From the darkness, into the light. This is how a day begins.

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Climbing Jacob's ladder.

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Things just got a little out of control this week. I don't even know how we did it, but somehow or other we sat down to 6 Feasts in 8 days. Sounds like the title of some Italian movie from the 60's, doesn't it? 6 Feasts in 8 days! Seven if you count when we took everyone out to breakfast. I'm feeling a little over the top today. I'm thinking about fasting for awhile now. 6 Feasts sort of pushed the bounderies back to a whole new level of over-the-topness! I think I'll try and have a little more control over things next year. I also think I'll be digesting here until the New Year.

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It's wierd, but every year about this time the plant life here does a "Jackson Pollack". Colors overlap and layer on top of each other in arrestingly random ways. It's not quite as trippy as, say, Vermont, but in its own way, it's a grand display of seasonal beauty before Winter turns it all to grey.

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This just might be the last bit of greenery we here in Washington DC are likely to see for awhile. I guess there are always the evergreens to help us out in a pinch. But, somehow, it's not quite the same. Not quite the same thing at all.

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I was sitting at home, quietly reading the paper, when it happened. I felt an increasingly intense vibration along with a failure to focus my eyes. I remember smelling smoke--although I couldn't see any--and thinking that the house must have been bombed by terrorists, although why anyone would want to bomb my house was beyond me. I don't know anything about the war or torture or anything like that. Anyway, the next thing I knew was that I was lying on a damp floor and there was a strong smell of something (I don't know how to describe it) and I was wet. The floor was wet with something sticky, and the light was very dim. I had been abducted by creatures from another galaxy! I'd heard about such things, but never in a million years thought that it would happen to me. They did horrible things to me. I was led to believe that they probed my body and scanned my brain, capturing my very thoughts. It has been most upsetting to me, as you can imagine, I'm sure. I don't feel well today, the result of what I've been through. Although they returned me to my room when they were done and appeared to do no lasting damage to my body, I don't feel as though I will ever be as I was before. No, I will never be the same person that I was.

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Just another passing fancy in a dream....

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"Hello?"
"Hi. It's me"
"Oh! Hi! I was trying to reach you before. Did you get my message?"
"No. Sorry, I've been busy"
"Where are you?"
"I'm at the bank. I needed to get me some money. Honey, you got to move a little faster there. All the 50s and 100s. You got 20 seconds. Let's go."
"What? What are you going on about? What 50s"
"Oh. Sorry. Not you. I was talking to this bank lady here. She's getting my money."
"Oh. Well. Are we still on for later?"
"Yeah. Why not?"
"OK. I'll call you before I leave. If you don't hear from me, give me a shout. I might be having my hair done."
"OK. I'll call you. OK honey. You're done now. Give me the money now 'cause I got to go."
"Bye"
"Ok. Bye now."

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One Lone Clone.

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There would be times when he felt that he was falling. He would feel like he was going to stumble and fall backward and, when he felt like that, he would try to catch himself by putting one of his feet backward a bit to steady himself. He couldn't really tell if he looked like he was falling; he just felt that he was. No one else ever seemed to notice. No one ever remarked or put a hand out to steady him or in any way acknowledge that he was tipping over. This confused him. He wondered if he should say something or do something more obvious when he felt that way. Maybe, though, everyone sometimes felt like they were falling. Maybe everyone was having the same feelings that he was. Maybe that's what life had become for everyone: a gradual floating fall backward where we would catch ourselves just in time before passing out.

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There are times when everything seems upside down. It can be difficult to determine whether that's because everything really is upside down, or because I am standing on my head. It is, as they say, all relative.

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"Hello?"
"Hi. It's me"
"Oh. Hi. Where are you?"
"I'm here"
"Where's here?"
"Here! I'm here talking to you. What's up?"
"Oh. I don't know. What's up with you?"
"Don't you remember? I'm supposed to meet you there"
"Oh. No. I guess I forgot. Are we still on then?"
"Yeah. I'll be there in a few minutes"
"OK. Talk to you then."
"OK. Bye."
"Bye."

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There have always been ants. Since the beginning of time, I imagine ants busy boldly skittering across my kitchen counter. They are there every day, marching in a definite, if sometimes disorganized, line from here to there. Sometimes I can figure out where they're coming from and I block that particular minute hole with some putty. Then the number of ants I see is momentarily less than before. Sometimes I can tell where they are going to and I block that up as well. Then the ants get confused and crazy because they can't get back to the Queen and they panic. But, they always, always find another way because they are smarter, if smaller, than I am. And I think, "What if we are wrong about all of this here on Earth. What if God's favorite creature isn't one that walks upright on two legs, but the tiny, busy ants in my kitchen? What if they are the ones who will be taken up to sit on the right-hand of his majesty and not, in fact, us? Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants?"

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It's good to get off the highway and see just where a less traveled local road might take you. It's sort of like the Frost poem, but set on wheels. Outside of Washington, DC route 66 resembles a clogged kitchen drain more than it does a way to get somewhere. I was on my way to visit my friends Kris and Leigh who live out in the Virginia hill country and I realized that, if I stayed on 66, I might die of old age before I got there. Or, I would arrive so stressed that having me as a visitor in their home would not be a pleasant thing. We'd have to start drinking immediately! So, I grabbed a map and took a local road into the country and, oh, if made all the difference.

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Went to the Corcoran Gallery of Art this weekend to hear some new music. I used to go often when the series was called "Twentieth Century Consort" or something like that. Now it's called "Contempory Music Forum" or something similar. There were six pieces performed by a group of incredible musicians. There was only one I didn't especially care for, but they were all interesting, some challenging, and one hypnotic. The pianist was astonishing. She routinely banged out a seemingly impossible cascade of notes and tones and sonic textures that appeared impossible with just two hands. Some of the composers being played were in attendance and it was interesting to see and hear them talk about their work. The next performance is scheduled for February. I'll try to get Miles and Nicki to come too. I'm always interested in what Miles has to say. This stuff is not Rock and most definitely not hip-hop. But, interesting just the same.

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"Almost every day, or every time I go out, I see people who have lost their soul somehow. I don't know how it happens. Maybe it's just little by little until there's no more left. Maybe it's because of sorrow, or hunger, or anger, or a combination of things. It's hard to be alive. I can tell now with just one look at them. They seem blank to me. Their eyes don't look right; they walk with a certain kind of shuffle. Some of them go crazy and talk to themselves because no body else will listen. And I wonder what happens to their soul when it leaves their body. What happens to it? Maybe it flys on up to heaven to get reborn into a little baby's body so that it can have another chance. That's what I like to believe. That all the dying souls get to have another chance."

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One eye. Blind.

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It's coming down so that something else can go up. I can't ever remember when there was this much construction going on in downtown DC. Who are they building it for? And why now? You have to wonder where the money is coming from. You can see where it's going to, but it isn't going there unless someone thinks that this would be a good place for their money to grown some more. I think that Bill Gates' money may be what will end up, in the long run, doing the most good. He's not putting it in real estate as far as I can tell. He's investing some of it in sick children. I think he'll get a better return.

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Hecht's, downtown DC, before the sale begins.

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