2001 - Resolved...

You Say You Want a Resolution?
This year I ought to quit smoking but I won’t. Probably. I do intend to walk faster or farther—or start running (again). I can make all sorts of plans to make money until I’m stopped short by the necessity of getting up at 7.
I don’t sleep well & I’ve been having nasty & insufficient dreams. Now & then I think I have a good idea, but I suspect that is just the last gasp of estrogen. So, should I write an essay on hormones? Gay men?
B(oston) M(arket) Starbucks 1/2/01

Facing Forward

Ooh, what's that?
Facing forward then, stalwart into the future...
I made it rain today. I did it the usual way, by trying to run an errand clear to Ballard, a place I've only been 3 or 4 times & don't wish to see more of. I hung around just a little too long & then all the buses were running the other way. I got a bus driver worthy of being hit with a two-by-four, but I knew it right off & didn't believe a word he said. But I still didn't get a shoulder bag.
So, rather than give over the day, I went to the cheap Asian haircut store & found the price had gone up. My haircutter didn't speak more than 5 or 6 words of English, but she cut my hair OK. I think. If not, I bought a mirror so I can see the back & will snip at the edges.

I got to the library right in time to finish the Fritz piece, the 2nd part. I need to catch up. (I mean, the Future keeps happening) I think I'll jump to his collapse? (Or should I leave that to go with PofV?) (Then should I write an essay on happiness or its lack? Or on journals? Or crafts—oh, macramé). Then to pile Pelican on Os humeri, I found a bunch of physiotherapy—stretches for my fucked up shoulder. I can only remember 3 but I'm sure they'll keep me busy until it heals. But then I forgot to buy smokes...so should I quit?
15th Starbucks 1/3/01

It's Called Rain
And it ever starts falling at just the time I plan to go out & run my errands. Even today when I didn't do enough to justify my (artistic) conscience: A page and a half, that is, with no struggle. So I didn't struggle, or justify. I ast tas sta sat around thinking about all the revision I could be doing & watching the sidewalk submerge. "Maybe tomorrow," I said. If I'd a had a cat, I’d a taken a nice nap. I'd a taken that cat in hand and...
What's funny is that thinking about how I don't take naps reminds me of that first winter back here, or maybe the second—and the comfortless rain. It makes me wish to end. Finish. Be gone. Done & gone. And you know, there's nothing I can adduce from the last 10 years to contravene or mitigate that, what, judgment (is it a judgment?). My novel—nope. Slap it aside. The re-rag with Fred? Laugh it to scorn. The foster cats...umm, well, someone would have taken care of them.
Kurt Cobain? The music of Nirvana. So maybe Kurt died for my pains. (It’s a sin against yourself to love someone else that much.) (Talking Tomas here.)
A bus ride that otherwise would merely skirt the limit of tolerability hurtles into the abyss of Ick when it rains. Everyone expands when wet. If we have umbrellas, we expand even more. We stink like wet sheep. And the windows fog and dot over so you can't see out.

I’ve got my hair short enough so it almost doesn't matter if it blows straight up in the air. Or not to me.
15th Starbs 1/5/01

Wind & Rain
Could be Cockney rhyming slang for pain, but it has no smile in it, innit. Faucet & drain? Top hat & cane?

I read the web about my shoulder, how it doesn't get better, in fact, it gets worse. So maybe it is bursitis, in which case it will get better by itself—or it won't. Or I might have spurs. Yes, cowgirl me. And what I have to worry about is frozen shoulder syndrome. That's worse than frozen butt syndrome, or cold feet, cold hands, cold heart. Frozen shoulder doesn't thaw.
I'd like to think that these afflictions are temporary, but I think they are only temporary to the extent that I am. I mean it's going to be like this until it gets worse. And then I die.
It all makes me feel so trapped. Trapped in my overpriced apartment, trapped in boring backward Seattle, trapped in my old age & pessimism. And how can I get money if I can't get up in the morning & work?
Well, I can't, can I? I'll just have to get some fucking pay for my fucking words...

All I feel like doing is jotting lists. Memory in bite size pieces. Music, for instance. Led Zeppelin's first album & that guy with the reddish blond hair, name all gone, who wanted me very very much, And with "How Many More Times" & "I Can't Quit You," I wanted somebody—only not him. That was torture. I wanted someone commensurate with that music. Jimmy Page, maybe.
B.M. Starbucks 1/6/01

Travel Metaphors
No, I don't think I do. Like it that way.
I went clear out to Ballard, that's further away than hell, and what an exciting time I had, trying to find things. Like a bag. Like a bus. Much searching followed by small success. A small bag, a small bus. And a good look at great, flat ugly Ballard all laid out under the sky with little cheap houses—like you might find in Parkland. And weird garage shops & no trees, they must have cut them all down & never planted any more. Nice railroad tracks though. I walked across the tracks & entered the Fred Meyers by the back door—amazingly, right by the bags. It would have been more amazing if they'd had just the bag I wanted. Too much to ask.

On the way over I took a 28 bus that went along west Lake Union & a number of new buildings, the purpose of which was not obvious. Then we snuck into Fremont the back way, and I looked for Lee's apartment but Fremont was foreign, seen from an unaccustomed angle. There were people swarming the sidewalks. I hate Seattle.

My shoulder was very painful last night, but I slept pretty well & this morning it didn't hurt at all—what do you think of that? I was so pleased that I decided to live after all, and intend to call the City job line tomorrow. –But now, I forgot to buy my cake. I ate "dinner," at 2 p.m. and I'm starving, and I forgot to get cake. I may have to eat some real food.
15th Ave Starbucks 1/6/01

I Took a Load to the Dump
That's something to do with your load. But once you get it to the dump, what then? Leave it. Throw it all away, as Bishop Umeki said to Ira. And look, look at the seagulls, hundreds of them, like flying Christs of the Andes.
The rain began as I stepped out the back door. It wasn't as bad as I expected—we've had several days of steady rain from 10 or 11 on & all the drains overflowing by 2. Today it intermitted & pattered off & the air turned cool. The moon illuminates the clouds like a diva in chiffon. My hair sticks out in the back like a bustle. My shoulder hurts. I look like a nice lady with bustle-back hair, but I am not. I sour milk, I gainsay your faith, I blight your hopes, I laugh at your haberdashery. I fart more than I used to, too.

Water drops on the green metal tables out front but the sidewalks are dry. Not bad for the first weeks or two of January. I feel all right, considering.
But I want more people to make me laugh. Or I want more people to make laugh. (I must ask JHY about that.)
A lot depends on how well I sleep. What sort(s) of dreams I have. If I don't have something coming in soon, I'll have to make arrangements. You know. I have $450. Tout ensemble.
15th Starbucks 1/8/01

Rules 4 Living

Rules 4 Living
1) Keep breathing
2) Don't stop
3) Repeat as needed
A chorus line of high-bottomed, long-legged wooden chairs stands looking out the window. A weeping palm. Hanging lights: I never describe any of my cafes. Do I care? Do I wish, when reading back, that I had written what color the walls were (magenta in the MM after it re-opened the last time), or are (orange & yellow here). This place is oblong with cut outs & a vaulted half-ceiling—well, that's what I'd call it. Two-story box of glass. Banquette against the north wall—we like these seats best.
I developed a sore throat last night, on top of (& to the side of) my choke spot. Doesn't seem worth it, does it? I'm still breathing. At moments I...almost...feel...(feeeel)...that somehow...it might...be...all right...
Delusion. Oddly
But then Marcus come in, fresh back from having his shoulder tendons repaired. He's going to share his physical therapy exercises with me.
15th Ave Starb's 1/9/01

Mountain Dreams
Camp? Or the cabin. I was there with Nancy M. Fred—who paid no attention to us (maybe he was on TV?) (I think he was Monsieur Verdoux)—jumped on his wife or a cot & pulled a sleeping bag over them & he throttled her. Nancy & I looked askance at each other. I think then I started to call 911 & Fred went up in flames. Or went in flames up the flue—there was a high ceiling—like the one I was trying to describe at the 15th Ave Starbucks. And that was the end of that episode. Then I undoubtedly woke up with my throat full of quills or spines or... Four or five wakings, one or two hot flashes & my throat all rasty every time. Each time I woke I drank water from the jug by my bed

Today, sunshine made everything seem worthwhile even though nothing is worthwhile. I sold no writing. I got no job. There's a policeman sitting so that his service pistol (don’t think they’re revolvers anymore) about 6" beyond my reach. But I grab not. Frustrated beyond description by my inability to mold the world to my liking.
But I can always read.
B.M. Starbucks 1/10/01

Air Wages
Man & woman talking mouth & sign, so that I can't stop staring. I wish I could speak it too. He's deaf. They are.... I like them. I wish they were my friends. They're gay too. Do I wish I were gay? No, nor deaf. Do I wish I had a professional career, that I saw clients—like she does? (Actually, if I swung for girls, she'd be my kind.) (And they have cats too.)

I have made it to Thursday night with no progress. Fiscal, I mean. I decided, as I do when we come right down to the time to go, not to buy a gun. Not today anyway.
Last night my sore throat was very rasty. Only when I tried to sleep, of course. I got up at 1 & read for a while, figuring maybe I could give myself a sleep deprivation high like I did in August when I drank the foxglove. I didn't (get high) but I did get out the throat lozenges & they worked. I slept & woke (got up at 9:30) & the last dream I had was that I was on 24th Street, the north side, by where the Iglesia used to be. And there was this crazy guy who came out (all the buildings were derelict & boarded) with this cat, he had painted the cat (he was a crazy light-skinned black guy, like a psychotic Malcolm X). I was enraged & took the cat so I could run up to the vet's at Castro. The cat didn’t seem too bad, it was purring & my anxiety was a little assuaged—as I work up.
Today my throat is better & I only feel a slight choke—the same as before.
And I did not work except shuffle papers & make pen marks on Connections. (But wouldn't it make a movie?) And I got no mail.

