure. Can you give me some ball park idea of when? No. Oh, okay, that's cool, that's fine. It probably won't be too late because I have to work tomorrow. Okay. I'll just sit here absolutely still and hold my breath. And will the phone to ring? Yes. [laughter] [hours later, she still hasn't called. hungry reminescences approach the base of my spine....] i can function bisexually. but in my heart of hearts i am either female or gay. i'm not sure which yet. fantasies, stories, kinks are fine until i get bored with them. or is it that i really truly am a bitch, a love-slave and i'm unhappy because no one can really provide that position for me? basic, standard, everyday happiness in me now feels like the sun in seattle. i wear women's clothes, women's underwear. i wear the collar you gave me issues i have been forcing include being a slave and being a teacher. i still wish my ring was gold. unless some reason it shouldn't be becomes apparent real soon. i'd rather be really truly a slave or else quit faking it. 021003 Things nobody cares about. The flip of the wrist. The eroticism or noneroticism of the shine on that guy's shoes. Did you ever get the feeling you were being scrutinized? All these heirarchical folders are kind of making me sick. I think I'll just find something to read for a while. Fuck this. And smoke. Whatever. At least I'm wearing my pajama pants over my capoeira pants, sitting in this cafe. I just wish I were happy & free as well. Is that selfish? "If I could find five people like me, I'd be a fuckin millionaire." (Then the lady at the table with him says something, laughs at herself.) "If I could find five people like me, I'd be a fuckin millionaire." (in exactly the same tone and emphasis as before) (As it is now, you're still just an asshole.) I don't know, man, it's like I can't feel what to go with the teh-dsa next. Maybe I should just shelve it for a while. And then do what? I just converted it into a bunch of text files of undifferentiated text, which seems cool on the surface, but I don't know how now to go back in below the surface. And I'm supposed to go to class in a few minutes but I don't really feel ready. I mean, all I want is a world built out of text. Not a story, not a novel, not even a huge poem, but a real, organic, explorable world. How do I do this without continually getting trapped by files and folders and heirarchy? Fuck! I need dimensions, not heirarchy! Or no021103t. Maybe what I just need is words. Independent of platform, text. Let the text speak for itself in whatever its fundamental unit is. Let the legoing be my exploratory tool but don't sweat it. Who says I'm inconsiderate? I consider! I consider, and then I make selfish decisions! How I hate the itch! When it's the most important thing I can think of to write something good, and I'm even skipping class for it (justified cuz I went Monday, and I still have balance to practice this week) and I just can't seem to break loose of what I haven't ruined yet, and just write something! Lord, how I hate that! I mean, I don't have to sit here like this, you know. I am uncomfortable. My butt is cold, my shoes are too tight, the smoke hurts my eyes, the music is inane, the coffee is making me sludgy, and my neck is stiff. What the fuck kind of meditation is this? And yet, what would I rather be doing? Really? You really want me to answer that? I am afraid to answer that because then I will either have to go do whatever it is, or else admit that I am too weak, too chicken. Unless of course the answer is "nothing. There is nothing I would rather be doing than sitting here." How often is that really the answer? Maybe more often than I realize. Who cares. Me. That's who. Who else? Who cares. Mostly I am just reluctant to go home to that woman who loves me. The multiplicity of dogs, the clutter— I mean, shit. I do love Meggie. I even love the dogs and the woman sometimes. It's just, it's just, what. What is it? What the fuck is going on here? No, no one else is going to answer that question, Mat. It is just going to sit there staring back at you like a rotten bit of sponge floating in the murk down by the southside waterfront— docks— oh— shit. I read in an old piece of text (dating, as it happens, from the acid trip with Glenn & Ann) that "I am an old jaded queen." Well. Maybe that's what's wrong. I'm a married old gay guy feeling bereft. Wah. Poor widdle me. But there's got to be more to it than that. There's just got to! Maybe I should just fucking go home. This fucking sucks, dude. But I'm not gay. I'm bi, dumb as that sounds. I'm just not particularly happy & I'm trapped in a pit of rotten nostalgia and crippled imagination. I feel a bit petulantly resentful that the profound change Rich predicted for me because I was going to become a father, I haven't really felt. I mean, not exactly. I feel more a subtle, sometimes change. Like, things make my eyes tear up that wouldn't have, before. But I still basically feel like the same person. I think that's not necessarily a good thing. I mean, it is, but it isn't. What person would I rather be? I don't know, just someone who is more happy & light, someone who laughs more naturally and easily more often