honey crunches of oats, the cereal, invaded our town this morning. congregated in mustard yellows and ketchup reds, the hard-hatted purveyors of breakfast milled around and accosted passersby; vendors with a mission. two were astride segways, upon which were attached two larger-than-life cereal boxes and, on the front, a spoon filled with plastic representation of their product. i was approached by one of these segway-riding crazies who held outstretched a miniature sample. i thought to myself that within a three or four block radius i would see a lot of those boxes, empty, on the side of the street, or languishing in bins. flash-saturation.
i accepted the box and she continued on her way. someone with a bullhorn was yelling "honey crunches of oats!" a giant mascot of their logo was parading around the square, taking pictures with various locals.
waited in front of the library with music in my ears and a cigarette in my mouth, thinking idly about how i take myself too seriously. nick drake's "fruit tree" came on as i saw K. and S. crossing the street toward me. both in sunglasses. a conversation ensued, cordial and relaxed. as always, i found my legs trembling and my voice wavery, even though i know K. pretty well and have on more than one occasion had occasion to talk seriously with her. i know S. as well, but only on the edges. the sunglasses made it difficult to read their expressions. poker-players who aren't playing poker. maybe it's just me.
we talked briefly about bees, a new band they started (Garden of Weeden) - K's phone rang & S. and i talked about the weather - language, living situations, town news - then the library gates opened and in we went. i scored a copy of dostoevsky's 'the idiot' at the free book counter, and S. a copy of what looked like non-fiction regarding Communist China.
that's what happened this morning.
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this is the way summer begins. suddenly the wind is no longer cold and walking from place to place isn't like trying wildly to defeat Zeno's paradoxes. from time to time, a blustery day: the leaves from the park skitter madly across the street, a strange, brittle diaspora.
last night, i cleaned up - swept the dust out of my room, sneezed a lot, reorganized things. stacked books neatly. indexed columns of old notebooks, again gave thought to collating them. nearly stripped the plastic off the window, but restrained myself. made dinner.
this banal list of things accomplished ... desiderata around the edges. things i do to distract myself from things.
saw a woman today, a mother, with her child and her lover by the monument, climbing up its grassy mini-knoll. saw her pick her child up and dust him off, brusquely, and setting him back down. the child obliged by putting his feet down where she stood him. i thought of him as a cat, as Gato, one of our housecats, who acts counter to anything you want him to do once he's picked up, and especially scrabblesome when you set him down. i wondered if that was the difference between the two: the trust and faith of the child as opposed to the escape instinct of the cat.
i thought that maybe someday i'd like a child. i heard a familiar clock ticking arrhythmically in the back of my skull, but couldn't figure out its morse code.
i am both nervous and excited to see what happens next. i'd say 60% nervous. 30% the other way.
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