Emily, Lived By:

How time flies &c.!

I just stepped outside & there were some fireworks going off.  I could hear the dog shifting nervously upstairs.  See, I’m at my brother’s house. I’m staying in his basement.

Anyway, this week I was being Lived By my good friend Elizabeth &, as you can see if you look at the schedule, it was a week of non-stop poetry.

I was sick for the first part & in transit for the second & of course it’s the hollow days so it’s all something of a blur. But it was a delightful blur & I can say for certain that I did everything asked of me &, obviously, more.

I have an enthralling bedside manner

Elizabeth & I read a poetry book of my/our choosing. It was Ooga Booga by Frederick Siedel.  TD has been recommending it to me heartily for sometime & Ptolemy has mentioned it dismissively in passing so I thought that Fred S. was just our guy.

Or maybe it was the troubled fantasy of a fevered mind

M’as-Tu Vue? made it onto my Christmas list but not, alas, into my paws. Hard to find.  Oh poor yous.  Is this over your heads?  Well, don’t fuss about it too much. It’s over mine too.  Anyway, Elizabeth, I’ll find it one day soon & then– watch out!  I’ll discuss it intelligently with the cows until you come home.  (That’s a play on this joke by Groucho Marx, dear readers.)

Anyway, every day Elizabeth & I wrote a poem based on a prompt I’d make up the night before.

They were very good & not really fit for mortal eyes.  We emailed them to each other at the end of each day, of course.

If you’re very interested in hearing what the prompts were, I can address your curiousity in the comments.

But curiousity killed the Chancellor

As you can maybe see, on the last day, I organized all of our poems into a little chapbook.

Absolutely I did. Absolutely.

I will mail this chapbook to Elizabeth when the time comes.  Visually, it’s nothing special, but I did arrange for it to have a “handle” of rubberbands.

The nicest part of this week was daily emails/poems from Elizabeth.

There were other things that happened this week, of course.  It was Christmas! The cat ran away. I went a whole night without sleep. I was sick! (with the swine flu?).  Things fell apart! I took the ferry to Vancouver Island. The center did not hold. I threw a wine hottle into the street! Sheer anarchy was loosed upon the world.  I found some horse shampoo at the drugstore & intend to use it on my hair.  I came into some money!  Santa arrived & brought me a nice pink scarf & a laptop case.  By the way I stayed in my brother’s basement & am, as you know, there still. The streets were frosty! The cat came back.  I ate nothing but animal protein! Took a picture of a wheelbarrow full of rainwater… & so it goes.

& so it goes

By the way, did you know that pirates did not wear eyepatches because most of them were missing eyes.  They wore them because if you’re going very quickly from the light (eg. a beach) into the darkness (eg. a cave full of treasure) if one eye is accustomed to darkness you will adapt much more quickly to the darkness when you remove an eyepatch from a seeing eye.  This is a technique I intend to employ this evening & in the future.  If I ever need to go from the light to the darkness, for any reason.

What else did I do this week?  I made an obscene video of me reciting one of my prompt poems in a stripey leotard.  It was my Xmas present to the internet.  I deleted it on Xmas day.  I saw my family & my dog. I purchased a tiny antique lighter from the 1930s. Did a lot of Christmas stuff.

I don’t know what else to tell you!(/I don’t know how else to fail you!)

This doesn't mean what we think it means?

What I’ve done (since it’s poetry week) is I’ve extracted one phrase or sentence from each email (each & EVERY email!) I received this week, in order.  I did it fairly randomly, but in such a way that no one’s True Identity would be revealed.  So, if you were to briefly flip through my inbox as if it were a book, here’s what you’d see:

/ email from my wife. /

She’s so not my buddy. / I may fall asleep before long / Enjoy your noodles and whiskey / You have such a winning personality / Emily! / Emily. / no one here ever asks anything about my personal life / Glad you didn’t get in the car! / This marks the first time in our nation’s history that comprehensive health reform has come to this point. / and that is the time the guy suggested we come to make sure we get a table.  / Wednesday they are predicting snow, so make sure you give yourself lots of time /

