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