Conversation

Liza and Linda out for a couple of hours. Nice conversation. Linda is quite lovely, several times I forgot to breathe. The acorn fall continues, a hail of them just broke my concentration. Right, they were, the ladies, getting some background on alternative lifestyle in Appalachia. I seem to fit that bill. Plus I'm coherent, for the most part. Talked about physical and sexual abuse, talked about trailer life, prescription drug addiction. A goodly list of serious topics in rural America today. It's rough, in the boonies, nobody has a job and the poor steal from the poor. Both of them thought acorns were poisonous. Linda thought I should write a book/cookbook about acorns. I never explained, and they never asked, what the 35 gallon Rubbermaid Roughneck trash can was doing at the front middle of the house, in front of a set of patio doors. It's dark blue and contains my back-up supply of water. I collect it from the roof. It's very soft, I use it for washing my hair and the dishes, so I don't have to use a lot of soap, so things are easier to rinse. I'm a fucking water nut, when it comes right down to it. Rinsing uses much more water than washing. I've made a study of this, let it be said, in these few lines, I know whereof I speak. Moving toward rinsing as a fine art. I don't have an MFA and absolutely no qualification to say a damned thing, under educated, and probably the next to the last writer that might be plowing a furrow with an actual plow. There was torrid sex. Beans on toast. Nothing is what you remembered. What I replied seem to care. It could have been a good night for me. Astra danced circles. I reply in a language I don't understand. That's just the beginning of my problem. Misunderstanding. Then you cross that bridge into meaning. And you attempt to make sense. Screw you securely to the floor, I missed the first part of that. Where they screwed you to the floor. You mean nothing, you and what I said. Hey. Come undone. John Hartford. The American song book. Drowning in tradition. Rowena. Sleep on. I think I left the kitchen light on. Plenty of food on the back seat. Listening to music on the radio. Smoke 'em if you've got 'em. If you make a mistake, in the bottomless lake, you'll never see your sweetheart again. She rides the wild horse. The Joker. She gets close some times, and in those moments, you feel something stir, down home fiddle music, Bach in hill country. The hand of God. Don't you cry for me. Oh Rowena, don't you cry for me. It was dark and nothing was sacred. I need a long sentence, dripping blues. Insert that here. Close to heaven, a guitar riff, maybe some drums, brushing the cymbals, the standing bass keeps the beat. I could drown in this. I ain't no beauty queen. But something plays in my head. The vision of you by my side. That's wrong, I know, nothing behind me, but I really want you there. A hurricane. We'd seek shelter in a tree-tip-pit. Black sky.

Tom

I'm going to Carolina in my mind. Willie Nelson going back to Texas. That's where I belong. No, stop the music, I need to sleep. I don't know where I'm going, there's no way of knowing, but I'm on my way.
noting