I’m too scared to even read this whole article. / It’s closed to the paparazzi but open to us.  / I am going to have to stop eating here pretty soon. / i’m in new zealand visiting my girlfriend / well you’re too sick to Skype / chat me / I’m here, I’m here / Today, our Ice Wine is happily fermenting to

perfection in the winery. / AND lines and italics. / Tonally, and especially the use of conch. / Yikes, / This e-mail confirms your reservation(s) as follows: / I presume you may be over on the Island with your family now. / Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! / What a bunch of idiots. /

Get to work! / these damn logistics. Her parents were here, / I’m halfway through. / God, he is such an old man. / I’m really not drinking or taking drugs. / Of course, it was probably just as well / But consider this: This Christmas, there are millions of Americans without health insurance who risk losing everything / Chloe wasn’t allowed at the craft fair, but / I don’t understand it–I wrote it in Word. / Anyway, you handled it with aplomb. / we could totally get the address printed on underwear. / Don’t shoot me, just edit me! / ps- Fear not. / So I need a central image of you, /

what uncanny synchronistic overlaps / Anyhow, I gave her a few dollars / They don’t even bring you UP / No one treats me with kid gloves but now they’re gone and I’m on my own again.  / Please click on the following link to see your card.  / Maybe Santa will bring you a turtleneck and chastity belt /

Four pounds of turkey each is a lot of turkey.  / Your current Verizon Wireless bill statement is now available for online viewing  / [...] take a keen interest in my life. / I saw you pop on my screen / LOLOLOLOLOLOL  / This is supposed to be formatted differently. / here  / A new RBC Royal Bank Electronic Statement is available./

I think this is all of them. /

Stop. Can you stand it?

Then the other thing I did was go through my outbox.  & I did the same thing with all my outgoing emails from this week.  Ready?

/ Why do women insist

on calling me Emily z. / Looks like I’m moving in. / i slept on her couch in this leotard / but i’m not sending you my leotard / you leaning on that table / & then the elevator in the building broke / instead i only have some doggerel  / absolutely absolutely & talked about groceries!! / After it’s done, you can discard the epigraph if you like. / I dreamed that I didn’t get any sleep so I’m going back to bed / with no stanza break. /

Doesn’t it look like I have a fever? / i think i have a fever i can’t type & lfie seems scary / only take one suitcase? / i want to show off!  i did something clever. / my steak is cold through & entirely unpalatable./  i really like this it’s kind of impressive / coming to terms w fact I have SO MUCH to do!! / I’d say “oh, no whiskey is medicine! Really.” / oh yes, because we are saints.” / [TD] says it’s outrageous & pathological / I still haven’t cleaned or packed / Furthermore I am on the way to the store for some sausage. / He said “emily everyone will be staring / I’m almost home /

I’m at the ferry terminal & I haven’t slept. / I’m about to sleep in my car in the hold of a ship. / idea of men masturbating to poetry & thought you might too / Google “navigating device” / it’s actually like totally OBSCENE / I kind of think that’s bad. / My mother was handing out slices of ham. /

because you want attention & I want to be left alone. / It’s not haunted anyway only called that / if it makes you feel better, i didn’t want to do it myself. / he ran off & there was no retrieving him. / yowling to get in & only a little chomped on by dogs. / charlie’s budgie died while he was in barcelona. / here. /

I hope you’re not dying of curiousity.  I don’t want any lawsuits.

Anyway I was supposed to be on my way to Los Angeles but I got a phone call today.  So I’m staying put in my brother’s basement for one more week.  Thank God he’s so tolerant & doesn’t mind.  I may or may not be moving to Los Angeles.  That, like everything else, is figuratively speaking up in the metaphorical air.

Light (just keepin' it)

I was taking week 25 off so I could move to Los Angeles.  But now I’m not moving, for now.  But it’s too late to get anyone else.  So now, friends, I’m taking Week 25 off in order to achieve the most perfect possible stasis.  Or something like that.