I guess. Why I smoke? To smoke out the cowards that live between my skin & my guts. I stay here a minute longer than I want to, just because I want to prove that I can. I guess it's that it's so hard to be myself at home, is all. I mean, a large part of myself is this semisocial, skinny bear who pads around in slippers, drinks hot beverages, says little except to the animals, and types. God damn! I miss that motherfucker! That stupid, witless cocksucker! I miss him! He's always cowtowing to the picture of domesticity with which he has painted himself into a corner! Alone for a while! he wants to scream, Just leave me the fuck alone for a while! And of course, when he gets too lonely, he'll scream for the remedy for that, too. I'm not saying he's wise, enlightened, or advanced in any way. I'm not saying he's even remarkable in any way. He's just this doofusy guy with glasses, but jesus aitch motherfucking stickshift Christ, I miss him!!!!! Why do I sit in this godforsaken wimpy ass cafe and smoke? Because I didn't take my uniform with me this morning. Ann is sure to get home before I will, and maybe she'll see my uniform there, and maybe she'll wonder if I went to class, and maybe she'll wonder if I went somewhere else, and maybe she'll wonder if I did that on purpose to get away from her, and maybe she'll wonder if I do that a lot, and, fuck, give me another fucking cigarette and LET HER WONDER! Just a little note: the cafe is a public place, after all. Anyone can go in there. I mean, Esriel can kick them out if she wants (and Bansolepo and any of the others will help her), but it is a public place. I may not give a newcomer a custom icon right away, but anyone can go in there. It would kind of defeat the purpose of having a cafe if you only allowed regulars! See, now just saying that much, that cheered me up a little and gave me about one banana's worth of strength! For instance: Nosmas, refugee from "the past." He's a rumpled magician! Yes, they can come in, *and they can also go away again, buoyant on night's seas!* Okay, now, the pussydicksweetacrid haze having cleared again til next time, I have to admit that old fucking Williams was right, for MOST of the time, that the reefer is MOST of the time the WRONG door. But not all the time. Basically, this little epiphany simply answers the nagging question, why shouldn't I be stoned ALL the time? "Just once I'd like to read a feminist book that says it's all our fault that everything is so screwed up," says a woman (tight, svelte, alert in a dewrag, flannel & jeans at the next table) to her guy friend. "Women have outnumbered men in this country for years. They're smart and they're able, so why do they cry...." 021303 Weird, I love my wife right now. She's still a stranger, she's still a mistake, she's still not the right one, I'm still a freak, but I love her right now and I want to wash her feet and kiss her ass. It is a privelege to know I can go downstairs and get in bed with her. After we get Meggie settled, of course, I can nestle right on in, I can lick and suck and sweat and if I wanted to venture into undiscovered countries I could even kiss We had a steak dinner tonight— I grilled them outside in the snow. After two and a half beers, chewing the fat, I said, "Do you feel married?" She said, "Sometimes, yeah." I said, "Right now?" She said, "Yeah." I said I did too and that I liked it and she said she did too. It's Valentine's Day Eve, and I don't give a fuck about that but, this, this, this other thing, this weird, this unexpected thing, this I give something of a fuck about, after all. Who am I? There is an old Npydyuanese legend about a man, a poor xylophone player, who said, "How then, truly, can I learn to play my xylophone?" because he knew he had not the music of the stars in his endless list of songs. He went to the oracle, for at that time there was an oracle, and it said only, "One went left, one went right, and one went to the comet." This of course meant absolutely nothing, so he fretted and fumed and banged away at the xylophone day and night but nothing ever worked. Finally he went home to his poor willing wife, and he climbed aboard, and he mounted her fat oleaginous ass, and he stroked and pounded, huffed and caressed, until in mutual protean globular orgasm they screamed as one, and then, the next morning, THINGS I'M GOING TO LOOK FOR: a job a photograph (maybe, or maybe i'll let one come to me protean animalcules poems, and that means PEOPLE the sunrise again & again perpetual ecstasy or at the very least, freedom) 021403 I don't care if I end up munching more; I'm going to quit smoking. It's time to let Capoeira teach me to write. I'm also going to get Jaguar from Kate which means I'll probably spend a lot of time fucking with computer bullshit for a while again. But that's okay. I can do that from time to time without any permanent harm. I think. I guess we'll see. Time to go get Meggie soon. What am I going to do with her tonight? We could shop for a book, take a bath, take a nap, watch the Simpsons, eat, dance around, play with the dogs, take the dogs out, play with toys, read.... 021503 i have to say this right now: i'm really not very good at