12.12.99

Counting down till Christmas. More than one person has informed me that shopping is complete, to which my response is a vocal congratulations bolstered by a silent, contemptuous guilt. I have not shopped one bit; I say, "With what shall I buy it, dear Santa, dear Santa?" Credit, I suppose. The other day someone who loves me told me that another person who smothers me in the word "love" said that I am selfish....I think I don't know what that person means. I went to see Wole Soyinka last Monday. I couldn't understand most of what he said because he spoke in decadent British English warped by a Nigerian accent. His afro was perfect and wickedly black and white. I was the beneficiary of a ticket that could not be used by its season holder. I went alone and found a seat in the front middle, which was perfect except for the obese woman folding over the armrest and whose halitosis stung me at unpredictable intervals. I felt nauseous almost the entire time. The day before that I went to see the Buena Vista Social Club at the Crest. It was fabulous, just like everyone has said, except I could not tolerate the hand-held, erratic camera movements and I became nauseous. An elderly couple sat two seats away on my right, exuding some stale elderly smell. Both of them snored through a good portion of the film. The day before that Tom, Luana, and I were out on St. Helen's where the air was pure and I felt fantastic. I thought the mountain looked like she'd had a nervous breakdown and was now on the long slow path to recovery. This Sunday I gave up the mattresses I've been sleeping on this whole last year to their rightful owner. They had been borrowed all this time, see. This last week or so I was taxed with the decision of whether to buy mattresses or settle for a futon. I can't tolerate a futon, not at this time in my life, not after so many years of sleeping on them. I buckled and bought cheap mattresses from Mattress Outlet up in Lynnwood. Nothing but mattresses in that store. Wondered about the people who work there, why they work there when just about any other job would be better. Guy who sold me the mattress looked like he might aspire toward skinheaddom, and I thought maybe that was it; but there was another guy there who looked totally clean cut and was probably a high school student or the owner's kid, or something. What an easy job. When I went to pick up the mattress there were two guys: the clean cut kid and an older guy who looked normal and seemed of at least average intelligence. (Why would he be there?) They each shouldered a full-size mattress, walking in single file toward the door like leaf-cutter ants. In that moment I had a vision of a whole race of people burdened with an awkward appendage such as that, walking and greeting and socializing without grace. I laughed at them, but the mattresses, giant deflector shields, buffered the men from my insult. Driving away from the store I saw the two of them sitting on a king-size pillow top, chatting. (So that's how they pass the time.) Today a woman who had shaved away her eyebrows and re-painted them in tall rainbows reaching to the middle of her forehead remarked, as she stepped out of the bathroom I was heading into, "You're so pretty." Saturday Pam and I went to see the rest of the Photography exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. It was windy and rainy and I had to take the bus, which was scheduled infrequently and was also running late. We almost didn't make it but then we did. We ate and browsed. My head hurt from trying to absorb the eclecticism of it all. As we left the museum, our brains wired for art, we experienced an incredible trompe l'oreille: A sign perched on the sidewalk crashed over in a gust of wind with a thundering slap onto the concrete directly after some car down the block screeched its wheels on the wet pavement. Sounded just like an accident, but it wasn't. Last week I drank far too much tea, mostly pu-er. The caffeine tore me up and flattened me out: It was hard to get up in the mornings. Other social things have been happening - 'Tis the season, after all. A party of researchers last Thursday. Man of a house. Said he liked poetry, E.E. Cummings best. Sunday 'twas a party of travelers adorned in appropriate ethnic-wear. Entrepreneurs and climbers these people be too. I ate three desserts. This week...this week already busy. Busy. Busy.

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