Maybe I’ll come up with some silly game each day.  Or something like that, to keep you entertained next Monday. Until next Monday!  Can you hold on till then?! Next Monday, after all, it will already be 2010.

It, dude, was my week off & I think that means I can write about it however I like.  I took no notes, in fact, I never take notes, but this week I didn’t even take mental ones & it’s all very bleary.  It has that nice underwater quality that memory occasionally acquires around this time of year when it’s dark all the time & everything’s a little crazed & festive.  As if it all happened in a castle in the bottom of the sea. Well, it might as well have.  I’ll tell you what I remember in just the order I remember it, until I get tired under the weight of all this memory & decide to cut off abruptly & focus my thoughts on the future.

First & foremost, obviously, it was in the bleak December & each burning dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.  That should go without saying.  My mother was in town, I was recovering from something? Oh yes, Los Angeles.  I was recovering from Los Angeles & preparing to return.  So we devoured a lot of food.  Basically most of the time was spent on devouring.  If it’s decadent, I’ll do it.  That’s my unofficial motto.  Test it out on me sometime.  I devoured quite a menagerie early this week.  Oysters, foie gras, some kind of coarse sausage, lamb chops… perhaps it’s better to tell you the cruel foods I didn’t eat.  No veal, no ortolan drowned in Armagnac, no live monkey brains, no dogs hanged by the neck until dead.  No human flesh.  I ate no human flesh, so far as I know.

"I weep for you," the Walrus said, "I deeply sympathsize."

& then my family departed & I was left to my own devices.  Everything’s covered in Christmas lights, nice since it gets dark shortly after three.  It’s been rainy though (very [I think]) so the streets shine.  Must love the hall of days. The Hall of Days, get it?  It’s what we call a play on words in the poetry industry.  “Make it till you fake it,” I say, regarding the creation of poetry.  That’s my inspirational lower back tattoo.

Oh well.  I went Christmas shopping a lot but it took me a long time to find anything.  I saw interesting things in junk shops.  I kind of wanted to buy people junk for Christmas, but I didn’t think they’d understand.  Maybe staying at Ptolemy’s house warped my brain. I saw lots of things I liked like a Jesus Saves piggybank & some old watches.  There were trillions of alarming dolls.  A doll with a black horn strapped to her head.  A doll in a mask & cape.  & the best one, a doll’s head with its eyes partially but not entirely closed resting on some tiny eggs in an ashtray.

No birds were flying overhead

--there were no birds to fly

Oh also, I got a package.  Early in the week I got a most interesting package from commenter Suzanne.  It was FULL of fascinating things.  Books, & a grey cashmere scarf, & some hand soap in a ziploc bag & old photos & a wishbone, I think, or what I hope was a wishbone, that had shattered into four pieces & lay at the bottom of everything.  My favorite thing was a long narrow picture of her house.  Also, four pairs of socks, which is wonderful.  I don’t have any socks.

The moon was shining sulkily, because she thought the sun had got no business to be there after the day was done--

It must be something to do with the project.  I don’t get any money, or work, or love or anything, but now I HAVE got seven pairs of socks.  & socks are just what I need.  Money & love may come & go but I never have socks.  Ptolemy got me three pairs when I came to his house & now Suzanne sent me four pairs & it means whenever I put on my socks I’m thinking of you.  I only have two other pairs of socks, really.  & one pair belongs to an old boyfriend & the other pair to a former stepfather.  I suppose I have trouble clothing my feet.  I need you nice people to do it for me.

Anyway, Suzanne, please consider this a public thank you note.  I am of the firm belief that it’s best, these days, to do almost everything publicly.

Later that night, I walked into a bar (ouch) & found Jesus

Along those lines, some interesting plans have been materializing rapidly & then rapidly falling apart.  I’ve been very knotty this year but I trust Santa will come through regardless.

He has the most interesting Tweets.