this, i suck at being a father. i get frustrated, i yell, i jump up and down, i make scary noises, and i jostle her around too much. honestly, right now i can honestly say i don't like this and i wish this wasn't my life. i miss my tiny little apartment and my neat bookshelves and my desk and my moderated solitude and my one, devoted, calm, easygoing dog. i miss the old me. i don't know who the fuck this me is or what he thinks he's doing, but if something doesn't change he's probably going to break down. And then, I have to admit, this happens: Lucinda Williams comes on, on the tape Ann made for me for Valentine's day, singing "see what you lost when you left this world..." and Meggie's in her little blue airplane swing, and every time she swoops up to my face and I say "BOO!" she cackles and giggles and smiles, and it's not so bad, at least for a little while, actually it's kind of good. 021603 Okay, so at the moment of impending insanity, you just decide to take a different path. She starts to whine and cry, and experience lets you project yourself imaginatively far enough into what it's like when you blow up, not to blow up this time but to explore a different path. It's new territory, and it's rewarding in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Once you get thru that veil, over that hump, whatever. Also I learned something about the teh-dsa. It is not synonymous with this computer, not with my Documents folder. There is nothing sacred about a collection of clipping files. Teh-dsa is bigger (or smaller, farther out, deeper in, whatever) than all that. This is how I happen to be accessing it at the time, is all. Which means I can always have it near me wherever I go. Even if this computer blows up. An irish bean bag bear dances and sings for Meggie. His song is abruptly cut off when she eats his head. One of the things you find out when you're patient enough (patient! I can use that word in the same sentence as me tonight! Wow! The pearl!) is that she's pretty inclined to forgive. What's the word for when she's gaga-ing and cheerful, about thirty seconds after she's just been screeching as though wracked with stabbing pains? Well, whatever it is, it's pretty damn heartwarming. Now I just got to work on the dogs. It's all tied together, somehow. You can't just be good at drawing noses! Nineteen ninety seven was a good year; I just didn't know it at the time. 021803 A crime is preserving decorum at the expense of freedom & joy. She seems to know my heart (and it hurts her). She knows I am unhappy, want to leave. Why will I not agree with her and get it over with? As things play out—I am afraid Ann will grow jealous of my love for Megan, just as Ann's mom was violently jealous of Ann's dad's love for Ann! Yes, it's true, I think often: if only we hadn't moved in together! But something or someone must have wanted her in my life not to be just another chapter in the same old book. And so I have to play Yes, and... and keep on writing. 022103 Well. Well, well, well, well, well. Hm. Well. 2/23/03 Look, all I'm saying is, if I get up earlier than I absolutely have to, I at least have the option of coming in here and typing or not. Because the rest of my day is to be dedicated to someone else. Someone very small, and very demanding. Very cute, to be sure, but occasionally very maddening. She's making me grow and sometimes I resist, but today I'm trying to give in. 2/24/03 The taste of beer and the smell of the attic. Pooping in a box. 2/25/03 Okay. I was looking thru some old letters on the computer. On the computer. In the computer. Through the computer. About the computer STOP! Anyway, I've done a lot of stupid things and been a brat and sounded really stupid but I basically seem like an all right enough guy. That's not what I wanted to say right now though. What I wanted to say was: I found one, an email, from Karen Robinson, sent to me when I was in Seattle alone. It was all about how maybe she was going to pick me up in St. Louis at Christmas and give me a ride somewhere, and how it would be good to hang out. I was about to delete it because it wasn't that interesting, after all, she was just my fat old pathetic welfare friend, right? And then I came to the part where she said, "Thanks for the food processor." and I remembered that I gave her that when I was cleaning out my junk, getting ready to hit the road. And in a burst it all came back: the olive pasta we always used to make, with all the olive oil and hard grated cheese. 