Bunya-Bunya

MAY 28TH, 1988

 Peculiar weather today. White clouds and blue sky, but it’s raining. Calm cool wind. 

 Joe is filling his car tires with air from a pump he plugs into the cigarette lighter. it makes a noise like a child’s toy machine gun. Yesterday he used it to fill the bike tires of the neighbor kids. Their mom is pregnant. The four of them live in a studio apartment the size of mine.

I wish I could leave my body and be only pure thought. I would always be wherever I wanted, just by thinking it. Time and distance would have no meaning. I could study for a hundred years, or see the world in a moment.

Went to Capitol Park late last night with Deborah. There are so many different kinds of trees there! Four hundred and something. Favorite tree names:
Banana Shrub
Bunya-Bunya
Large-Leaved Linden
Little-Leaf Linden
Monkey Puzzle Tree
Weeping Atlas Cedar

Cravings

When Erica was pregnant with Isabelle she got cravings for ice cream. I would regularly go on late-night runs to get her some. One night I had to go to a corner market that was pretty dicey - everything else was closed. While I was in the back of the store a fight broke out between the cashier and a customer. I got worried that one of them might have a gun, and shoot the other one, and I’d be a witness, so they’d have to shoot me too. It was pretty intense.

Luckily no guns were drawn, and I returned home safely, having completed my mission.

Get your own paper

The neighbors across the street - a couple in their 70s - get two copies of the New York Times delivered every day. I try to imagine the scene where they decide they just can’t make it work sharing one copy.

Yes, but no

THE CYCLE
Lost, confused, disillusioned.
Then an insight. A moment of clarity.
Appreciation,
awe,
wonder.

Then...
Lost, confused, disillusioned.
At a higher level.

“Haven't we been here before?”
- Yes, but no. Not exactly here.

Delectable

AUGUST 10, 2014

On the couch with a tumbler of bourbon. Took Erica to the airport after dinner. Listened to soft rock hits of the 70s on the way home. Hugo is on an Outward Bound 4 day, 3 night urban expedition. They sleep in a zoo one night.

Watched some videos of people doing poetry readings. The one I liked best was a college kid reading Billy Collins - a poem about memory (losing it). He was very natural and didn't overact it. Anthony Hopkins read some Dylan Thomas, too fast I thought. Didn't savor it at all. Maybe he was drunk.

Saw a guy this afternoon laying on a bus stop bench, his head propped on his backpack, reading a book, eating an apple, the sun shining - it seemed like the most delectable thing ever.