From the cool of the library

Yesterday, the heat was too much. I went over to the Bryn Mawr Borders to log into my job searches; but by the time I arrived, I was weak, nauseous, and dizzy. This getting-old thing sucks. I hauled my lap-top and raggedy-ass over to a comfy chair, and just sat there hoping the misery—or I—would just go away. A woman across from me very kindly asked after my health, and I told her that I thought it was just the heat. I wanted to just say I felt majorly shitty, but even in that state, I decided to remain polite. I sat there in the haze of nauseous waves for a while and all of a sudden, the woman appeared at my side carrying a cup of ice, a bottle of lemonade and a bottle of Poland Water she had purchased from the café.

You’re probably not getting enough liquids. The café said it would be all right for you to drink this here—so drink up!

Had I still been in the DC area, she would have waited until I passed out and then stolen my lap-top, my wallet, and my car keys—knifing me in the eye for good measure. I didn’t quite know how to react; it’s been such a long time since I encountered a purely altruistic act. I thought perhaps I had died and she was some sort of Angel from the Heavenly Suburbs come to break the news to me slowly. Sure enough, after a little rest and a lot of liquids, I began to come ‘round. What a pleasant little unprecedented event. She got her Karma Stars yesterday. Thanks, darlin’, wherever you might be.

P.T. has been behaving quite unlike himself—that is to say, he hasn’t jumped onto, into anything; he hasn’t crawled under, behind, on top of anything I’ve needed to call the fire department for; he hasn’t broken or barfed on anything—he’s been remarkably, well, unlike himself. Maybe it’s the heat for him, too, but I’m at once pleased and disappointed. It’s a relief to know that the tschatschkas (sp?) can safely perch on all the shelves, window sills, tables, appliances, TVs, and mantles unmolested—on the other hand, if he were bad, I’d have a stronger argument for taking him with me. It would be better for him, I think, if he were to stay with his step-sister rather than get hauled all around the country—on the other hand, it would be better for me to have someone who needs and depends on me to take care of him. It helps to have another Center-of-the-Universe around to keep you from thinking the Center-of-the-Universe is your own foolish self. A sort of life-line to the outside world and sanity, as it were. Selfish, I know. Not to mention the fact that I don’t think I can fall asleep without a dead (though still purring) weight on my legs. Not to mention the fact that leaving him behind would totally splinter my heart into unmendable shards. I can’t imagine the morning without someone’s hot fish-breath braying in my face demanding to be fed. This—is not going to be easy.

I have, like millions of other Muggles out there, my own copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince; but unlike the millions of other Muggles out there, I have a revelation to share about J.K. Rowling. Watch this space. Or watch the next space that is—if the Obliviators don’t get me first. Nothing like being Umpty-something going on twelve.

America's best-kept secret

Ain't she a beauty?

Hot.

Too hot. I haven't been here because it's been too hot. The romantic notion of living in an attic and writing is charming--but not when the temperature is screaming past 85 degrees with no signs of slowing down and the humidity is being ladled through every open window. Confession: not only am I an insufferable snob, I'm a temperature wuss. I become like a one-celled animal with a four word basic need: Find. Bearable. Temperature. Now. It's the oddest thing--one can take a shower, turn off the water, dry and dry and dry; use towel after towel after towel, nothing happens! You are as wet outside the shower as you were in! Why bother?

Sometime next week I'll be on the road though, air-conditioner full blast, and listening primarily to Scandanavian composers to drop the temperature even lower. I'm looking forward to Colorado (maybe a side-trip to New Mexico) where they complain if the humidity is over 10%. I can take the heat (altogether now!), it's the humidity, the humidity, the humidity, the unbearable, ubiquitous, cruel, suffocating, heartless humidity that takes you down. Instead of Hell being hot, or as Dante portrayed it, cold; Hell must be humid, and the more damned you are the more the humidity.

Reduced to talking about the weather. That's how low my creativity has sunk. This mad planet and its mad inhabitants are going about unspeakable wickedness, and I'm sitting here stewing about (and in) humidity. Says something, doesn't it?

HOT. HUMID.

Sometimes I Wonder.

London

I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

-- William Blake

Apologies to Jack

Although Capote said he didn't write, really--he typed. In any case, I'm "On the Road," as it were. I'll have to make this quick as the drive to Philadelphia looms ahead. Most of my life is stuffed into a 10 x 25 metal unit, and the necessities are stuffed to the sunroof in my car. I spent last night in a Comfort Inn after a twelve-hour day of moving and storing. I won't enumerate what hurts and what's bruised--you don't need an anatomy lesson. One spectacular gash though: I was wrapping the loft desk in bubble wrap and shrink-wrapping it, bent down and sliced my skull open on the sharp corner of a file-cabinet. Cuts on the head bleed profusely, even though the cut is not that bad. I looked like Carrie. After a clean-up and a band-aid on my bald head, I was back to work. This is the last, thank all the Golden Goddesses, you'll have to read about packing.

One bit of excitement: PT managed to squeeze himself down under the mattress and into the base of the bed--and I had to tear apart the furniture to get him out. The joys of being owned by a neurotic cat. Time for more, more coffee and to get on the road. It's a sad thing to read, I know, but you'll hear more from me later, if I don't run into a rogue eighteen-wheeler, that is. I anyone is on friendly terms with St. Christopher, put in a good word for me.

Independence Day

Of a sort, I suppose--if independence means not being tied down to a permanent address. The hardest part of the last stages of packing is the reduced space in which to pack. The more you have in boxes and off the walls and out of drawers and stacked on the floors, the working space becomes a test of contortion. And then there's the amusing time-wasters: once a box is set to seal, and you've pulled the flaps tight, the tape is nowhere to be found. Once you find enough space to unroll the bubble wrap, you can't find the box-cutter to cut the wrap, once you've sealed a box, none of the five magic markers can be found to remind you later what you've packed. And then there's the discovery of something that should have gone into another box which is already packed and sealed and always on the bottom of another stack of boxes, which then has to be unearthed, opened, and resealed and restacked. Not to mention the time it takes to stop and spend a half hour to restart a role of tape that has fallen away from the cutter and resealed itself on the roll. These kinds of annoyances keep you from worrying yourself to death about the future though, so perhaps they serve a purpose?

Speaking of annoyances, as I went out the other day to buy (yet more!) tape and bubble wrap, I discovered a crack in my windshield up by the rearview mirror which has been since snaking its way down my car window like a stroke of immensely slow lightning. Getting that repaired delays the start of the second leg of my journey--not to mention it brings another huge expense I can't afford right now. I think it was W.C. Fields who made a comment about "the innate perversity of inanimate objects."

There's at least a bit of good news: I won't have to spend too many nights in the car--at least not as many as I expected as I've been able to find friends along the way who are willing to put me up for a night, give me a meal and a shower. Having these friends come through for me temporarily bandages my tattered self-esteem, and I'm grateful.

Time to go reopen another box and reseal it--if I can find the box a recently discovered instruction booklet belongs in, that is. I wish I weren't out of coffee.

One last thing: doing all these (relatively) mindless tasks over the past few weeks, I came to a realization. I may be too tired to realize that it isn't profound, and without my books I can't check if it's a thought I picked up somewhere else: The will to live is simply a rage at impermanence.

Where's the box-cutter? Onward.