A kind Richard Gere morphed into a gentle Val Kilmer. Richard/Val kissed me. What a kisser. We both had dry lips. We were both shy. I started to say to Val, “You’re like Batman,” but then let the statement trail off. Then my sister burst into the room. She had some bad news: The trees [...]
(Photograph via.)
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I dreamed a story this morning. It was about my childhood best friend, MW, and her apartment. I can’t wait to write it. What I’ve noted below makes no sense, however. But I’ll make sure the story makes sense.
MW—large eyes, heart-shaped face, graceful.
Her apartment on Madison Street—cleaned, painted white, sparse.
I stay with her for [...]
Two dreams, the second seguing seamlessly from the first.
The First
My mother is having an affair. My father dottily insists she is out getting her hair done. I reply, “At eleven at night??” He shrugs and goes up to bed. I fume. Finally she comes through the door, looking radiant. We sit down at the table [...]
I haven’t had time to think of Don Quixote this week, let alone pick up the sadly neglected hardcover edition from my shelf to start reading, but my brain must be preparing me for the endeavor, eager to start, because I had a dream this morning about sighting what looked like windmills on the horizon of a [...]
In Reply
by the Ancient Recluse
Somehow I ended up beneath pines
sleeping in comfort on boulders
there aren’t any calendars in the mountains
winter ends but who counts the years
—from Poems of the Masters: China’s Classic Anthology
of T’ang and Sung Dynasty Verse, translated by Red Pine
Nothing is known of the author of this poem, other than that he lived in [...]
Read Flaubert aloud with satisfaction.
—Franz Kafka, March 16, 1912, from Diaries: 1910–1923
Been wondering lately what a whole separate reading room in abode might look like. It would have bookshelves, of course, and sofa, as well as large window and rocking chair (or two or three). Plus turntable and crate of Bessie Smiths. Blank notebooks for jotting down inanities. And no laptop or phone, [...]
A few years ago J and I watched three films* in the space of about a week, each of which ended eerily on the following note: It was all just a dream. I had objected to the transparency of two of these films, and felt pacified by the third for its pulling back from that direction at the last minute. And [...]
My dream from this Monday morning: I was in a car with two coworkers, also fellow freelancers, on our way to dinner. L was nearly asleep in the backseat, mumbling about a project that had kept her up late into the night. I admitted to having stayed up until five a.m. with two of my own, one of [...]
Friday: Saw an Italian band in a little East Village bar. My friend F invited this band afterward to a meal at the delectable Assenzio’s on East 4th Street, a Sardinian restaurant whose gnocchi are bites of heaven. The crowd got big and rowdy and very happy, and I sat with F’s longtime friend G, who is nervous [...]
I’ve had nightmares about work where my boss sits me down for a talking-to or lists all my professional shortcomings in front of our entire department— but never before have I had a dream about another publishing house.
It’s not like I don’t enjoy the books I work on (well, only about half) or believe the [...]
A loud solitude occurs at one o'clock in the morning.
E-mail me: loudsolitude (at) gmail (dot) com.
Surprise me: Amazon wish list.