Just as I was trying to fix the sticky-out bits of my neck hair, I heard sirens cutting out—so I casually walked out front & there were 6 or 7 police cars & a taxi—empty with doors open—in the middle of Thomas & besides the cops, a guy in a camel hair coat striding back & forth. I didn't feel like hanging around to find out what it was about, so I went to the library & did some agent letters. But on the way a big fat long-haired black cat seduced me. I did like that. And it didn't rain.
BM Starbs 1/11/01

They're So Nice
These kids at the Starbucks (Tex & the dark-haired girl w/ the tongue stud) are so good to me—give me a free quarter pounder when they can't find any Colombian. And I still have my gift certificate. And though it's raining again, it's not raining very hard & though I haven't sold any writing, I didn't get any rejections either.

I did laundry & some cheese-paring corrections on....and I peeked at Matry. —and thought about W. Trevor's skill, how unobtrusive a story-teller he is. How does he do it?
Could I? For some reason, I felt satisfied with the work I did. I always do too little, but I felt like some progress was made. I "finished" Epimenides. I don't think it's good, but it's more whole than I ever expected. I mean I think it really is complete.
15th Ave Starbucks 1/12/01

Rain Rain
All day, your typical winter Saturday. I had only half-good books to read (half or less--Rebecca West on Saint Augustine!), but I did some paper shuffling & found a nice quote in my commonplace book--from me. It was so good, I can only think I must have stolen it.
I didn't get any other work done. Tap tap tap at the library, but it was all pummeled clay—which is what you get with computer rewrites. A disinclination to start fresh, even when you know you should. And I know I should call upon Her to help me.

Peter Gabriel & some violent drumming shifted my mental shape. It may have been that --"The Rhythm of the Heat" as much as the pithy sayings in my CP Book—that made my heart glad.
I felt that I could step through time.

Last night I had to take an antihistamine & I slept deeply for much of the night. I dreamed I was looking at the grade slips from all my college classes—the ones I've been continually taking the last 20 years. And I found I'd gotten an F in one of them—existentialism?—and I knew it was because I just sat there & never said anything, and the prof. assumed that I—a silent female—knew nothing. I had mixed feelings about the un/fairness of this, but mostly I was chagrinned at an F.
BM Starbucks 1/12/01

Cold

Cold Cold
It is, and I have one . Both contribute to my nasal burbling. This is the third day of that. But compare, this is the third or fourth month of shoulder-ache, and the 2nd year of throat pressure.

Nice to double words for titles. I mean, it's easy, it seems, oh I don't know, organic, or maybe I mean natural, and you never know what you might get. Perhaps an incantation.

Then come in two men wearing dresses. They cross themselves before they drink their lattes (are they lattes?) & speak Roooshian, but when they say Engelsk words—"upright" "Kendall"—they do not have accents. Now I know we have monks on the hill...("Shakespeare") but what would send American boys into the arms of Mother Russia's church? The desire to wear dresses?

I might wish for so singular a fate--like Lady Hester Stanhope in her billowy trousers (and, oh I hope, curly-toed slippers).

This is almost as good as the day the Hasid showed up all alone in La Boheme. That was better because it was the first time & I was so much younger. When was that? 1979, 1983? Of course, he seemed lost & maybe crazy.

Whatever else I was going to say...
I went for two walks & the cold air hurt my sinuses. No cats. Okay, one cat all day. And good ideas high-stepping through my mind like a homecoming parade. No. St. Pat's. Ideas like teen-age girls with fat thighs, satin dresses & tassels on their white boots. That could be. And high school kids marching in dorky hats, making a happy clamor. Fat sheriff posses riding big-haunched horses & clowns with shovels & brooms.
And gone again.

I spoke to a woman who was going to hear Tibetan drums. I wanted to go but with my diseased head, I felt unworthy.

Strange, those bearded monkish guys. I like them. Better than the jittery emaciated guy with the helmet hair. Ordinary madness vs. baroque aspiration. I know which one I'd choose.
15th Starbucks 1/14/01

Something & Misery
Pain? Sin? What else goes? Not mirth or birth or even dearth and certainly no multisyllabics. Even "something" pleases not.
Cold inside & outside my head. And my nose is running for the 4th or 5th night in a row & I don't want to take another antihistamine. I think they make my shoulder worse. But to lie in bed listening to the burbling in my nostrils. Listening to the burble of my breath.

Can you tell I've been rewriting, which makes me sensitive to syllables (I use too many) & gerundives (past continuous?) also too many—those -ing words.
Oh, I started so late, & I started from so low & I am such a slow learner. (Back of hand to forehead: Ahhhh.)

I'm way tired of Connections, and only 1/4 of the way through. I think it could be cut. But I'd like to be writing something brand new. Something I have no inkling of. Inkling. Now that's a wonderful word. That's what I'm up to: inkling.
15th Starbucks 1/15/01

Hubble-Bubble
My nose sounds like a hookah & it has been sounding like one for 6 days. I gave up & bought Nyquil even though last time I took it I had some bad chest pain. My shoulder hurts anyway, and I want to sleep. (I had bad dreams last night, and bad reality when I woke this morning.) But it warmed up 10 or 15 degrees & started to rain.
I did my usual thing, like I always do, and didn't get very far, like I always don't. And then the only mail I got was the light bill. The police came but I didn't talk to them. (I wonder what the guy in #9 is up to.) A woman goes by in a muscle shirt, elbowing into a windbreak, um a fine specimen. I wonder where she's from—the dance studio? I wish my shoulder would clear up, I'm tired of feeling like a cripple. I want to be a fine specimen too.
15th Starbs 1/1/7/01

The Point of What?
Quietly reading. Quietly writing. Dark & cold out—if there is progress (along the orbit), I can't see it. Our progress around the orbit mimics the sun's progress around the ecliptic, isn't that nice?
I see brighter haloes than ever before. Not on saints, either. What, I ask you, what am I to do? Other people survive, even thrive, why not me?
Because I'm writing tripe, that's why. My one & only life & I'm wasting it writing tripe. And I do sort of believe that if your art isn't going to give people shivers 10,000 years from now, then you might as well give yourself over to
over to...over to
But there you have it. I don't have an idea of what I'd give myself over to other than what I do:
feasting? drunkenness? love
· service? Am I forgetting something?
· Duty or gratification.
· Craft.
· A bottle of juice. A flight to the sun.
Those boys.
BM Starbucks 1/18/01

Stateless

Stateless
I should have done something today, at least gone down to Group Health to look for jobs, but I did not. I didn't quite do nothing; I fiddled with my little sonatines (?). I went to the library & fiddled some more. My arm hurt. Quite a lot--though now it doesn't much. I didn't get a job. This means that my financial condition is critical--if I don't work 5 days out of the next 7, or sell writing & get a check... Who would loan me $?
The thing I have to do is remove myself from the situation. Enter the non-being state. The door only swings one way, and I don't know where to score. I still expect--half expect, I know better, but I can't give up—some irruption of deus (ex machina) (ex cathedra) (ex nihil) or (ab ovo) — I don't care.

Other people have succeeded, even as writers, others as worthy (& therefore unlikely) as I, so why not me?
Why fucking not me?
It's as if failure is embedded in my DNA. All those know-their-place Norwegians. Then under-achiever Grandma S.
So am I a genius, or (/and) am I a schmuck?

Nothing changes; I dare hope my cold is getting better despite lack of clear progress. Nose still running.

In order to get my nodule taken care of by the NIH, I'd have to go to Maryland.
BM Starbucks 1/19/01

Sans peur, sans espoir
Well, maybe a tiny bit of peur, realistic, and a smidgen of espoir, because, well, because we must. I'm not that strong. Though I'm trying. Strength through soy.

I could, I suppose drag myself through a month, year, decade of filthy drudgery.
Except that I've left it too long. I've ended up on my little bit of eroding cliff, grabbing at the wild strawberry vines and....
Yes, those are alligators down there.
Hang on. Why? Umm

I asked for a sign. I got two rejections. I don't just find the natural world impenetrable, but people everywhere as well.
Am I turning into an alien? Turning??
I'm revolting. I am.
B.M. Starbuck's 1/20/01

One Candlepower
A winter Sunday: sky fuzzy gray like a lambs wool sweater. Dropping low. The view from my front window sans the 3 towers. It never got light. I finished (re)reading Princess Missy's war. I wasn't happy. Partly my arm being sore, but mostly waking up from some not-bad dreams—even if the cats hadn't been properly taken care of. (Dingo was there & part of his tail had broken off — a piece of tail?!?), and it meant I had to solve these problems. Some of the cats were 'Mas-cats. And I was young & attractive & money wasn't a problem.
Then I woke up: I was old & ugly & my arm hurt.. I only have $250 & no Likely Prospects.

I told Lee that he had to help me come up with a boffo idea, but does he? Something quick n easy to write & an instant money-maker. What does everybody Love?
15th Starbucks 1/21/01

What Does Everybody Love?
Sugar
Sunshine
Love & Glory
A good night's sleep.

