M told me to keep these notes—she might want to write about her transition from conservative ideologue to liberal (sorta). Having copied over the notes, I threw out the scrap of placemat paper on which they were written. I thought of Walt Whitman’s scraps being valuable. Eh, I’m not Walt.
It’s Kim Waitress’s last day. She sang, as we were leaving, some “Jingle Bells”-tuned song–“[Coworker’s name]’s a bitch, [Coworker’s name] is mad, [Boss’s name … should just quit.” She’s talking like a short-timer, I said as M and I left. So, my car’s done but I haven’t really had an engaged writing session yet this morn. I’ve been focused on reading online (or distracted by that). I could use to do my stretches tonight, too. Ah, well. Thinking ahead of doing that—of chores I would/could do later today—is tiring.
Here’s a balding dude with a bookbag and a Moleskine (or so it looks). (“You don’t know what it’s like … to love somebody,” sings the voice of Nina Simone.) Now I’m thinking that that dude with the journal might be an interesting dude—more interesting than me!—ah, f*ck, let that comparison go. Writers are scarce here. Most individuals here—and there aren’t many, only me, dude, three others that I can see—
I have little money but I was glad to spend $4.45 on a latte. It’s overcast, looks about the same as the last time I was here. I’m hearing the Rundgren song—”Hello, it’s me”—but a cover, I think.
Ah, so #3 idea from this morning (a laugh by a female voice, then another female voice saying, “shush, you’re loud” (approximate quote), this from the kitchen area). So, 3rd idea this morning: walking south on G___ near the park path, I looked back north and saw (“bye, guys, have a fun 5 hours,” said a young woman-staffer (?) leaving here — it’s noon:08) the road and houses and tan yards and bare trees but something about the sky was maybe a little brighter, a little less gray than the sky to west and to south, and somehow, the view north seemed happy, the way certain images bring me a (dude with the Moleskine is now sitting and he seems to be making sudden vocalizations while he eats—little startled sounds, man-barks—he’s some kind of Tourette’s guy, maybe? eh, who knows) happy feeling. But that’s absurd, I thought, to feel happy just because of a certain view. Why absurd? Well, because I’m imbuing that view with some kind of joy or maybe happiness, or maybe moral quality, or, more likely, some sense that life is good there—when it’s merely a view! So it’s a distraction, a falsehood, to believe in that—to think meaning into a view. (What if this dude making weird man-barks is actually some accomplished person or other wise being. Authors aren’t cool. Maybe it’s best to thinking that no one’s cool—perhaps. Oprah called James Frey a phenom. Now there were a few barks that almost sounded like George McFly’s gasping laughs at the Gleason show on TV in Back to Future, original—see there’s a performance I can reference because it’s been recorded and widely seen, unlike, say, a theater performance. I may grunt, but dang, it’s a little distracting to have this dude’s noises.)
[From Journal 248, pages 57-59, dated Sat. 18 March 2017]
MonkeyMoonMachine 