A Paper Airplane in A Bathtub

"How do you feel?" I asked my friend George yesterday, on the telephone. George lives in Bellevue and we've communicated daily ever since we met....what, a month ago? George taught himself Chinese and translated the Tao Te Ching. George knew Kerouac and Ginsberg and had coffee with Ferlinghetti and spoke with Brando and watched Auden come and go from somewhere to elsewhere. He's housebound now, on oxygen, and is the nly person I've ever met besides myself and maybe my first husband who has heard of the white blues singer Barbara Dane or the folksinger Hedy West. George and I have a grand time together in our letters which, although written on the computer, are, truly, letters. Anyway, so I asked George, I asked him "How are you feeling today, George?" and he answered, "Like a paper airplane in a bathtub."

The perfect Surrealistic reply.

I haven't been blogging because I lost my blogging password. I haven't been able to blog about Aleister, who informed me that every planet in the universe houses the very same stone faces as are on our own Easters Island, making them not our own at all. Or about how I managed to have a car wreck in my very own garage, nearly ripping off the car door, to the tune of $2,500. Okay, so I maimed my car but I saved the house behind me, owned by an elderly lady who sits with her back to the very wall I would have crashed into, had I allowed my car to keep on backing up at higher and higher speeds without me in it. That's all I have to say at this time. I had PLENTY to say when it happened. New news becomes old news and then, who cares? What use is it? Who wants it any more?

I haven't had a car for two weeks.

What have I been up to ? I sang a set of labor songs at a tavern in Everett on Eleanor Roosevelts Birthday. A grouping of musicians got together in order to form money for the Democrats AND a yearly scholarship for industrious students. I did that. I lost a friend. I gained a friend. I went walking with my new friend in the nearby Grand Forest, which is completely beautiful, amazing, magnificent. I'm looking forward to new walks, new places. This coming weekend I'm going with my friend to Oregon's Hood River, on the edge of Eastern Washington. We'll spend a couple nights in a hotel and walk and walk the paths my friend knows so well. I found my duck boots Jim bought me years ago. I found my slick yellow coat which, at a distance, makes me look like a sixth grader prepared to stop cars so the school buses can go.

I've eaten fresh bagels. I've bought a new toaster. I've eaten fresh rye bread.

I've been rereading Anais Nin's journals and Ferlinghetti, who wrote his poems mainly in the 1950's. I've been rewatching MADMEN. I've been dancing to regae: THE HARDER THEY FALL. I've been eating pistachios. Drinking a Spanish wine, a vintage called Temperanille. Exquisitely smooth. I am reading my own poems at Susan Sweetwater's art show on November 18, meaning I must write some poems on the topic of "Musing"....a lovely topic, yes? Yes. I've been playing around with color and cardboard. Soon I will begin a large project, a secret. Soon it will be my second Thanksgiving in this house. How do people do this? How do they go on?

Life loves life. Life wants to live.