Dripping Rain

Not my bailiwick, but a dear friend calls, needing to talk about her recently failed relationship. I explain, as clearly as possible, that I'm the last person in the world to proffer advice. She mostly needs to talk, and I have a listening mode that I can assume, not unlike a cleric at confession, where what I'm hearing is the most important thing in the world. She's clearly distraught and I tell her to pack a bag and hop on the train down to see me. She can be here, 12 miles away, in ten hours, I'd pick her up at 2 in the morning, at South Shore, Kentucky, and we could talk. I don't want another friend of mine committing suicide. The first thing I do is wash their hair, suicides are delinquent in this, and massaging their scalp seems to help. Blackbirds strung as treble across the power line. Anything in the key of G. Fifteen gallons of wash water in just a couple of hours, a mostly passive harvest, but I do move a couple of five gallon pickle buckets around. The rainfall (the moisture-fall, more properly, I melt a lot of snow) is evenly spaced across the year on the ridge. I buy two gallons of filtered water a week, for making coffee and brushing my teeth, and I usually drink spring water on my walks, using a Star Trek plastic cup I picked up at the Goodwill. I'm serious about my water use. When I have to pick someone up, early in the morning, I just don't go to bed. Then I have to explain the water system, where the flashlights are stored, and which path leads to the outhouse. The train was late, it usually is, but I always have a book to read. She looked like death warmed over. Breaking dawn on the way home, dense fog that collapsed perspective. I took her to a place where two little ripples almost make a stream, rolled her a smoke. For some reason, when people visit me, they start smoking and drinking again. What a good influence I am. If I could just raise my arm I'd pat myself on the shoulder. I took her to the pub, and she was amazed I knew so many people by name. Truth be known, I am too, and we talked about that. I fixed a great meal and we drank a very good zin. She had to catch the 4 AM train back to NYC, opening a show on Monday. She said she could sleep on the way home, so we talked for 26 hours. Mostly she talked. The sex, she said, was great, but there was never any conversation. Her partner, another lovely woman, bisexual, is also a friend of mine, and is coming down next weekend. She called while Barb was here, wondering if Barb was here, and made her appointment. I'm known, it seems, as a great conversationalist, though what that means is, generally, just being a good listener. Plus I'm a good cook, and if I make a Key Lime pie, my guests usually swoon. Something about a good meal lovingly prepared. I fixed ox-tails for Barb, because she had never had them, and we ate the marrow smeared on warm toast. She called me a genius several times, but I hastened to remind her we had been doing this for thousands of years, cracking bones and eating marrow; and that my variation, cooking them in dry white wine and chicken broth for a long time, was nothing new. I like to cook them when I'm not home, put the pan on the slow part of the stove and go split wood or something, then, when I come back inside the smell is a spiritual awakening. Not unlike Bach, right, the two part variations. Thunder underscores my point, I'd better go.