That Said

Watching a new waitress at the pub, something about the way she moves reminds me of someone, then I have it, Judy C. from the early Cape Cod theater days. A certain focus on the down-step. Dance falls into two camps, up and down. Ballet is up, tap is down, flamenco is down, Grateful Dead druggy space-dance is up. Walking falls the same way, up and down, with a sparsely populated middle: I've known several women and a couple of men who seemed to never actually touch the ground. The museum xmas party, lunch at a decent Italian restaurant, idle chat, silly jokes, almost fun in a mindless way, and the food was pretty good. Bev only ate half her Baked Spagetti and she didn't want the rest, I took it, to go, eating it as I write. Cheese enough to clog a whale's artery. Glenn got back about Pip, in "Moby Dick" and, in fact, he just disappears, perhaps molded into Ishmael. Like the way Slothrop disappears in "Gravity's Rainbow". Writing, and reading, dealing with words, an attempt at meaning. I was cleaning the basement classroom today, the hospital people had used the space as child-care facility, rearranged things, rolled out rugs, on which the rug-rats could play. Mindless work, so I was thinking about words, the question Glenn had asked, how we understand. I think I might understand some things fairly closely, so I'm privy to condensed information, I've learned the languages, and I think one thing that happens is we develop a patois with close friends. A frame of referent. Like I have with you, my readers. You come close to understanding what I'm saying. Close enough that we could agree on some things, disagree on others. Miraculous. A mystery. I blunder about, bumping into walls, and it seems you had been too, and know what I'm talking about. Half the time I don't know what I'm talking about, I invent things, create quilts of whole cloth. I don't think I'm crazy but it's a possibility. Even so, to get back to Pip, in his craziness, he becomes a sage, ironically, the force of reason. Glenn reread the final chapters, but I think I'll have to reread MD again this winter, how many times will that be? 6?, 7? The language explodes. All that repressed Puritan shit mingling with what language could do. Like dear sweet Emily. There's a dissertation. I have to admit, I left the museum early today, my intent was to hook up the new printer, but I didn't get around to it, I had to start writing, I had the title for tonight, a perfect Skip title, and I was off to the races. Fuck anything else. This, of course, led to earlier drinking, and I got confused. Also, I am muscle sore, smoke some medicine, and am even more confused. But I have to tell you, when I walked up tonight, I stopped and looked in the wood-shed, and I was proud that I had stayed the course. All that wood dry. Which proves what? That with a roof, you can stay ahead of the rain? Was that knowledge worth the sacrifice? I have muscles cramping from overuse, there's no question I did too much, I take some aspirin again, two days in a row, but in the low-grade pain there is a certain satisfaction. By dint of my physical exertion I stay warm enough to not die. Life on the ridge is existential, it just is. I'm not so much forming that as an argument as stating it as a matter of fact. If (when) I die on the driveway, carrying a pack with bananas and potatoes, and B finds my frozen body, puts me in the bed of his pick-up, and calls the authorities, I'm not making a case here, it would be perfectly natural. Make a few phone calls. That pretty much wraps it up. Those pesky ashes, spread them about, that's probably what he would have wanted. My hands are wasted, the finger cracks go almost to the bone, why would I live this way? I actually prefer it, no other answer is possible, you wouldn't be here if you didn't want to be. You walk up or drive up onto the ridge and it's magical, not that this is the top of the world, or that you're special, just that you're here, accepting what is, an apprentice, mopping floors, hauling wood. What I had imagined I might be saying? I leave meaning to someone else.