I'm not sure about Love & Glory, though I expect that nobody hates them. As for all the other bonuses (boni?), different bonbons for different gens. I think many, if not most, folks like puzzles or mysteries solved. But that's where the conflict comes in. Because getting rich or well is better than simply being rich or well.
Improvement. Put that on the list.

Pretty pictures, violence—we'll never please the men & the women...all together.
But it's not right to dichotomize—that's the trouble with looking for a formula. Well, there's the love at war story: Casablanca.

No mail, no phone call. I didn't go downtown. Maybe tomorrow?
BM Starbucks 1/22/01

Trying to Cling
I try to cling to the remnants of my self-control. I wish to keep my determination solid. Or fluid but contained.
I hate getting nervous & upset. It's just my body reacting. Overreacting. Who or what threatens me?
My sense of failure. My boredom with ordinary people and ordinary life. I can appreciate ordinary people's secret or at least subtle greatness, but not enough to hang around with them all day. Anne W. is right though--in her Walter Mitty suggestions. There are possibilities I haven't tried. (Though I don't believe bartender is something I should try.)
What I am good at. What I am...
What am I good at? Sarcasm. Something unsuspected from time to time. Pithy wit. Nonsense. Vituperation. Well, criticism.
Procrastination becomes a choice in itself. Should I steel my will? I mean my Won't. Stiffen my backbone till it breaks?
Remember all the times I called Tomas and he wouldn't come? How many times did he call me when I wouldn't?
BM Starbucks 1/23/01

Yeah, Who's a Fool?

Yeah, Who's a Fool?
Stale cake is better than no cake at all. Yes or no?
Like, bad ideas are better than none.
That Lee...
I walk into the Starbucks & say to him, "What would you do if you were me?"
and he says, "I'd shoot ME." And he's not smiling, but it's his Monday.
He's lying.

Next to me, 2 guys with accents argue about the housework & cooking. I can't place the white guy's accent. He looks...young. But maybe Czech? Russian? Are they a couple or just roommates? Guys are so lame. Young guys. Well, some girls too.
The fulla shit gene just expresses itself differently in the two (or is it four, or five?) sexes.
The young guys play with their cell phones. I don't think it's lekking, except of the most general (knee-jerk) kind. I'm the only female in the vicinity & too old to elicit lekking behavior. Anyway, I think they are gayboys.
I can't tell when they are that young—the styles change. One is wearing a ski-hat and the other has plaid pants & a backward baseball hat.

Yesterday I was in such a bad mood. But today the sun came out & I was happy. Nothing good has happened & I'm $10 poorer & still have no prospects. Still. If I'm going to commit myself to a Solution, I have to do it soon. I'm at the point of having to dig the dollar bills out from under my chest of drawers.

I wish I could like it here. I wonder if I could like it anywhere.
B.M.*bucks 1/25/01

Either Way
It could go either way, only knowing me, it will undoubtedly go That Way. But you know what I always say, either way, it’s going to be fine.
Only I need to go buy that gun right now. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go shopping. If I could count on getting my tax refund soon.
(I had $15 under the bureau. No mail)
Do I feel vindictive? Sure. I just wish I didn’t have to spend so much money just to escape. Or I wish I had enough that it wouldn’t matter.
Yeah, well, it’s too bad I don’t have a car and a garage to park it in.

I went to Group Health today. Now that everything is on the web, it’s impossible to find a job—all over the state of Washington. Feature that. Impossible for me anyway. So, I dropped my resume off at Park & Recs, which is right across the street from GH & I’m sure it was just my imagination that the H.R. guy thought I was Vaguely Suspect & a possible undesirable alien.
(No argument there.)
Still, it was a sunny, mild day, the kind that’s bound to lead to energy shortages, but not in this kid. I marched down Denny & I marched back up. I saw some skateboarder kids with a wrinkly dog & I thought, “Jesus, I’m sick of face jewelry.”
BM Starbucks 1/26/01

Impingement
Even as reality keeps impinging on my enjoyment, my own spurry bones seem to be impinging on my joint space. Acromion. Greek pinchbeck styling defect. Excuse me, engineering defect.
But I suppose there's some trade off. Maybe when I was young (oh, when I was young), I could reach farther? Or do something better—jumping jacks perhaps. And now, and now. Look at me, I can't unhook my bra.
I'd gladly fall down dead, if only I knew how.
On the whole though, I feel good. Of course I feel good. I haven't gone to some shit-sucking, soul-crushing, brain-macerating, time-wasting job for two whole months. And now it's time to pay. I don't want to spend a lot of money on death when I can spend it on life—more fun. (What Goethe didn't say on his death-bed, but what he was probably thinking.) Licht or Lust. Whatever. More sounds good to me. A little more? Yes, please.
Well, suffice to say, I didn't go buy a pistol, not even a small one, and so I still have $200. And no way out except miracle or smash.

I do feel bad when I wake up. I've been sleeping not badly. Warmish but no hot flashes, and so only the painful shoulder to cosset. And haven't I just had wonderful dreams. Cats & lovers. Young lovers (the young "French" feller telling me I looked better than Emmy Lou Harris must have turned my jowly head!) & great fat fluffy cats. My heart.
BM Starbuck's 1/27/01

The Sweet Use of Present Adversity
Namely my poverty, is that I can extract maximum satisfaction from small boons. E.G.? Today I broke into my last $200 & went to buy what I most needed: shampoo, t.p. & cake—& would you believe, they were all on sale. It made me feel that things might be going my way, however briefly.
And with my hair slicked back & the red lipstick on, I got men staring at me. Oh & then Lee gives me my coffee free. But I didn't win the lotto. Also, mom didn't call, which meant I didn't have to prevaricate. I bought a scratch ticket; I hope my luck doesn't peter out (the way it usually does).

A nice walk on a dark Sunday. Heavy cloud cover unraveling in the west like one of my old gray sweaters. And the sun lighting the top stories of the houses in a way that seems (huff puff) almost supernatural. Actually, the bit of lighted cloud in the southwest as I came down Federal looked like lace on an ancient ball gown.
And then I got my money & found everything on sale.
All quiet—half quiet—on Broadway because all the fools were home or in bars watching the Stupor Bowl. Cold though & I just manage to avoid Kay in an ugly hat: she doesn't look around when she walks.
I also gave a crazy guy a bum steer. I bet he called me a bitch when he found out. Well, too bad, that's what he gets. (And what do I get?)
BM Starbuck's 1/28/01

Stubborn

Stubborn
I keep circling the mulberry bush, stopping here, stopping there, hurrying on. I like feeling like I belong here. I like chasing my personal stag. I don't understand why life has gotten so complicated that we all have to tend computers. I don't quite accept that I ought to be just like everybody else—when I cannot. I've tried, it doesn't work.
I also don't understand why nobody has called me from TES.

Odd I come back to my couch & my stack, a lapfull of papers, & I page through. Would it be better if I'd come from Catholic South America & had fabulistic tendencies? Could I do it for Parkland? Yes, if I can feel free to lie—or not free, but if I can coax myself to it—to heighten, embroider. No, it would have to be well-lied. Whopperized. I think of the flatness, the scotchbroom, the off-limits reservation, chain link fences & barbwire. The pig farm & peat bogs & the fact that we girls were discouraged from adventure. We went everywhere important in cars & everything seemed forbidden, everywhere was off limits. Constraints.
I don't know when I filled up with hatred. Now I burn with it.
B.M. Starbucks 1/29/01

Submit
I submit stories & essays & when they bow before the editorial powers that be—what do they get but a kick? One & all.
I submit to my fate. I'll probably get a xeroxed rejection there too—and my named spelled wrong.
I didn't go downtown to price pistols. Well, it was cold & windy & when I actually think about walking into the Central Death Exchange. I can feel my blood pressure rise to a painful level. Instead I went to the grocery store and spent my gun money.
"You spent the gun money? Oh, how could you?"
(JHY would appreciate that, but I won't tell him.)

I did a little work. Very little. I decided that I could hang myself with my pink bathrobe belt. I'll have to check & find out how Michael Hutchence did it. Door knob? I don't have a good beam in my apartment, and I'm not sure I'd trust that door-hook. There is the second floor railing to be sure, but I'm a private kind of guy.

So, I got up feeling shitty & about noon started feeling better & by now I feel like I will triumph—even though nothing has changed since yesterday. I got no mail. I got no job. My shoulder improves not. I dreamed my dad died of a stroke.
However, I finally got my resume emailed to Group Health. But I don't want to work there either.

I am improving "Best Man" all out of countenance, but it still won't sell. I do enjoy making it better. It's like completing a jigsaw puzzle.
BM Starbucks 1/30/01

When Was It Good Here?
When was it good anywhere? This stint is marvelous—but marvelous—in tiny little bites. When I finish a job. When the sun comes out. When the cats come running. But all the succulent little bites are surrounded by recalcitrant aridity. Even here, even in a dump like this, though, I can have a fun time. With all I don’t have, there are always those books. However:
It’s not enough to keep me running up that endless staircase. Nothing comes. No mail. No email. No phone calls. No job. No tax return.
As I come to the end of this portion, I find it harder & harder to make what ("normal") people would consider rational plans. Or to talk about anything after next week. It’s going to sleep I like. If only I could stay. Awake, I get nerve attacks.
BM Starbucks 1/31/01

Morbid

I’m Being Morbid
I’m being Morbid & saying things like, “The Universe hates me & wants me dead.” Lee ignores my outburst. In fact, he just keeps talking, only a little louder.

I am morbid. My shoulder hurts. I have no money. I’m bored with the same old worries (a stupid thing to write—almost guarantees that you will get some new & different worries. Big unforgettable ones.) Enough of that.