Also, things are festive. Parties & Christmas shopping. On Thursday  I went to a cocktail party at Jessica’s new place which is very nice.  There’s a fireplace & a budgie in her bedroom & the walls in the hallways are concrete & the doors are all shiny metal & industrial looking.  There was egg-nog, but I didn’t drink that (ew) I just drank everything else in the room.

how many steps again? much more than 12...

Then on Sunday I went to a brunch at Braden’s house & met 18 very pleasant people.  It was a pajama party brunch so I wore my velvet dressing gown & a slip over this zippered leotard that I’ve been wearing for the past three days.  I was kind of the second most dressed up person at the party but I don’t mind, that always happens.

I only dress for dinner

Sometimes I go to a costume party & I’m the only person in costume.  Like this one party in Michigan where I went in drag as Humbert Humbert & then the boy who was going to be Lolita had decided, I guess, not to come in costume & he didn’t know how to tell me so he just didn’t.  & everyone else had decided not to come in costume too.  But it was ok, because it made my costume so much better, if you think about it.  I couldn’t be Humbert Humbert without being jilted like that!  I carried around two tennis rackets all night, very mournfully.  & looking very handsome in my suit.

'07 was quite a year.

Anyway, back to reality, at this brunch I drank some mimosas & flipped pancakes for a long time in a blissful & dreamy sort of way.  When we ate there were crackers with paper hats & actually very good prizes!  Somewhere, now, I have a Rubix cube key-chain & a little lock shaped as a heart with two sets of keys.  I can put that on my diary, aka the internet, where it will be absolutely useless as a lock.

Orange you glad our hats are so bananas?

Now I’m just rambling, aren’t I.  I’ve missed a lot of things.  I spent nearly every waking minute with Shannon & some sleeping ones too.  I met a Jesus at the beginning of the week (as mentioned in an artful caption) & a Mohammad at the end.  I stepped into an elevator which broke instantly.  I befriended the homeless man who opens the door for you at the 7-11.  Last night he told me he is 49 & asked me if he looks it.  “I’m not very good at guessing men’s ages” I said, “& also it’s hard to tell because of your long grey beard.”

“People tell me I look young” he said.  So he & I have more than one thing in common.

Now I’m just tiptoing into Elizabeth’s week.  It’s a very nice one.  I’m also going to be busy.  I’m leaving for the island the day after tomorrow.  & then after Christmas I’m moving to Los Angeles.  I have to pack, among other things.  & Christmas is coming (the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the old man’s hat).

Here’s my favorite picture of Elizabeth & me.  I hope she doesn’t mind that I’m putting it on the internet.  It’s the best photo ever taken, is all.

You can send away for an autographed copy.

Anyway I don’t know what else to tell you.  Did I mention I lost the Coin of Destiny in Los Angeles?  Did I mention that I’m taking a second week off after Christmas in order to move to there?  Did I mention I’m driving?

I like Christmas a lot but I didn’t make gingerbread men or anything this year.  There was a time in my life where I made a lot of gingerbread, & went through two jars of molasses every December.  I would make five different colors of icing & decorate each cookie differently.  I still have lots of cookie cutters.  Once when I was ten I made a scale replica of on of the California missions entirely out of gingerbread.

What can I say, I grew up without television.  But now all I care about is lipstick & invitations.

Happy Holidays everyone! Hope you spend them writhing with comfort & joy!  I know I will.

Chance makes an odd bedfellow

In conclusion, don’t do anything I wouldn’t.  & if you’re wont to overspend, as so many of us are, please remember the wisdom that adorns the junk shop coin bank.

The reason for the season, after all.

Oh & here I am.  It’s been very dramatic.  I was in Los Angeles all week, being lived by an unconcious man in the ICU.  I know that might seem like a cop-out.  It felt like one at the time.  How can you be lived by somebody who is unconscious?  But in some mystical way or another it seemed to work out.  You’ll see what I mean.

Woke up quite early on Monday morning & headed to the airport.  The SO LONG EMILY sign over my bed seemed somehow portentous.

