In a mall, shopping with Brian. We walk into a store that only uses half its space. I’m looking for a globe. There is a 10 diameter one and an 8 inch. Those are too big and I don’t want the bulk of a stand. I had three globes a year ago, but I through them all out.
We walk into a fast food restaurant. Too bad that pudgy woman in canary yellow isn’t here. Then a few moments later, I see this woman and her two fat black woman friends.
I forego tasteless economics Common chocolate I destroy cheating myself unfulfilled Savoring exquisite trifles fills my entire being with contentment as they go on triumphantly half–eaten For so long, I’ve half–heartedly snacked about when I was hankering for just a bit of the richest delicacy I want no banquet but break the bank for me Permit my plate to remain sacrosanct embracing those dear morsels that suit me
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I walk the dogs to pizza hut. No one is there; it’s closed for bad weather. It must have just been closed; there are some pizzas in the oven: a last order. I cut one of the pizzas. It seems to disappear on the table. It shrinks to a small size: I salvage the bits into half of a personal pizza.
What to do? I know: I’ll just put in a new pizza, what with the store closed and all this extra dough, and then I’ll take that little half one for myself.
No hand-tossed in the main refrigerator. None under the make table either. Did they stop doing hand-tossed?
Back to the cut table to cut more pizzas. I cut a large, placing it in top of the small. It completely eclipses it.
A driver comes in, returning from a deliver. He apologizes for an argument he had with another driver before he left. I don’t really care and tell him so.
Gill comes in and sits down in the back office and gets on the phone. I go to him. I’m leaving soon, he tells me, and then talks on the phone some more.
Well I can’t stay and work: I have the dogs, besides didn’t I already call in and say I’m not working? The remaining order burns in my mind.
I try to interrupt Gill, but he keeps talking.
“Gill,” I tell him with desperation as he finally acknowledges me, “you have to tell me where we keep the hand-tossed.” Phones ring indicating new orders. This isn’t the crisis situation I tolerate. I intentionally stop the dream.
I laugh at myself pouring a cup of water to explain to you the river It is the flow of it Try being still feel its torrents rock your body We worry its purpose pondering an engulfing ocean just so it can delight again in the whispers of the mountains to provide pretty life–sustaining babble Go to the river and hear yourself
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Took a dog down elevator to second floor. There was a dog there. We stood facing it for a long time. I’m surprised no one has come to use the elevator during this time.
A woman with a dog gets tired of waiting, and she takes the steps. Another women comes out, waits, and takes the steps. I go back up with elevator instead of down. Who is going to take care of that dog?
At the ground floor there are a group of gentlemen. We play a kind of soccer with a small ball like a heavy ping-pong ball with dust pans as goals. We all know how to play very well, each know each others weaknesses, only one side has one’s politics, the other another. This annoys me because something like we wouldn’t be having to play footies here if we joined forces.
I’m on an annual bus trip for the third year. It’s so kinda tour bus. I’m an employee of sorts. It’s festive. We are just about to complete the tour. People remenice about a concert that I wasn’t a part of: Gene Wilder, Luke Wilson, and Richard Prior. I’m surprised I wasn’t part of that concert.
Everyone has shot glasses, the circular kind with a truncated stem with a sweet whiskey liquor. I’m encouraged to drink. I give in and drink.
It’s so jovial and festive, in a corny way. I spill some liquor as the bus winds its way around. Suddenly, I have a giant shot glass, bigger than my head: too much joviality and “Tonight the Streets are Ours” cues as exit music. I have a hard time keeping the drink straight and people laugh as the sticky substance laps over my hands. I drink from the giant glass and the bus goes up a hill, now in day light, and the scene freeze frames with the liquid pouring out onto my cheeks and the music turned up like the punchline to a movie.
Embrace me I brave my petty disgraces See me dissolve my little mazes
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Let us love — rather than correctly — let us love well Rather than encourage loving less encourage learning how They say experience and self–control both are rather new well, ever since they burned the witch with her broom and cooked the medicine–woman in her stew Let us refrain from punishing groping in the dark and be glad we are embracing our desire for the art Let us be enraged at doing poorly and lack of practicing Let us show them how it’s done with discretionary loving
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I’m on a walk. It’s a long walk ending at midnight with a mystical wild forest surrounding us. It’s a good feeling and I forget some of the emotional dynamic details between me and others along the way.
I with a cool girl. I want to walk back from whence we came with another cool girl with blue eyes and long curly blond hair, but then I’ll have to leave the other one behind to go with her. On one hand, it feels that isn’t in my interest to go, but then the attitude is so carefree, just being with a girl is important.
Dad is telling mom that he raised and sent to college 2 sons and that’s enough for her.
I’m at airport with Grandpa: a large sleepy white haired man. I tap a young man with my foot by accident. A big, nice lady tells me I just insulted some tribal leader .. Karsi.
“Oh.”
“No, you must apologize.”
“Oh.”
He speaks French. He’s dressed nicely in dress shoes and sweater suit but I can tell its not his natural dress. I stammer out an apology in French, in the polite form, though I take time trying out the phrase.
The whole room is watching.They are impressed I speak French.
He tells me “you are going to have to suffer through it.”
There is a discussion at the meaning if this. I say I’m going into the military. Something like I will received medical training while serving.
The lady wonders if that’s really for me: “they break you, you know, they have paid personal whose job it is to break you” meaning exercise.
“That’s not a big deal, I’ve been through that already…. if only I had some message to help guide me” I stammer.
Then I realize, what am I saying, the tribal leader just gave me a special message, and then the plane boards.
Grandpa is asleep. I have to wake him up. I pick up me things myself without him conscious: a canvas bag with my books and an egg carton with one egg in it.
He wakes up. I’m in tears. I wanted a real goodbye. Grandpa, I have to go, I yell. He’s still clueless of the situation.
I’m on plane to Costa Rica.
The Lady talks to her friend about Subarus, saying how we all like Subarus because they are dependable but none of us buys one.
I say that my car is a Subaru. Then I realize I forgot something at the house and walk back there.
I walk back to the plane (it was a short walk) and a the stewardess takes me to my seat on the far right which has a cross ailse, so lots of leg room.
I drive around cost Rica. Nice and tropical, but the highway takes away from it.
I’m in some family’s suburban house. A neighbor gets mad at the husband for my not mowing his lawn. He timidly asks me to mow it. I calmly go up there. I have to be careful.
Next I’m going to mow the family’s lawn. I go to the backyard, which is on the basement level. I spray water from a hose onto the backdoor, which happens to be open. The husband happens to have been painting there (that’s why the door was ajar). Ugg. I go in to take the timid accusations and survey the damage. The wet paint is blistered but the old paint on the untouched parts of the wall are fine, so are the 3 foot tall koi statues standing here at face height. I don’t know how long it will take to fix: scrape the paint of and wait for it to dry then reprint… maybe a year.
I go some funeral afterparty related to my previous employment. It’s just some restaurant in a strip mall. Then a week has gone by and I find myself repeating the same visit to the strip mall and the restaurant. I stop in a furniture store by accident. Then the restaurant again. The food I was eating the week before is still there. I leave to an parking lot island restaurant and an surprised to find myself talking with some late-twenties developers asking would they tell me of my work’s funeral afterparty location this week.