I look around. This (the Olive Way store, formerly a Boston Market) is a giant Starbucks. It takes (in) all kinds. I suppose we (we?) could try to list the changes that have taken place in cafes over the years. I wonder if ever before the café spread so widely as has the Starbucks. But this mass marketing, the chain, is only as old as—what, Howard Johnson? Woolworth’s? There have been teashops—Jolyons—since WWI in London. But before that?
Maybe just the fact that a pub is a pub, an inn an inn wherever you go. Yes & I guess there were small cafes all over Europe ever since…and coffeehouses in London back to 1580.

It seems odd that—here everyone is so well dressed. I think a lot of the crowd comes by car. We have a motleyer clientele at the 15th Ave Starbucks. Hilda, the monks, the halfway housers, the retards—& me. But there is that strange & pathetic (or strangely pathetic) little man over there with the bald head & the funny suit drinking his Frappucino all by himself & never once looking up. When he gets up to leave I see he drags his left leg. One of the halt.
Must check & see if halt means precisely the same as lame.

I’m tired of writing. But I suppose I might as well continue because what else can I do—plus it’s a way of “being elsewhere.” The only one I can afford.
Lee gave me his coffee allotment. He is a doll.
O.W./B.M Starbuck's 2/2/01

Perfect Peach
I ask Lee if he wants to be a dear or a doll & he said to describe him as a peach. I hope I’m not taking the coffee out of his mouth. I appreciated it this morning, I did.
I've been writing whine-flavored emails to everyone I know & they all ignore my plaints. I manage fairly well during the day, but waking up continues to be a problem. I should stop thinking about dying in my sleep. I mean if I didn't think that I might die in my sleep & just never wake up at all, I wouldn't feel so horribly disappointed each morning to find out the world & I were still there (to cease upon the midnight...with no pain). I would like to stop ruminating the subject but I have struggled against the stupid world's stupid disregard ever since, and if I can't have Fun, let me have nothing. Not that I don't manage to have a bit of fun under difficult conditions. Like watching that guy over there, exaggeratedly mouthing some words to—well, it looks like he's mouthing them to no one, to the air. But I suspect there's someone behind that pillar, invisible to me. I should swallow my pride (hey, is that what that knot in my throat is?) & get some glasses. Bifocals & just bite it.

Two friendly little cats today. Six-toes on 16th Avenue & B/W from the porch up on Belmont across from the B&O.
The rejections come dribbling in. I stretch for...meaning.
Nothing good comes back to me. Why is that?
BM Starbucks 2/3/01

I Should Wait, but I Just Can't
I find a Valentine ring of finest red plastic in my cupcake icing & run over to present it to Lee. It's his Friday, so he's happy anyway. He laughs his laugh. I had to send him out to look at the sunset, all pink & blue & steel gray & wondrous over across the water.
Such is the virtue of living on a hill.

Such is the virtue of sitting by the door. I look up to see the big lion-headed woman with the cane who's leaving is Shirley M., scourge of the Hearing Examiner's Office. I smile & wave & she smiles back uncertainly ("who's that?"). And then a weird little white guy in a weird little beige trenchcoat leaps in the door & cuts a wee caper. First cousin perhaps to the elfin crippled guy who guzzled his Frappucino without looking up. Spirit galore.

It has been an awful day qua day. It rained whenever I thought seriously about going out. The clouds looked clean as laundry suds overflowing the heavens. I didn't like what I was reading (Amy Bloom stories), so I read something I liked even less (Ian McEwan stories), & then I put red marks all over an essay that's supposed to be finished.
The good part was when Mom called, she weaseled out of me that I didn't have job or rent. Well, it wasn't such a hard weasel. She volunteered to "loan" me the rent.
I'm afraid I cried.
Well, I cry all the time, don't I? I'm the crybaby Moo-cow of the Ellingson family.
But at least I can refrain from worrying my mind & stop thinking about pink bathrobe belt versus charcoal briquettes. It means I won't put quite so much onto the results of the last six submissions I have out (it's not nice to hate that much).
BM Starbucks 2/4/01

It Would Be Normal

For Some People It Would Be Normal
What I'm going back to. I, however, resist. Today may be preface: The computer balks at saving my list. I walk down Broadway & run into A. (A. with the mustache & pancake hat & such a negativity that I always feel like Doris Day). Her sister died. Well, it's one damn thing after another. Now the furnace doesn't work. I get away & run smack into J. I. whom I like because she's as fat as my Grandma was (the fat one). Then I do some copying & run into oh I can't remember his name. The Deli Boy from QFC who had the hip replacement. He tells me Bryan is going to end up homeless—again. I’m surprised to find he isn't homeless already.

And tomorrow I go back to work. I'm lazy & don't go down to Olive Way Starbucks (BM) (oh, doesn’t that sound bad). Up here, I see JLS, who so annoyed me with his nodgey fuzziness (a cold fuzziness) last time I saw him that I ignore him. Then the guy who sits down between me & the unloved JLS gets up to leave & tells me he knows me from the Allegro. I don't recognize him...well, maybe. One of the several uninteresting men.
Now they are playing Chopin waltzes and I want to get up in my floppy gauze skirts & dance. Like Isadora or maybe Looïe.
15th Starbucks 2/5/01

The Opposite of Stolid
Stolid which seems to combine solid & stupid, strikes me as a typical Scandinavian word, like husky or snug. It means to stand still & endure. I am of my mother's mother's race, just the opposite of stolid: we run hither & yon yelping in pain or letting out little elfin cries of glee. (Glee must be Norsk too.)
Winding, in my mindship, up those fjords with the crags & mysterious mists & brooding hues--just like here. Only older. Landscape gets old by having people look at it. Which is why Africa is the oldest place of all. Or maybe not. Maybe it's how many eyes look for how long (i.e. numbers times duration). Which would make, what the Middle East the oldest or parts of China? We still don't know.
People have always gotten around.

I start thinking that I "know" the Scandinavian language by osmosis, simply because it is English read/heard through a pane of old glass. (Or wrapped up in lefsa). Reading it gives me the impression that it's always starting to come into focus but never quite does. Like that Icelandic.

There's a guy (20ish) with turquoise hair doing something advanced with a laptop. I stare, but I'm too nearsighted & it's too techno-complex. He's got a gizmo with a red light that he taps on the tabletop. He had something that looked like a camera, (oops) pointed at me.
No mail. No tax return. I have $12 plus the five under the chest. Dang. No pay till 2/23. Dang.
BM Starbucks 2/10/01

Says it's Latin. Huh.
From stolidus or some such. Well, if you're going to believe what the dictionary says...and anyway it said it was related to OHG. I'm sure the insensible, the unexcitable were the same back when everybody spoke Proto-IndoAryan.
Way back.
Say you have a world & eyes to look at it...the gift. Sun out today. V. nice. Warmed my living room. Brightened my hair. I wrote & read & sort of wished I had some friends. Sundays are like that. I avoided thinking about the fact that I have something like $12 & won't have more until I get more. And nothing definite until Feb. 23 when I get paid. Of course, I have lots of hopes--anything could happen--but nothing ever does actually happen & hope just picks me up to fling me down again.
Luckily, I didn't need to buy anything today so all I spent was $3 on cake & coffee. Tomorrow is another day. (To be disappointed.) But I have dinner for 2 nights & breakfast for 3 or 4.
No job tomorrow, which is good/bad. I'm back to polishing--1967 again. Trying to deepen that experience. And sending out more work, and even applying for a job.
Could I take a real job? My shoulder is not getting better. And now I find out shoulder problems like this can be caused by apical lung tumors. Oh, ducky.
Not to worry, I've still got that bag of charcoal, and Jeffrey T. has left his hibachi out under his porch.
15th Starbucks 2/11/01

Rising.

Rising. Birds Make Such Good Symbols
Circling high up against a whitish cream sky: A raptor—falcon or eagle—so high I couldn't tell. It looked large—6 feet of wings—but at such a height, it's hard to judge. It circled into the sun's eye, and I was lost. Lost in its disappearance. I felt that obliteration was sweet.

No wonder Stephen King says to put your desk against a wall. I finished this, & I started that, but that is unfinished & trivial. Not worth effort. I made some phone calls. I got no email. I got Caro's loan. No other mail.
A rackety aimless day. My arm was bad, then better. When it's bad, I know that it is going to do nothing but get worse. I don't have faith in improvement. I want to cover some territory. I want to say some goodbyes. I want to go into the hushed dark.
Or circle into the eye of day and disappear on scarce-stirring wings. Remember the lake? Remember the jokes we made about Tomas being carried off by an eagle? Me too, please.
Something splendid.
BM Starbucks 2/14/01

How Much?
How much more am I going to take? It's funny how you get used to things. Like: Pressure in my neck, a sore arm. Bad sleep. Evil thoughts—
Well, it does add up to a hill of shit, I'd have to say. Instead of good news, instead of my tax refund, I get a leak in my toilet tank.
Instead of my kind, I have my kin, even indirect. I feel stymied. Have I, since I've been here, had one decent time, I mean of fellowship? ...oh, maybe that camping trip with F. Maybe a meeting w/ Liz or one of the coffee kvetches with Jana. One of the JHY visits. I don't know, I think if I wanted to point to all my old friendships, I'd just be romanticizing. Fabricating.
I'm scraping rock, as far as writing goes. Without time or assurance. With a ready-made excuse (don't start what you can't finish) (and besides it's all derivative). I mess around with pointless essays. My only talent is for taking a great idea & making it into something schlocky. Or shlocky.
What I don't understand is why nothing comes back to me. Are my throws that feeble or is it a yawning chasm out there? What is it?
BM Starbucks 2/15/01

There, see?
I got my tax return & did a little dance at the cash machines. $140; I can buy everything I want. I bought a half-pound of coffee, I bought soap. I'm going to buy ice cream & turkey & carrots & I don't know what all.