I had my own block of seats on the airplane

It was mostly empty.  My iPod was stolen the week before so I had nothing to listen to.  I mean, nothing to which to listen.  But Christmas carols played in my mind & of course

I'd brought some light reading for the plane.

The woman across from me on the flight was in her 70s.  She was wearing Mickey Mouse earrings & she had a Mickey Mouse Necklace over a red turtleneck & a sequined Mickey Mouse purse.  She was working on a book of crosswords, I think.  I’d assumed she was a tourist going to Anaheim, but then she started talking to some other woman & turns out she was only a Mickey Mouse aficiando.  She actually lives in Orange County.

California is full of surprises.

We landed in heavy rain but it stopped when we taxied up.  & there was a rainbow right over the airport.  Cue oohs & ahhs from my fellow passengers.  I oohed silently.

Keith, the driver, picked me up & he said the clouds had parted just for me.  Well, sure.  They always do.

At the hotel I signed up for wireless & then settled my brains for a long winter’s nap.  By now I’m quite familiar with this particular hotel.  I know the leopard-print bathrobes & the snakeskin cabinets as if they were my very own.

Los Angeles, like the rest of the world, is disintegrating somewhat.  I could tell the hotel is losing money.  For one thing, they had changed all the bath products from L’Occitane to Aveda.  Also, they no longer ask if you want the key to the mini-bar.  They just give you the key to your room

& the mini-bar is unlocked.

Anyway, the next day I went to the hospital where my friend was in poor condition.  But once I arrived, he seemed to improve somewhat.  By the end of the day, he was able to squeeze the nurses’ hands.  There were some doctors who came in & they asked if I had any questions.

“No,” I said.  “Except… do you think it’s fun being doctors?”

They exchanged confused glances & hurried away without answering me.  For goodness sake.  I only asked a simple question!

Anyway, by the end of the day I realized that I had only one very obvious option.  I needed to move to Los Angeles as soon as possible & live in my friend’s apartment.  I ran it by his secretary & his nurse & his doctor & his best friend & they all agreed.

So that is what I am going to do. Friends, I am moving to Los Angeles.

I went to the hospital the next day.  It was much the same, only a little better.

it was much the same, only

a little better

Then around 5:00 I received a call from another friend, who had [redacted].  Spent the rest of the night [redacted] & out for drinks at the W too. Once I got back home (or hotel, rather), spent time on Skype. It was a good night, if [redacted] an anxious one.

I spent the next two days on [redacted].  The Dear Friend who was living me had stabilized, though he was still unconscious, & since I was to be moving into his apartment in a few weeks’ time I felt less need to go to the hospital. I had his doctors’ blessing. I stayed in my hotel room & planned  [redacted].

I also saw a few friends from high school.

Time marched on.

Lots of things happened.  I met men & they fell in love with me.  It rained a little.  Rain is an event in Los Angeles (my friends complained that the sound of it kept them awake at nights).  I wrote a few delirious emails. Drank a lot of champagne.  Talked on the phone with nurses & business managers & my mother.  I contemplated quitting the project.  I was pretty sure I’d have to quit.

My Dear Friend was doing ok.  They floated a catheter or something into his heart through his lungs.  Today (Sunday) they took out his breathing tube.  The last few days I couldn’t go in as they thought it would be better if he didn’t have visitors.  Also, [redacted] was happening.

I’m not a very good [redacted], for obvious reasons.

I ate some room service & emptied the mini-bar & watched some movies on TV.  There was one day where I stayed in my hotel room all day & watched the Discovery Channel on mute.  They dissected a crocodile over & over.  It was a huge crocodile.  They dissected it every two hours, or maybe less frequently.  It was hard to tell.

they had excellent room service

That’s how it was.  Then this morning I got on a plane & came to Vancouver, where it had snowed.

I was being Lived By my Dear Friend, unconscious or whatever, he always liked me to do just what I liked.  If I could’ve, I would’ve shaken my own hand & slipped myself $600 & told myself to go shopping, but for obvious reasons this wasn’t feasible. & as far as the inspired decision to move to Los Angeles & live in his spare bedroom goes, I credit it entirely to him.

