Don't Know

I may have lost a page or I might have sent one twice. Something happened, a paper jamb, I think, and my computer locked up. I had to shut everything down, reload AOL, reload the printer with paper; then it (sic) printed 12 copies of a page I may or may not have sent. Confused, I retyped the page, which I hate doing, being an extremely slow typist, and sent it again. Which involves a different kind of thinking, and I changed a few things, matching tenses, adding and deleting a few commas. I say different, though it may not be, or seem to be, but I perceive a difference between composition and editing; further blurred by the fact that I edit, quite heavily, when I'm actually writing. Hours spent thinking about what I'm trying to say, how accurate it might be, how accurate I want it to be. A brief, but interesting conversation with Sara the other day, about the nature of reality. One of my favorite subjects. What one sees. Endless speculation. Then writing about what one perceives, which, by the next day, is several steps removed. Later, everything is fiction, something you hear Roy Blount, Jr. saying about something his grandfather told his father. Even a video of a particular incident, depending on the number of frames-per-second it was shooting, might misrepresent what actually happened. Real time is always a slanted perspective. Authentic is a myth. What news do you believe? So many points of view. You watch the river, you see the changes. It's remarkable, really, how quickly things happen. Falling in love is like that. I was thinking about love, recently, I don't remember the circumstances exactly. A banjo ignites solidarity. Or could be the end of one. Bela will be the death of me. Bury your waste in the dunes, all I've ever done is merely assume I might be. To assume, my Latin fails me. Arrogo? One of the stokers might take care of the chickens, keeping a rooster, so that the eggs would be fertile. Of course meant a pre-dawn crowing. In for a nickel, really, it's a cheap alarm clock, fucking bird outside the Texas. Grits and eggs, before you clear the sleep from your eyes. A cup of coffee from the last pot whoever was on duty made. A little sharp, maybe, but coffee nonetheless. It kills me, sometimes, the associations one might make. You hit a snag, you run the boat into the shore, everyone gets off OK, you catch a ride back to Cincy, they raise the hull, rebuild the superstructure and rename her the Mary Ann, go about their business. It's all about hauling freight: coal, steel, or cotton, x number of pounds or cubic feet, however you figure. Bottom line is how much you can carry, not to draw too fine a point, up a steep hill, late at night, in the dark. Before steam engines, there were horses, walking around a capstan, or mules or oxen, whatever the drive, chip monks, squirrels in a cage. Something driving something. Last call.