It snowed. 6-8 inches over night, melting off the trees & eaves already as I got up. I didn't feel like snow-walking, so I stayed home & read yesterday's papers, till I was sick of that. Then I went out & it was getting messy. I had no emails. My only snailmail was notice of unemployment claim. TES Marian called. Niece Karen called. I hope Carolyn doesn’t want to get together. Though it wouldn't kill me...is it better to be bored (or annoyed)? It's sort of the same principle as being poor so you can feel rich. Still, now that I have enough money so I need not pinch, or not as much as I have been, I don't have an excuse not to write to JHY. No good one, but the best: disinclined.
Life seems a balsa wood box collapsed into a parallelogram. Narrow.
15th Ave Starbucks 2/16/01

Like Magic?

Like Magic? Hell, it is Magic
The night air fills with feathers, and you wake to find the world all transformed. For one thing, entirely quiet. No traffic.
I wonder how long it will take the human race to run out of gas. Gas, oil, and coal. The old life that supports the new. There is a worldful. We have been extracting it for, what, 200 years, in quantity anyway. And before that (& some since) we cut down the forests.
But there is still wind, water, sun. And we can still use our legs. Horses, camels. Power.

Well, I can still walk down the hill & back again. I can still push a pen across a page. What for, one might ask. Except we all know you've got to do what you do until you stop. And if I live too much in my head, who could blame me, it's such a capacious & surprising place. Lots of room. Junk galore.
Anyone could blame me. I don't care.

I have a stitch in my bad shoulder. It's almost as if the tendon has gotten caught. But I think it's just my bursitis. The posterior space (?) is full of fluid? I don't let it worry me.

The patter of water as the sun comes out & melts the snow. A very nice sound, the patter of water drops on snow. And sun dazzles on a field of white.

I don't let my shoulder worry me, but it may kill me. When it hurts....I have no immunity to pain like that.
BM Starbucks 2/17/01

The Right Number. The Correct Amount.
Number, if we are collecting symbols like marbles or rocks or shells; amount, if we pour out the bounty of imagination, of likeness: water, cider, wind, gasoline, olive oil. Then Marcus, my Aussie friend from the QFC deli, comes in & we talk shoulders, health & what all. Hot packs, ice bags.
15th Ave Starbs 2/18/01

What is That?
It's a mouse on the sidewalk. Not a darting eek-a-mouse, but a stationary, is-it-dead? mouse. It wasn't dead, it was breathing but it was moving slow & I think only sick mice move that slow. However much I don't want them shitting in my oatmeal, I don't wish them dead. I mean except for their unfortunate rat-like tails, they're cute. I hope it's gone when I get back -- I don't want to take a chance on stepping on it, or seeing it after someone else has.

By the sunny windows, the men are laughing over their books & papers. I won't extend myself (stretch my neck) to see what it’s about. One’s reading the newspaper. The other one has on track shoes & looks like a door, I mean dork. The other other one (reading the mystery book) also looks like a door dork, only he has long stringy hair, an ugly tartan neck scarf & a black leather jacket with fringe. Aging fag? (The snow last Friday certainly brought out the sartorial worst in a lot of people—striped green & yellow mufflers, ill-conceived plaids.) Not my problem. I have enough troubles already with my hair (too long in back), shoulder (inflamed bursa), & income (not enough).

The evening sun slides up the apartment buildings & prepares to leap into nothingness (which it does, unlike us, by leaping vertically). 5:30 p.m. 1 month till equinox.

Holiday crowd. I did almost nothing—3 corrections, 2 sentences, & I rolled the idea of a letter to JHY around between my thumb & index finger. I fear tomorrow Marian will call me up with some awful job.

I'm reading a Byatt novel. Nice to have some brain fodder. And I just realized that my 1972 discovery of sexual passion came 5 or 6 months (less?) after I quit taking birth control pills. B.C. pills are a chemical castrator of a partial sort.
Wish I could see better.
BM Starbucks 2/19/01

That's a Green Eyed Beastie
Cavorting toward me. I'm jealous of people whose stream (of c.) freely flows. I'm jealous of people who get good reviews. I'm jealous of people who are happy. Who have money. Who take trips. Who have friends.
Even with coffee I can't piss it out--or off. This is from reading M. Chabon who is clearly manic; or at least hypomanic. I hate him.
I'm trying to paint word pictures of Cosmic Annie & ChiChi. And imagining some amusing story of what a clever girl I am (with Hopkins' help) (Father Hopkins, not Anthony) at a party (I must be dreaming), & poetry. Yeats of course & after Yeats, more Yeats.

I didn’t get a job. I don't get exciting emails. I got a rejection from Ploughshares with the return address blacked out. Assholes. Oh, I wish so many people ill.

I saw not one but two raggedy one-eyed cats like 'Massers in beggar's coats. Friendly in an impersonal way. Then two little sweeties... I sent them packing. I have no more sentimentality. (That's a lie.) Still, when I wake up with my arm bone throbbing (I know it's cancer), I say, "Enough is enough."
15th Ave Starbucks 2/20/01

Reasons

Reasons. But What's the Goal?
Nature's goal for me is not my goal. Is it odd that we could work at cross-purposes? No, I suppose even that is natural.
See, it's like feathers. A mutation that developed for the purpose of cooling, adapted eventually to flight (yeah, maybe).
Well, look, we got these big brains that are there to help us find food & mates & avoid predators, and now...
100,000 years later. Flint tools, fire, pretty soon, Cave Art.
300,000 years later. We spend our time solving Acrostics or chatting in chat rooms.
And some people get so crazy, they year voices & never use their brains for ordinary purposes at all.
It was Language, more than anything else (even more than the thumbs as we picked up the baby with one hand & a rock with the other)... Language led to writing & writing led to history & the next thing you know—here we are.
Working together to
Working together to
What are we doing here?
Of course we're not all doing the same thing. some people playing football. Some people playing dolls. Some of us working crossword puzzles.

The best thing in all the world is to sing in the choir, but if you're singing in the choir, you can't hear the choir. I'd like a musical performance that starts with a solo & adds until you have a full chorus.
Breath is life. Don't scream. Sing.


Young Folks
Young folks, stupid folks, hogging tables & talking on cell phones. That's café life. I suspect 3/4 of these kids are Seattle U. students. I prefer the Postman who sits listening to his Walkman as he reads the newspaper. His skin is the rich black of river-bank mud beneath his USPS hat strap. (I don't think they wear safari hats any more--maybe in the summer.) I wonder what he's listening to. I wonder if he is disgruntled.
Then across from me, a male-female couple with an older woman, maybe the younger woman's mom? They have the same Scandy grey-blonde hair, but who is the guy? He's too pot-bellied & geeky for that girl, but maybe not. Maybe he's an academic. Or...he seems too old for the younger and too young for the older & they are just too far away for me to hear the conversation.
Especially since the speakers are blaring 40's jump music with squirty saxophones.

Lee comes over in his black apron (a black apron!), & we talk about the cats, Vera & Elmer. Which reminds me of 'Mas & how he would chase the kitten Buck away from the heater. Winter in Seattle, many years ago.
I've been reading through the 1977 journal looking for Annie & ChiChi, finding way too much of me. There are some small nuggets in there, but God you have to do a lot of sluicing to find them.
But that's the thing about nuggets, innit?
BM Starbucks 2/23/01

If I Didn't Know Better, I'd Think
If I didn't know better, I'd think that I was completely nuts in 1977, at least from the evidence in my journal. Two full pages every day—I mean really--& though I was rabidly social (compared to now) & ever so busy, you could hardly tell anything about my life from what I wrote. Anything interesting, anyway. You will find out more than anyone could want to know about my cycling moods. Also, I had an unfortunate tendency to indulge in word play. Clang-associating. Yes, it was no doubt fun to do, especially full of coffee or tea as I ever was (& am), but really, no fun to read.
And where is the catalog of silliness that went on between me & ChiChi? I will have to pull it out using my bare memory. Yes, & the details of all Annie's Cosmic Shit too. There were a few details that I'd forgotten, like her pregnancy & many abortions. And poor Marian, whom I liked more & enjoyed talking to, is going to get hardly any mention at all. Even if she was a Christian Scientist with an estranged reggae musician husband & a libertarian boyfriend. Oh, but page after page of my feewings...it's taken me 3 days to read through from October to July. Funny part is all the names, Anne's friends mostly, who remain names only. I can't put faces or voices to them. Funnier are deeds I can't remember, or forgotten facts—that Bob Bugg was interested in me? How much I was in touch with Cousin Pammy? That I was writing to KMcK? But as for all my "ravishings"--descriptions of nature, overblown, and of my reaction to perceptions. Too too. And too many dreams.
Hey, with the beauties of the natural world, less is more, honey: less said, no need to

OK. Nice planes of sunset on the building faces down the hill tonight. A cloudbank out there in the west that reminded me of SF. Except it was taller & bluer than an ocean fogbank. I come to cafe & ask Lee if he does representational art. He tells me he works mostly in pencil.