Anyway, now I’m here in Vancouver. Got back tonight & tonight Shannon came over.  She’d cleaned my entire apartment & I made her some steak with truffle butter.  I talked about how I would need to quit the project but how I felt increasingly that I shouldn’t.

We soon had the best idea (when we put our heads together we’re very dangerous).

I’m taking the next week off.  This is necessary.  After next week, I will return to the scheduled programming.  A full two weeks of it. Following which, Shannon will take charge of the administrative aspects of the project for one month.

See, it’s not living the schedules that is difficult for me, it is coordinating the schedules.  Assigning the weeks, sending the required emails, etc. etc. all takes its toll on me.  It no longer feels like Emily “Lived By” but rather, Emily “Lived For.” It’s less about the directives than it is about the logistics &, as such, it begins to feel rather artificial.

Shannon will take care of all of that. & henceforth, everything will be fine.  Furthermore, it will be much more out of my hands.

Anyway, I’m taking a week off.  During that time, we will restructure the project.  I will return full force in time for Christmas.  I will move to Los Angeles & spend New Years there.  The project is being relocated but, as far as I know, it will resume shortly.  I appreciate your patience & your support.  If you have suggestions, send them along.  Shannon will help me deal with them.

We’ve lagged a little, but we’re making a comeback.  From now, I’ll be around & everything will go swimmingly.

Well, friends. Have you weathered your storms?  I’ve weathered mine.  I’m weathering.  This week, like every week, has felt like a lifetime.

but what is a lifetime?

As Norton Juster tells us (in the inimitable Phantom Tollbooth,) “It’s more important to know whether there will be weather than what the weather will be.”

Well, what can I say? I’m whethering. It’s been … real.

Buddhism week was in like a lion, out like… a lion on steroids.  But I did what the doctor ordered.  I was 1. up at 8:00 every day & I 2. meditated, or at least reserved meditation time, for  three hours each day during the assigned times.  From 3. 4-5 each day I studied the assigned text (Zen Mind, Beginners Mind, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi) & I attempted to be 4. genuine & present like, always.

For some reason people think I’m not genuine.

Anyway, there were other directives. You can see them if you check the schedule.  I did my best to fulfill each of them.

It’s fortunate, really, that this week was Buddhism Week because this week the world really came crashing down about my metaphorical shoulders & Buddhism gave me some helpful tools to deal with the trauma…

Anyway, day one was kind of easy.  It was the first day, after all.  Just getting into the swing of things, I meditated as best as I could during the assigned times & used my 5. breakfast hour to cook bacon & eggs.

see, just like i told you?

If you want to know how meditation etc. went for me you can check under the Weekly Schedule.  I posted updates.  No one seemed to care.  I’m untroubled by it.  But I’m not going to rehash it all here.

I meditated.

The second day, I really hit my stride.  Cliche alert! But who cares. I hit it. My stride, that is.  Made some real advances in meditation, made three solid meals (unheard of for me!) & cleaned … & cleaned … & cleaned. & was present during cleaning. & found real meaning in it.

meaning. in cleaning!

My apartment was filthy.  It’s now only semi-filthy.

we re-appropriated the "pearl necklace"

I strung pearl necklaces from the necks of my stuffed animals.  I sorted all the clothes in my bedroom.  I made it so that I could see my closet floor.

Oh, & so much more.  That felt good.

it felt good

Third day, things began to get troubled.  During meditation, I began to see visions of sorts.  My own head, viewed from the side.  It turned towards me & smiled.  Its eyes were wholly white.

I’d talked on the phone to Gordon, who was worried about my sanity.  He’d told me to quit if it got scary.  Scary it was.  Quit, I did.

That night, before washing the dishes, I put my ring on the counter.  The counter was cold, & my ring.  After washing a pot I went to put my ring back on & found it had warped into a perfect oval & would no longer fit on my finger. No discernible reason.  Troubling.

do you find me pretty? do you like these bones?