12-yr old chubby mocha-coloured Sara complaining because all she ever got to eat was noodles. The mess and the clutter and the dark wooden light of that rummage-furnished house. Probably drinking wine too, probably me acting like a buffoon and not even knowing it. Enjoying myself and afraid to admit it, always on top of everything because I knew I could leave. The places we never went: her bed. Though we could have. Though given enough time and things not happening, we would have. And then I'd be where? Somewhere exactly like where I am right now only a lot, lot different. I don't regret it, I can just still smell it. And there's that muffled lightning flash of want-to-cry again. I'm a time-travelling moron. I just don't get it. Do I? And another thing: Scott E was always a really good friend, or if not always then often enough, and we were both such smart asses I almost always failed to see it. I mean, I see it, I saw it many times, but what are we now? I hardly ever talk to him. I'd like to, but it usually goes a little flat. Still, I'd like to. Maybe now the silliness would be just enough instead of too much. Or maybe now I don't have to get so pootsy if it's a little too much. It's like, I try so hard not to sound as dumb as I have in the past, and I end up sounding dumber. I can't think of nothing to say and I have to piss and I hate it here and my neck hurts and shit shit shit shit shit shit I have read all these old letters and I feel like shit. God fucking damn it. * Okay. Because of how often I complain, I feel compelled— and, in fact, grateful— to report this: At the café I felt like shit. Well. Obviously. Take a look above. Now I'm home and Meggie's face is covered with soggy cracker, and Ann's hair is red. The kitchen smells like soy sauce and onions, and I just jumped up and down and said to Meggie, Hey! Poopoo head! You're covered in crackers! And I actually feel pretty warm and pretty good. Okay. Okay. 02/26/03 I'm so sick of talking about me, I'm not even going to do it today. Spin around once while waiting for americano. The girl behind the counter says, Yay! That's the best ever! then laughs with her friend. Just saw two bike messengers. At least, I think that's what they are. Tlkain and Bnil. Talking in this cafe. They have walkie talkies and they talk in codes, copy. Over. They laugh lightly, easily, as though they own almost nothing and it is more than enough. They are thin straps, lashing through the cold and the gray. They congregate here, in and in front of this cafe way down downtown. Daily Discipline: Read. Write. Play (capoeira). [get up early. eat good food. breathe clean air. volunteer. say yes. relax your bones] That girl that works here is shaped like a goose. I mean that in a good way. Her butt is wide and low but spunky, and her shoulders are narrow. Imagine her squat apartment with stucco walls and a green light. Write good code. Come back tomorrow. It's still today! Help! When it's time to leave here, go somewhere else. They're mopping the floor. Examine that statement. They actually that girl, the taller one, who laughed at my spin're mopping her wrists bend femininely and her ample butt swivels slightly. Her feet clump along the that one, the one my feet aren't touching, the one with all the specks and divots these girls see every day they work, the one ignored by all the marching downtown feet, the one of mauve and dun slate tile floor and now it shines, inviting me to leave. It's almost time to leave. What happened? Where does the time go? What's wrong with this dream? Oh lord, not that again. One more steamstick and then I go. * Utterly trivial report: Steamers Coffee americano=good. Border's Cafe americano=bad. You can't just sit around drinking americanos in well lit cafes, you know. Eventually you have to go someplace gray and dirty. And maybe you won't be able to take your computer with you then. What then? What are you going to do then. Oh bite me. The well is empty. The well is empty. The well is empty. Sound the alarm but there's no alarm to sound. The well is empty. Whether I put that last period or not at the end of that short sentence. Whether this person looks over my shoulder or not. Whether she is stooped or not, whether or not she has a limp, craggy dust-brown face, rumpled coat. How slowly she moves. What I fear she will ask me. What do you want from me? Nothing A man on the radio said he used to write bad psychobabble poetry about himself, then realized he wasn't going to get anywhere unless he started playing with words and getting outside of his own little circle. God, I so hunger to make good stories and yet it seems so impossible! The books that exist gleam at me from the shelves. They luminesce, pershidium! Why can't I get in there, into that virtual hurricane? Why am I grounded? Why is the well empty? Why oh for christs sake here I go again. Fucking FUCK me, man. It's all so obvious. If only I could see it. I can feel it though, and it's that same old dull, boring ache again. Right this instant I have to do something about it or I will literally die. Jump into the swamp. writer so hung up on words he couldn't but he did one day all of a sudden jump into the swamp. When he emerged, cattail fronds and goo stuck to his face, a phalanx of geese flew over his head. One of them took a crap on him. That hardly ever happens. He should consider himself lucky. Okay. I need a new job. Nobody wants to know about the life of a small offset duplicator operator. Or if they do, so what, I don't want to know any more about that. I'm bored. Okay? Are you happy? I said it. I am so fucking unenlightened that I am BORED! So, whose life would I like to know something about? Bike messenger. Writer? Maybe, if it's a good story. Teacher? I don't know. Maybe, if it's a good story. If the guy gets in trouble a lot, or is kind of crazy or something. Pages and pages and pages later, this