Speaking of how boring dreams are: Last night I dreamed that Jeffrey T. (the Manager) was giving me wine, & I got drunk & kissed him. Even in the dream I knew it was a bad idea--getting drunk and kissing him. I guess I'm not dead yet.
BM Starbucks 2/24/01

Fix It
I hate to fix this evil mood by limning it on paper. By fix I don't mean repair, I mean preserve. Evil mood because I didn't win the Quinto or the Lotto, & I might have to go to work tomorrow, & I still won't have the rent. Even if I work all week, I won't.
I need to sell some writing, for the money & for the reinforcement. But mostly the money. I’ll let the reinforcement take care of itself.

"Ignatius Loyola," says the bald-headed young man with Leninesque goatee. "Ah, white boys," say I.
Light elongates like a blue miracle. Oh, it's the Blue Fairy, say I. (Did ChiChi & I do a riff on that?--doesn't matter, I can say we did). Quarter to six & the western sky is white. Celestial white. "St. Francis," Lenin says, as he gets up and shuts the doors.
Lee whispers, "I'll be right back" & strides out the door. He won't.

I think if only my arm would not hurt at night, I'd be perfectly happy & would stop thinking about the benefits of death. True or false?
If I had money.
Depressed, me?
Well, excuse me, but this is depressing.
Lee comes back & tells me he was going to bring pictures but the dog came over to his apartment & distracted him.
Then Daniel leans over the wall & we discuss weather. He's so young. He's young & comes from Minneapolis, so Seattle seems like SF to him. Wait, I mean Seattle seems to him what SF did to me way back when.
Time to get out of here before someone I don't want to see shows up.
BM Starbucks 2/25/01

Tonic

Tonic
A small scare, like a tiny bit, just a grain, of strychnine, clears away the cobwebs & makes your eyes bright. Wide & bright.
So, after an earthquake, you marvel at survival.
And in the days to follow, whenever you go into a new space, you look around for where you might shelter, just in case. Here (OW/BM Starbucks) there are no auspicious spots—one doorway besides the front & that's all glass. Flimsy tables. I guess we'd go for the supporting pillars away from the windows. Or panic & scream & run outside.

We all tell our quake stories. I'm surprised to find out from young Dan that his apartment (on 13th & Pine by the Fire Station) was trashed. A plant fell on his bed & he woke up spitting dirt.
I'm not confident of safety. That is to say, I am not nervous exactly—what I feel is a bit short of actual fright tor even anxiety, but I have a feeling that there's going to be another. Well, of course there is—from E's point of view (Mama Erde), we shakin like a bowlful of jelly [ho ho ho], all the (deep) time. And it is, in effect, continuous as the big plates grrrind their way from here to there. (But why? What is the earth's crusty old crust doing--& how silly of us to trust our fortunes to it. [On th'other hand, where can we trust our fortunes? We never developed feathery wings] ). And will the next one be a Big or Small one? We'll see or...we won't.

I've read & read over my old journal ('77) & you know what I've learned?
Hm, you want to know? Simple statements satisfy. Like this one: All evening Tomas hunted moths in the kitchen.
BM Starbs 3/3/01

Flung Masonry
Doesn't have the same impact, does it, as flung bricks, or even flying bricks. The more syllables, the less impact, right Ernie? "Less punch," says Ernie.

On Capitol Hill: Brick chimneys & cornices & little dadoes like feathers in a flapper's headband, all fallen. Surprises, as you look around. Hey, glad I wasn't standing there.

Four days post-quake, I've returned to the pain of my bad shoulder. Or is it a tumor? The thyroid can enlarge even below the sternum, as well as push out the neck to a truly disgusting degree. In fact, the more I find out about the neck & chest, the less I like it. I really should get some medical care...for which I first need money or insurance. And it doesn't seem like there's any way from here to there. Not, at any rate, as easy a route as from here to oblivion.
Though even that's not quite a trunk road.

Did I tell you what I learned from reading old diaries? I did? Let me tell you again. 1) I always felt awful. 2) How the writer feels is boring. 3) The more syllables, the weaker the prose. Like a bunch of skinny legs for support instead of one big pillar. Or something. 4) Avoid phrases such as au fond.

Or maybe I've just grown simpler with the years. My pretenses have um trickled away like um sand from um an hourglass. You know. But sentences about the cat never fail to please. (I love him still.)

Having a shoulder ache makes me wish to go. Being gone (asleep) is best. Coming back lets me down every time.

I also spend too many words on feeling bad—about whatever I'm feeling bad about: money, writing (not writing), aches & pains, love lack.
Then that college boy over there goes into his nose with a napkined index finger like the Roto-Rooter & grosses me out.
BM Starbucks 3/7?/01

Girl Friends
To my left, two girls in jeans study statistics together, laughing away. "I'm not going to do that, like Teresa. She wears lipstick—and shoes."
I'm in the clouded over state—like today's sky. After a week or two, working, nothing noticed, it's bloomin out there. But cold & overcast & I'm not laughing. I have $35 to last me until Friday, and J is back in the state & wants to meet. I don't want to see her lifted mug. I don't want to listen to her talk any more boring shit about Wyoming or her old college boyfriends.
I went for a walk around by the GAR cemetery & down to the cake store, counting my money over & over. Petted those 2 silky cats (‘Mas style & b/w—excellent) by the Interlaken Park overlook. I saw a tall guy who looked like me (solitary walker in plaid jacket), only crazier & maybe murderous. (ha ha, unlike me)
My arm still hurts but I quit taking aspirin so my stomach doesn't. I have 3 (so far) boring tasks at the City Personnel job, which I can trade off & wear anything I want. I wish I had money & girlfriends and cats.
15th Ave Starbs 3/11/01

Now I Can See

Now I Can See
Danny comes by, in his black leather jacket, & turns on the lamp. It is an ugly lamp but the bulb is bright. "Now you can see," he says & pats my good shoulder. That boy's a credit to his mom.
I miss Lee. All weekend it looked rainy, so I went to the Starbucks up by home & got harangued by Hilda. Inaudibly as ever.
Today the clouds cleared off & the sun shone. I did my laundry & wrote a letter to JHY. It's a bad letter, but I don't care. My shoulder hurts—well, that's not new, but it hurts down my arm in a way that bodes ill. Or maybe not, but it seems like my throat is fuller too. It makes me tired. It makes me self-preoccupied & mad that the world & pleasure are shut away from me.

To my right a Rumanian is arguing with a woman & another man—no, they are all 3 argue-discussing some business deal. Money, investments. The guy with the accent sounds shady, but guys with accents always do.
BM Starb's 3/18/01

Nothing Wrong with a Little Talk
Lee & I sat & talked about...um about. I don't remember anything we talked about – of course that was yesterday & a lot happened last night [in my brain] – except that Elmer is back in heat ("oh honey, I used to have the same problem") & he showed me some drawings he had done: a seahorse in mosaic, a devil who looked just like him, & I wish I too could draw pictures to illustrate:
E.g., Those 3 young folk in the window flooded in 4:30 sidelight. But I'm so blind these days I can hardly see them. The girl in the pink sweater, black pony-tail & glasses is Chinese.
It's the light I want to draw, but the ink in my pen is black.
Not so crowded today. Lee says they have all gone to Snoqualmie, and he gives me another half pound of coffee. Whatta guy.

Last night I dreamed. It was a warm night & I drank a beer, so maybe I woke up more often than usual (is that possible?) or dreamed the minute I slept—& my shoulder throbbed & I decided that it was (& it seemed perfectly self-evident) a tumor in my chest. So maybe these are the good days & the ones to come will be worse.
But I dreamed: a visit to Vicki's (a fairy tale cabin), the finch that hadn't been fed or watered, the bumblebee that someone stupid tried to catch with a jar & a tam o’shanter or crocheted pot-holder ("no, get a piece of cardboard," I kept yelling) & the little flying teddy-cat ('Mas) that flew out of sight and away, & I went into the captain’s cabin to find the #'s—they were on strips of paper like ticker-tape, or Chinese fortune cookie fortunes: The ones for "last night—not fixed" were 6 8 18 24 28 49 or the 18 may have been 16 & the 49 may have been 47.
And yet today the #s are something completely else. So much for my dreams.
I have cleaned my house in a slapdash way. I have stretched & tensed my shoulders. I have gotten soaked in the rain (last night). I have seen a 'Mas cat up a tree. I have sat inside all day Sunday until 4 & lived other lives vicariously (James Dickey family). Luckily the rain stopped & the sun came out. Nice for walking, but I didn't go far enough. Long shadows. Clean light. Spring is full, as ever, of daffodils.
BM Starbucks 3/24?/01

Overheard at Rush-Hour
The 2 boys, one in turtleneck & Sartre glasses, the other boyish & sportif, talk of someone who flies all over covering the news & lives in a 6 bedroom house in Mill Valley. And I hate them all & their friends too. The traffic runs up & down Olive while I overlook... maybe there will be a crash. The sun sets behind a brick pile named Biltmore, the very brick pile I used to look at from my bad vibe apartment at Faneuil Hall.

I'd like to think the sun is making me as distinct as the Asian girls yesterday, but I think I am obscure. That's the problem, I am obscure.

