Date: 2005-02-04
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It¢s been longer than I¢d meant it to be since my last entry. Overwork, followed by a particularly nasty cold which knocked me out for a few days, and then a trip out of town, all conspired to keep me from updating. I¢m still getting over the flu, and tired, and haven¢t been in the best of moods at work.¢Customers should be shot,¢ said one of my more morose colleagues the other day while washing dishes in the back room, and though I thought at the time that he was being rather extreme, I have caught myself lately entertaining fleeting fantasies of leaping over the coffee counter and throttling people who wait in line for ten minutes and then stand in front of you with a glazed look in their eye and no idea what they want, or people who are particularly concerned that you are giving them what they ordered rather than what they really want, and ¢that cup seems smaller than it ought to be¢ and ¢oh, did I forget to ask you to make that two-thirds decaf, one-third regular¢¦no no, that wasn¢t enough decaf¢¦better make it four-fifths¢ and ¢would you please slice my scone into three equal pieces, and a fourth smaller piece?¢ Bitterness ill becomes me. I¢m usually fairly low-key, and the extent to which I am beginning to understand the psychological origins of the phrase ¢going postal¢ is at once alarming and ridiculous. The little voice in the back of my head is sitting back on a sofa, tossing popcorn into its mouth, and observing, ¢Wow, kid, you¢re¢¦ a lunatic.¢ Of course, it¢s also possible that my mood has been influenced negatively by the fact that I¢m still sore from jumping off a moving train two days ago. Yeah, whoops. But that¢s another story.In any case it did me good, last weekend, to travel to Vermont for Josh¢s art show opening. Josh and Kate are two of my old New Hampshire buddies and I hadn¢t seen them in a long time. I took a bus to Montpelier and wandered in the snowy streets till I found the caf© I was looking for: recognized it by the canvases hanging on the walls, enormous, glowing with acrylic color: primary, intense, hands and eyes and faces all merging together. Inside, the place is filled with music and laughter and everyone knows each other; old hippies dance to the beat in their heads while Christmas lights shine from inside homemade tin-can lanterns. Coming in from the cold to a roomful of old friends: all of a sudden, as though it were yesterday, there they are, Kate and Josh and Keith and Erik and Meg and Amanda, and I marvel now as I marvel every time at how easy they are, these friendships. They are so blessed. I am unkempt and bleary-eyed and nose-blowing and it does not matter. It is so precious, this feeling: that I could stumble into their lives anytime and never be unwelcome, that if any of them were to knock on my door unexpectedly, I would only be glad. Later that night, three of us squeeze into sleeping bags on a single futon on the floor, in a room whose walls are covered in unfinished mural. We expect to bump into and kick each other all night, but I sleep better than I have all week.On the bus there and back, in and out of a groggy, half-asleep haze, I watch the mountains through the windows as we pass, and the slant of the afternoon sun as it hits the snow-covered hills. It is another exhalation. So soon, I think ¢ so soon I will be out there. The peaks glow gold.****Today¢s horoscope? ¢Dreaming about exotic destinations can be good for your emotional well-being.¢ Self-evident, really ¢ but then, I¢m listening to Steve Tannen sing about going ¢all the way to Vegas, baby¢ as I write this, so who knows. Maybe I should swing through Nevada on the way to Georgia. I¢ll bet my tarptent on 00, and the rest¢ll be history.