Late night. I think I wanted to start this earlier, but maybe that was just want of an idea and not what was true. Thoughts and experiences have been flowing well enough, but not while I'm here in front of the computer, and not when I lay open a journal before me, pen in hand. I stare at the white pages, write a little, and then raise my sight toward some distant shore, letting it all echo and fade away behind my eyes.

Much of the sadness I've been feeling is gone. I'm not letting myself spend much time alone these days either -- there is a correlation. It's been good to sit with others, hear their voices alternating with mine. For me it has been practice at conversation, at speaking aloud in a language others use and not just the one I use with myself, which is not a language of words.

I serve tea as often as possible.

I've been without a car since my return. It's had its good points, but mostly it's been an inconvenience: I like riding the bus, in general, but I don't like waiting for it in the dark on a deserted street. Yesterday I borrowed my g-ma's car again.

Driving back around to Seattle from her house, I witnessed some kind of confrontation between the State Patrol and a man in a U-Haul truck. Several State Patrol cars had sped by me already and I was wondering what was going on. Finally, I came upon a wall of twinkling cars protruding out into the freeway. Traffic slowed to see, and what we saw were guns and lights and officers crouching behind opened car doors. We saw a clean cut, handsome man in the U-Haul truck, his arms motionless and parallel to the ground. His eyes were fixed on the side mirror and his face frozen with a look of caution. I can't seem to forget that image of him. Wondering what he did. Or didn't do.

I can't forget either the crisp shapes of the handguns, just a few yards away from the car rolling. I can imagine my fingers slipping into grip around the cold metal. My palm remembers the feeling of the .44 Magnum I fired once (on Mother's Day). The surrender of the arm against the release of superhuman power. Slipping my fingers around it. I feel the desire to squeeze the cold into warm, to cause an effect. I wonder if a person fires a weapon enough times into a slice of paper, if they start to fantasize about the way flesh rips? Isn't it unfulfilling to train for something one never plans to actually do? Won't the desire to actualize all that preparation eventually overcome?

At the Tower of London there was a display of swords. Elegant blades saddled in rows. I imagined the weight of the length testing the strength of my arms. How would it feel? Awkward and uncomfortable? A smooth extension of my own hand? I reached toward one and caressed the cold steel with the pads of my knuckles and then submitted with my entire palm. A long-awaited kiss. Suddenly, alarms rang out from what seemed like all corners of the room. My hand retreated in fright, and I hurried off to another floor.