From then on things devolved rather rapidly.  Day four I went to Stanley Park with Shannon with the dog, reality thrumming in my ears & eyes & elsewhere.  We ended up staying too long & cut into my meditation time. It was cold & sunny & what?  Something else.  I spent only 45 minutes on meditation that afternoon.

do you like the squeal that comes when you polish me like glass?

well, whatever

Day five. I went through the routine.  Meditation was troubling. Had to stop.  In the evening, Shannon came over.  We flipped the Coin of Destiny. It gave us all the right, troubling answers.  We went to eat. We went to drink. We went to the beach at night & it was cold.

& it was cold

The beach that night was awfully beautiful.  Awfully in every sense of the word. We had the dog with us & let her off.  She ran around on the stones & we stared at the sky, sick with trouble.  Everything seemed to be some portent of … something.

Oh I think I’m getting my days mixed up.  This is the trouble when you don’t keep a daily blog.  Because one of these days, I met up with Shannon for Dinner & a Movie.  & we talked. When was it that all of this was happening?

these late eclipses of the sun & moon portend...

Buddhism week was turning me spooky.  In the mornings, before I was 6. allowed to communicate with the outside world I practiced my divination & automatic writing.  I asked many questions & received many answers.  Horrible answers.

I eventually had to give up meditation altogether.  If you’re a spooky person like me, & you can “sense” things, well, I have to say that, by now? If you walked into my apartment? You’d feel the way I do.  Step in the door & it’s like stepping into Jello.

But who knows…?  On day six (yesterday) I discovered that a dear friend of mine, who has been ill for a very long time is ill once again & in the ICU.  Is this the end?  I resolved that I would fly down to Los Angeles to spend a little time at the bedside.  I’m leaving tomorrow.  Does tomorrow come so soon?

"so long, emily!"

At first I thought of it as a “week off” but then realized it’s nothing of the sort.  For Week 22 I will be lived by Dear Friend.  He’s not “around” in the strict-ish sense of the word, but he’s around.  I know just what he’d like & this is his chance (& my chance).  He can Live Me.  I’m going to be in the hospital in Los Angeles being lived by my dear unconscious friend.  Disappointing?  I understand.  But what isn’t?

So, on the sixth day, I made a lot of arrangements.  I arranged a plane ticket.  I arranged other things.  I drove out to the island where I’d arranged for my brother to take care of the dog.

i will live a happy life... so that's taken care of

he made pasta from scratch

We watched Christmas movies.  We made our own movie.

[movie]

I don’t expect you to understand it.  It’s a big inside joke.

I studied my book on the ferry.  I missed meditation hour.  This is what happens when life sneaks up on you.  Sneak up on you it does!  I might as well warn you now that this project may dissolve completely.  I didn’t know what I was beginning when I began it & I might as well tell you now: if it falls apart, that must’ve been the intention all along.  Whose intention? God only knows.  But you know that adorable old saying, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans?” I don’t know how to describe the feeling I’ve been having lately.  I only know that I can say, with some conviction, that if feels as if God is laughing through me.

i don't want to start any blasphemous rumors, but...

I had a nice time with my brother & Buddhism week prepared me for what is to come.

When I woke up today, on my day off, I found my car had been broken into.  They took my iPod & my winter coat.  They took my coins &, most tragically, my buttons.  I had buttons in my money bag.  & the thieves took off with them.  But I could tell they were nice thieves.  The Coin of Destiny (I’ve resumed consulting it) told me so.

Dear friends. I am going to Los Angeles.  I will be there a week & God only knows what will become of me after.  I’ve left so much out.  All these Buddhist insights.  The week was alarmingly good for me & it left me with much, I think.  But I don’t have time for that now.

When I’m done with this entry (soon. Soon!) I am going to bed.  I’ll wake up early, pack a suitcase, get on an airplane … & that will be the last you’ll hear of me for a while.  I’m curious to see what will become of all this … & you should be too.