character emerged. Dripping wet. From the muck. Fish still nibble at his ankles as he stands there, thigh deep, blinking in the sudden sun. Private detective. Whatever it is, I would like it to involve travel. Even if it's just around town. I don't want to sit or stand in one little area all day anymore. I don't want it to be such a given where I am to be found, or who I am going to see. I want a little bit of quiet, gentle shock value. Substitute teacher? But I don't relish the thought of little kids terrorizing me. No sir. I got out of grade school and high school a long time ago. I made it through that shit maze. Why would I want to go back? Fuck them. They can go it alone. They don't need me. You're just afraid the little kids will pick on you. Fucking thing about these nagging little voices, the ones in italics, they never quite shut up. Oh for fuck's sake. Pack my suitcase, I'm going to a small town in Iowa and then I'm going to Belgium. And I only want things in my suitcase I can touch when I get there. Underwear. A book. Socks. A gun. Hey, fuck, you never know. No, I forgot about the airport security. Okay. Just the usual clothes and accoutrments but make it the old tan suitcase, the one with the elastic inner pocket that makes you think of manliness and frilly panties simultaneously. I like that image. That's who I think I am, really. That suitcase. So why is it in the— oh wait. You've heard this question before. Put the question in the basement and bring the suitcase up here. The rakish afternoon sun makes love to the boards of the empty floor; I'm ready to go. Tell my wife. My daughter. I will be back for them. We'll have a donut at the airport and they can tell me all about the exciting world. Take to the streets. Bang the keys. Kick the can. Over half the words in the English language are nouns. There's a good reason for that. Break the bread open. Feel the steam. Drink the orange juice of the sun coming up. Fold your wing down over the mist. Circle out across the great lake, come back, build a nest, fight. The horizon is the only enduring myth. Haphazard poetry rusts; in the fine debris reside microscopic creatures. Friends who will indulge each other's conversational conceits. Two bits of scrap aluminum. A nail. A pine pallet furry and gray with age. The first book in a series. Faded red plastic. The insanely silent screaming ache through the blasted windows here, here, here This little world is designed to make you tired. Get it dirty. Trash it. Ignore it. Lick it, suck it. Spit it out. Rot on it, bleed all over it. Fuck it. I am starving. But I am not afraid to say so. Small accomplishment, this. Too small and yet... My dick my inkstained jeans that girl's skinny tight ass When I met him he was reading a book in the steam room. The book was getting big with moisture. So was I, so was I. Ha ha. bored bored bored bored bored mud & beach & rocks & silt & dirt and your painted toenails intertwine what happened to you when'd you get so fat? Ha ha. Whatever, it's a fucked up world. This duality of you vs me, did you ever think about that? Oh. Of course. How silly of us. Welcome back, anyway. You don't know how much it means to me that you exist. Skinny, fat, or whatever. Although, I gotta say, if you want to lose a little weight, I wouldn't fight you none. Touch. touch. come come i'm gonna go buy a book. any book * well as it turns out I bought The gospel according to Jesus Christ by Saramago. Saramago's good. * Holy shit! Grapefruit juice is good! Once again, Capoeira saved my ass. It transforms me from a screeching, clenched, muttering genophobe into a guy who sings, chats in the sauna, dances around and pretty much forgives everybody (including himself) for being human. It's not too bad a deal. Starting today I'm changing my life. Why? Just because. It's the craziest, best thing I can think of to do right now. Details to follow.... 02/27/03 7:17 AM at this hour warm grapefruit light suffuses the city, the city spreads out clean and humble from here, my little vantage point. Dream: the parking lot was gravel, covered with snow, a clearing surrounded by trees. I parked and started walking around the periphery of the lake. It was slippery, rather steep and I slipped, my left foot punched through the snow and I knew the ice would be thin. As my foot sunk in, I thought, well this sucks, and I kept sinking in deeper, slowly, deeper. I squunched my eyes a little bit, and made half my awareness be back in bed, in this world more or less. I wasn't cold. I was warm. But I was still half out there, sinking slowly into the icy lake. I did manage to extract myself. I remember walking back to my car and brushing the snow off the windows. Some guys were going the other way, toward the lake, and I might have warned them about the deceptiveness of the edge. * It's all about not writing. If you (who are you? the fish, of course!) don't know what I'm talking about, please recall Klepack's acting class! Honest! That's what it's all about! 022803 Papushka ya ya. Papushka ya ya. Where shall we sail today? in this halfrotten weatherbeaten bucket of boards? to rome! to the olive groves! to chalky white cliffs with the dwellings tucked in!