I have First Day Off (is this all there is?) syndrome, when I flip through papers & pile them in a likely order—and then stop. I got no mail. That could make a girl mad—after a while. Lacquer painted on the northwest windows of the high-rises just downtown from here. Nice at 6:10 & the day clings for just a bit longer. A rainbow in the eastern sky as I walked out after a hailstorm & then a prism in the window. Nice effect.
And the clouds...that mass of bliss blue-purple-slate cloud against pinkish white, streaming to the zenith & billowing south like blown smoke. O. do I miss ecstasy? do I miss Tomas? Is it better not to think of it? Don't look back. Go on.
BM Starb's 3/26/01

Pointy Hoods
The fashion for the young (& disaffected) is hooded sweatshirts, & they zip them against the rain, & look like pointy-headed turtles. You can shop at Kmart & come out ugly but you can't achieve the Broadway youth ugly look without some care—Urban Outfitters or Value Village.
But everyone shops at VV. Even I would if I shopped at all. An article, if I wanted to talk gussets & knits. Or synthetic fibers. I see myself sorting through piles of garments. I do not see myself enjoying it.

It has rained all day & I have gotten nowhere. I still believe that a limen, a border will be crossed & it will happen. Well, "it" has happened, but each time "it" stops. Meaning, I can't seem to get any momentum. Maybe if I sold 2 pieces at once...esp. if one was to the New Yorker. If I could sell my novel—what do I want? Enough money to fix my health & go to the Raftsund. That would take a lotto in itself—but I dreamed #s. Otherwise, what I want is for it to start not raining. Nights are bad.
BM Starbucks 3/27/01

Small Rain for the Most Part
For much of the day, small rain sifts like mist. No.
I look around Capitol Hill, sulky-eyed, not liking what I see, thinking how has it changed, and how has it changed for the worse? In all ways? Open yards gone. Rows of houses replaced by highrises. But I don't much mind them—places to live for people who'd live in places like that.
And, my dear, the styles. I never wore anything that ugly after about 1961 or so. (Um, maybe). Okay, until just recently.

Here comes Hilda. I relent—from having ignored her first 4 sallies....but then she sits over there & whispers. She's getting big hair. She likes my hair. A man drives up in a yellow trike with an exterior body. I mean it looks like a jet cockpit; complete, the girl at the end table tells me, with windshield wiper.
Well, what won't they think of next? (I miss so much, not having a TV...and most of it I'm glad to miss.)
15th Starbucks 3/28/01

Scouring Wind

Scouring Wind
Though the sun has come out & I got through to U.I. to restart my claim. I feel no satisfaction. I wrote a bit at Dave: I feel like I'm flinging teaspoons of water from the sea. What I do write feels like an evasion. But Dave is trying to sleep.
No mail, only spam in my e-mail & I need to compose a letter to someone at BCHP. So, despite the light....a certain lack of adventure, or likely possibility. Or rather, the likely possibilities are not the ones we wish for: last night my shoulder was worse, after a day of seeming a little better, and my scapulae, my "wings" are dissolving too. And my throat feels full.
And then I finished a good book & don't have but so-so books to read.
(Eavesdropping:) Girls are such experts on emotion.
BM Starbucks 3/28/01

Well, What Do You Expect?
For all my protestations (what protestations?), these little notebooks amount to journals—reportage, accounts of the day’s weather, my digestion (good today), joints & attitude (both bad). And if no one strikes up cafe conversations with me any more, I hated it 9 times out of 10 whenever anybody did in the old days. But—remember those long evenings in SF in the summer?
They’re even longer here, but I don’t notice. Oh, look, that old man has a big tattoo mandala on his leg. Has a big mandala tattooed on his skinny leg.

Lee says I look like a dyke, but I think I look like my dad w/ lipstick. I hear a snigger & turn around to see Lee peeking at me over the condiment bar.

The sun came out today. I did not write to BCHP or the Fire Dept. I did not answer the phone. I did get a rejection but it was typed & no great disappointment. Despite the sun, it’s a little cool. I asked the young counter girl the difference between the rice bowl at $3.99 & the special w/ steamed rice at $4.59—& she was baffled. The other clerk said, “But the special is on sale for $3.99.” I walked home (with the rice bowl), shaking my head.
I read the web because the Hotmail server was down—pain at night means torn cuffs. So, should I exercise? Use the heating pad? Would acupuncture help?
What about the traffic vision? What if Schopenhauer had taken Prozac. What if I did?
I did take an aspirin.
BM Starbucks 3/30/01

An Übermensch Like Me
What does that mean? I was talking to Lee about history, and...
Late Saturday café—lovers meetings, friends rendezvous(es), maybe even interviews, & sales talks! I see people rolling their shoulders, rotating their necks. It looks odd but I know the pleasure, the need. The relief. But never quite the relief you'd wish.
Conversation...movies, ferries, restaurants. Places we go in our cars.

Then the bay window across the way (Olive) lights up the planes as if painted. But I glance out the side & see the ugly back of Fantog Hall (where I used to live) tinted the color of dirty toast. That means the sun has shot a little beam under the buttocks of a lowering cloud and...
So maybe it won’t rain on me.
I have no excitement, except what I can stir up myself, by myself. Imaginary things.
BM Starbucks 3/31/01

Vicious or Precious
Lucious, of course, means full of lux: light, volupté & lush.
Today, the wind is vicious & I am, as ever, pre-. Walking into the park (Volunteer) singing, "Come hug me, I wanta feed you off my body." A Boom-Boom song if there ever was one. I mean as organisms, we women.... This happened because that black Persian ("Lucky") came running out to meet me, and you could not have stopped me from gathering him/her up against my flesh. Best thing that happened to me all day. I hate Sunday.
I hate Sundays anyway & today was cold & rainy at moments & then a teasing sun—& last night the neighbors (Jeff T. has company with a dog, jingle jingle) woke me up three times. Then today my neck feels more crowded than usual. In fact, it feels downright unhealthy. I've been taking kelp—good or bad?
I can still swallow. But it doesn't feel right.
Part of me slides off these ills—"Oh, they're nothing"—& part of me knows I'm doomed. That's the smart part that nobody likes, and she's always right too. Like the god that people do not acknowledge. No!
And I don't have anything to read w/ rivet. I'll try Mavis Gallant, one more story. I don't love these people. Not love, not hate, just don't feel for them. Now Icky Dave...
The rain stops, as if it hadn't started, & the Starbucks has that significant painterly look. Lucious.
BM Starbucks 4/1/01

JHY Sends Me

JHY Sends Me
JHY sends me a short-short about a cheating bi-frog named Charles-Xavier & I go through (rapidly cycling – yes me!) about 14 responses. Finally, I email my reply:
"Either we have a mutual admiration society —or we don't. Tu comprends?" Now, it depends on how he comes back. After his "she rips my tits, man" about Rebecca West, I don't feel indulgent, esp. when he has never responded to anything I've written except with oblique criticism. I could come up with some kind remark....or, I could criticize his insubstantial characters and all the "ands" in the last paragraph—& then tell him the rest was exquis. I mean I could even sweeten the pill...but he won't listen. (I wish I had someone to deal as intelligently with my shortcomings.)

Then I talk to a round, soft woman of a certain (certainly mine) age, who's reading Homeric Greek—obviously from the Language Academy next door. I beg her to chant the start of the Iliad: "Sing, Goddess [Musa], the wrath of Achilles...." Demurs, she does. "I'm just a beginner." Too bad, people don't want to take a chance. Like anyone here would know if instead she chanted, "In the beginning was the word...." I always pick on shy girls. We have a nice little talk. Tom Stoppard & all.
15th Ave Starbucks 4/3/01

Boys Everywhere
The trouble—or boon, depending on your p. of v.—of homosexuality is that it's every man for every other man, so cruising, flirtation, betrayal, jealousy, go sparking off in all directions. My god, the opportunities for rejection & misery could only be exceeded by those appertaining to the relations of girls aged 8-13. (And don't I still remember the smart of being snubbed by the little nobody, Jeanne S. at age 11.) With gay guys it's a little worse because sex makes everything a little more so. But now that I think on it, gay men in their hearts are like early adolescent girls. Or in early adolescence, we girls are all little queens in miniature.
"The Women" performed by men as "The Girls."

Good news/bad. I'm choking. Also have venous distention in my neck (?). Last night, lying down, it was bad, despite the kelp I've been taking (it's Norwegian kelp too) or maybe the kelp is making it worse?

But then a woman called from Country Doctor, Helen who coordinates BCHP & other programs & she actually asked me what was going on, and in short, I am going to go to Pac Med.

And in response to my asking if we had mutual admiration society, John wrote (in frog): "Is it possible that you don't know I adore you?" Oh, he does know how to disarm me...
Then the sun came out & stayed out & warmed the air, so bees flew & lit on the flowers. I walked to the U. District & would've had a lovely time except for the fullness in my neck & the fact that my jacket looks tacky.
And of course I wrote a tiny bit on Dave & pulled out my notes, and marveled at what lovely notes they are. If only someone else would write the damn thing. But you know, it becomes an alternative universe that I can live in, like dreamland, only under a bit more control—and more work to make vivid. Giventake.
15th Ave Starbucks 4/4/01

Don't Want to talk About It
It's raining again & cold. My neck is full to bursting. My shoulder hurts. I want to go to France & Lofoten & New York. And San Francisco & wherever Jimmy & Regina are. —And I don't have any money. Oh, all right. I have $600. That's not enough. And nobody buys my writing. These days, nobody even answers my submissions.

The Dave novel stinks, compared to what it could be. I must find a way. Pains—that's what it's going to take.
BM Starbucks 4/5/01

Ah-Ah-Ah
Never a dull moment in a mother's life; they speak the universal language. I wonder if it really is universal. Do Arab, African, Chinese mothers yell, "Stop" to their toddlers that way? Do they all yell, "Hey"? Maybe not, if Greeks nod "no" & shake their heads "yes." (—Heaven knows....anything goes.)

