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Maybe I misconstrued, I thought we were meeting for drinks after. Completely my fault. Realized I was supposed to write you, tell you whatever. It's a memory project, not unlike something you might have done before. Get comfortable and discuss your feelings. Over the years you probably realized I have a problem with holidays. As if they were things snatched away from me. Which might be true. At that level, who do you trust? I'd almost rather trust the opinion of a competent stranger. Hard enough to find these days. I went out on a limb, engaged this once-a-week pub guy, I knew he was a banker because he was/is always in a shirt and bow-tie. My spell-check likes hyphens and I just usually go along with her (we have a relationship (cute, resisting the parenthesis) ) but sometimes it doesn't feel right. Like I'm being manipulated somehow. Despite all the evidence to the contrary. Try to stand back from your life for just a minute, you can't do it, you're always too involved. No down time. His name, actually, was Tyler, which confused the issue, since I spend most of my time trying to make connections and we talked about car loans. I make myself laugh, the sheer or ephemeral way things are constellated. It's already tomorrow, for instance: what do you do with that? There's an internal dialog going on all the time, you and those stupid piles of books, wait, I put them there to remind me about something. Latin from the Greek. I hate myself sometimes, the way I might buy the party ticket. I take off Linda's hat and roll a perfect cigaret. What difference a word might make. Nine ways from Sunday. If I might be so bold. Whatever competent means. You and your left-handedness. Contrary. On a bed of fantastic cheese grits I have several pounded rounds of pork tenderloin with an egg on top. Excellent. I think I'll eat the same thing later and skip the chicken pot-pie. Decided to take the day off and not crawl around under the house. This morning the sky was clear but there were little light-weight crystals, ice dust (I used to know the name of it raining down. Prismatic and incredibly beautiful. Linda and Glenn called, great conversations, Glenn said he recently saw the word 'anacoluthon' in a NY Times article, and only knew the word because it was the title of a little book of prose I wrote back in the 70's. Means "does not necessarily follow" or something close to that. I remember that I was studying the prefix 'ana' and trying to prize some meaning from it. I wrote three extended essays at the time, two of them published as small books, the third "Anabasis" was never published and I can't seem to find a copy. I think the only copy was probably in the fire-proof lock-box that was stolen. There were four books in there, that I could never reconstruct, 3,000 draft pages, single spaced. I keep coming across pieces of those books, here and there, and they always surprise me. Some fragments were published Small Press magazines, some University publications, and things have a way of turning up. Someone sends you a copy or you're rummaging around in a pile of trash. This intense slanted sun is enough to give you a headache. On my way back to the house, a glint caught my eye, a hoop earring, and I can't remember who it was, Rachel, Heather, all those years ago. Pretty sure it wasn't Kristi, because she never wore hoops. I'd remember that. I forget almost everything, a heat-sink at the bottom of the universe. A drain, more or less, where expecturants are washed away. Forget whatever you thought. Where an iris was merely a beautiful thing.