If I knew that my back problems are nothing, nothing at all, then I would go back to brooding about my friendlessness, boredom & penury.

But I have been back in KathyLand (where what I say—or write—goes & if it is silly drivel, it flows).
JHY has been sweet. That's nice too.
If only I had money.
Well, I don't & probably never will. But I have 5 or 6 jolly books to read & won't forget to buy dish-soap & I'm not dead yet.

J & I need some system for human types. You know, some molding or casting of basic form (size & coloring?) on which to put the squiggles that give individuality—which could be hair, clothes, unique features like ear lobes, nasal flare. Some people are easy: think Orson Welles. Some not so— like Tony Perkins. Fat thin. Neat sloppy. Tall short. Animated still. Given to striped sweaters. Tasseled hats, tasseled loafers. Leather coats. Ooh—plaids.
BM Starbucks 4/6/02

Armadillo Cake

That Reminds Me of the Armadillo Cake in "Steel Magnolias"
So says Danny (young Dan) & when I look blank, he tells me I have to see it. When I confess I don't have a VCR, he tells me he'll act it out for me—all the parts. (Like ChiChi & "Nashville"!)

Sunshine & clouds. Boys in their leather jackets, but not, please leather pants. I can't.... I mean it's....oh, snaky.

All boys tonight: little Flips w/ funny hats, guys reading, bent heads, crossed legs. Two with laptops, and oh wait, there's a Japanese girl. But no sooner have I said what it is tonight than it has changed into something else because this is a cafe & people come & go.

Writing days do have their peaks & valleys, eh? Waking is the valley of the shadow of Kill-Me-Please. Cup of tea, oh that's better. Cup of coffee, whee! Nice day walk—wheee! Cats in the yard, move over, lord. Good bit of writing....oh what a good girl am I. Good or bad. Things happen. Makings.
Then if I have something to read until bedtime, all I have to do is not think. And that suffices unless my infirmities are acting up.
Today the infirmities are acting up. Shoulder & throat. If somebody says something nice to me—like Dan today, or Lee yesterday—that helps make things tolerable.
One rejection today. I curse them.
BM Starbucks 4/7/01

Roofbeams & Track Lighting
And I remember when this was a Winchell's Doughnuts. Today it's too warm, too small. But not packed. I've come to the Broadway Starbs where the sun beams in, where I used to buy a donut on my way to work in 1981. From Shelly who was sleeping in the back with her boyfriend, fresh from Iowa. Or Ohio—I can't tell those 4 letter, 3 vowel mid-western states apart. (Or Illinois from Michigan for that matter.) Suddenly, I look up and there are a thousand people in line; no only 11 but in such a small space: a throng.

I'm suffering. Mostly from guilt, for instead of pushing on w/ Dave. I spent much of Sunday reading True Crime—one Frances Nutcase Mom Schreuder & fils. The twangs in my arm I tell myself are my tendons healing. Not my tumors spreading. (Grandma thought hers were gall bladder pangs.)
The sun came out & another old woman complimented my hair. I need a tiny manic attack but for that I first need something good to happen.
Actually the prospect of literary (instead of True Crime) reading & my promise to myself that I will sit down & whack out a few lines of Dave the Poet (it's garbage anyway) & the prospect of buying some upscale box o'dinner: not so bad.
Three or 4 phone calls today—hang-ups I'm almost curious enough to answer but not quite.
Broadway Starbuck's 4/7/01

How I Interpret My Headache
The suffering from my headache increases as I begin to believe it is not from muscle tension but from venous obstruction. I have begun to think that my two problems may be one problem located in my chest, upper lobe of the lung or lower esophagus. The pain is still on the left, but it's in the back of my head too, and the effect of all that is to make me wish to embrace—you know who. Right, Tomas.

I tell myself that this is a passing grief. That's one. And two, that if it's not, I can go to Harborview E.R. any time. I've called Pac Med & my referral is hung up—& it will take 3 weeks to get an appointment.
Or I can go get acupuncture—the doctors will just take the money anyway. So? Who me, worry?

Last night I dreamed there was another earthquake & I wasn't even surprised. I couldn't find a doorway that wasn't lined with glass. I don't remember what I did. I think Grandma Shevland was there. She was/has been in my thoughts. All her illnesses. Her emergency surgery.
I like to think I'm wrong about by concerns—I've never had a serious illness—but I know I'm not. Bad luck to me.
BM Starbucks 4/8/01

Nervous Attack
It rained all day. About 1:30 I had a hot & cold thrumming fit—what is that, anxiety? I felt like I was going to die—not in a nice midnight-cease way, but in an unpleasant panting, squawking, maybe even shitting your pants kind of way. Instead of calling 911, I got up & paced about & waited to fall, but I did not faint or fall. I got on the phone to Country Dr. & then to the endocrine people at Pac Med. I got an appointment (I can't afford) next Monday. And I feel okay—I mean like I'm not on the point of dying (it must be anxiety/terror or some adrenal gush—it was the same way I felt after I drank the foxglove tea). But my shoulder & the back of my neck hurt.
Mothers & children in Starb's today—though that skeletal-faced woman may not be the girl's mother. They were talking astrology. They were talking about somebody on the cusp. My mouth fell open. This morning at the Community Center I saw an ineffectual, wheedling mother with her well-on-the-way-to-being-a-major-spoiled-little-tyrant boychild. Not yet 2 years old. I wanted to take him away from her—and raise him right.
And it keeps on raining.
Broadway Starbs 4/9/01

Fall Like a Tree

Fall Like a Tree
As sure as it rains all day, the clouds will blow away, and the sun will shine. I'll get over my attack of whatever it was & — feel fine? Or fall like a mighty Douglas fir. I don't feel fine, but today my shoulder pain is worse than my neck-stifle, so I don't feel quite so cancerous, so terminal.
And the sun shines. The birdies sing: a little poo-wit hops around the bush in my front window. Those small finchy birds are so sweet—I've liked them excessively ever since I was a(n excessive) little girl. Bird—is the thing with feathers. I wouldn't be surprised if the swallows haven't arrived. Or have arrived. If so, they will be out reaping the air in their tuxedos. Silly birds.

The arm hurts into my back & up into my neck. I don't think this is right. I need some magic. Some healer's touch. And, alas, I don't even have anyone to talk to. JHY or Fritz, I guess. Jana & Liz are hopeless. Anne W. is okay but she has a broken toe and her old friend just died of lymphoma.
I think my original plan was best, but I've gotten into Dave's story & though it's probably unfinishable, I hate to toss away the good parts. –But then you always have to do that. Yes, that original plan was best. Maybe I'll find out Monday.
BM Starbucks 4/11/01

Downpour
Just as I leave the library the rain comes pouring down. So instead of going to the BM Starbs to see Lee, I go to the Broadway Starbs & see Roger Lee (from my old Apt. 7). Cozy under a sun-bright light as the rain keeps falling until the intersection floods. All the cars have their headlights on & there is that particular under-water silvered-mirror light. Then the spark.
Outside under the awning the Hungry Man waits. Let him wait.
Stories about weekend weirdness—full moon, you know. Fights. A high level of drunken truculence. I'd like to face adversity with courage, if I have to face adversity. But I'd rather not—since I think I can't. And I'd hate to see even in my mind's eye the spectacle of me craven & crying.
Craven & crying. You know me.
I'm trying to outwait the storm, but truly it doesn't seem to be blowing through. I went to do my shopping at Cost + & found they don't sell baby clothes (I'd pictured a Tibetan pajama). But I got tea for me & two little boxes for the niecelets.
I don't want to write that novel because I don't think I can. O death. I mean that's what the story finally says. And such a lot of work. But I'm saying that only because nobody's making me happy & something is making me unhappy. It don't add up.
Broadway Starbs 4/12/01

What's the Opposite of a Bisexual Male?
Asexual me! A bi-guy comes on to everybody—or anybody at least potentially. And I don't come on to anybody. Except to gawk.
All right, I come on to every cat I meet. And sometimes I preen. With the gayboys. The leatherjacket kind. But shucks I don't mean nothin by it.
—And when I see a girl go by, sauntering or striding, plump rumped in tight blue jeans, I sigh. For such a one was I.

Lee comes over with a big silver bag of coffee under his arm. He tells me it's called a "bullet." A 5-pound bullet. I ask why, he shrugs. I ask why the hair-do of prole-males is called a "mullet." He says he calls it STLB. "Huh?" I say. "Short top, long back." Dykes like it too.
Ha ha, mine's long top short back & I think I'm going cat hunting. Plenty of time—it stays light until after 8.
BM Starbs 4/13/01

Fuzzy Air
When the western air is fuzzy & sort of ice floe colored, then we know it's going to rain. Probably before tomorrow. But tonight I will walk out in the light of the evening & pet more cats.
I think the swallows are back. Or else the little finches peep just like them—and they are all out there peeping & hopping & shakin they wings. I suspect they are making—with much ado—and why not—more birdies. Yes, fresh birdies for next year. Easter!

It's still cold.
Lee stops by on his way to have a smoke & tell me that he used to wear a mullet back in '83. And leather pants too. I demand a photo of this.
I offer him the chance to paint "The Lost Norwegians," but he's not enthused....of course I should do it myself. I'd put Viking helmets on the guys. Or maybe horns on the baseball hat? And spears?
I'll ask Lee to coach me.

I need some typing, or re-typing, done since I'm working on "Dave" & don't want to type the rest until I finish—another week?—I mean the section. So, I'll pull something. (If only my hair.)
Oooh, I'll get organized.
BM Starbucks 4/14/01