I blame missmhart
... for talking on Saturday night about her chronic weakness for bass players. ;-) Sunday morning I had a dream about one of my exes -- the bassist, naturally, back in Indiana, the only person to ever make me think for more than 30 seconds about moving back there. Even though we never dated so much as had a brief but torrid long-distance affair. Which I haven't thought about (with any emotion) in months, possibly years; until this dream, when I woke up out of this well of sadness deeper than I would have imagined still possible.
I dreamed I walked into a music store in Boulder, Colorado, and there he was, working. I was so happy to see him I nearly cried. Except -- no sooner had he greeted me than he walked off around a corner, and though I followed him all around the aisles in the basement of this store, just trying to talk to him, I couldn't get near him again.
Which, it need hardly be said, is not too far abstracted from the way it happened in real life.
To get my grief off my chest, I ended up recounting the whole sordid story -- the real-life version, I mean, of course -- for Tiger Boy once he woke up, and again late Sunday night for mangosteen on the way home from our little Super Bowl gathering.
And telling it over makes me really think seriously about writing it down more completely. More to the point, I wonder whether I could find a way of sketching it that would make it anywhere near as compelling to the reader as it was to me. I wrote a poem about it once, but that was in medias res, immediately after his one visit to me in Boston (August of 1994 for God's sake), and the poem has little to recommend it besides a certain rawness of pain. But the overall story actually has some potential, in narrative terms, or at least some features of interest to be drawn out of it.
In particular, it amazes me how everything and everyone that touches us can cascade down through our experience for the rest of our lives, in the most unfathomable ways. I fell for mrmorse in no small part because he reminded me of this guy. And I was initially drawn to Tiger Boy in no small part because he reminded me of mrmorse. How often in my life has that happened? Turning my head at just the right (or wrong) moment because I thought I heard an echo or saw a ghost?
(Oh yeah, so, the book that's eaten my life for the last six weeks was duly shipped off to press today! w00t! queue and I left early [read: a whole ten minutes to 5pm] for drinks to celebrate. Tomorrow... on to the Cryptoclub! Oh, also my third book cover is coming out next month. :-)
(On the other hand, I have apparently lost my hat. The Best Hat in the World. I had it walking from the office, and I thought I had it waiting for the train, but I think it was gone by the time I got to Diesel, and I didn't notice for sure until leaving Redbones. Crap. My life is already colder for the lack of it. Wonder if the commuter rail has a lost & found?)
I dreamed I walked into a music store in Boulder, Colorado, and there he was, working. I was so happy to see him I nearly cried. Except -- no sooner had he greeted me than he walked off around a corner, and though I followed him all around the aisles in the basement of this store, just trying to talk to him, I couldn't get near him again.
Which, it need hardly be said, is not too far abstracted from the way it happened in real life.
To get my grief off my chest, I ended up recounting the whole sordid story -- the real-life version, I mean, of course -- for Tiger Boy once he woke up, and again late Sunday night for mangosteen on the way home from our little Super Bowl gathering.
And telling it over makes me really think seriously about writing it down more completely. More to the point, I wonder whether I could find a way of sketching it that would make it anywhere near as compelling to the reader as it was to me. I wrote a poem about it once, but that was in medias res, immediately after his one visit to me in Boston (August of 1994 for God's sake), and the poem has little to recommend it besides a certain rawness of pain. But the overall story actually has some potential, in narrative terms, or at least some features of interest to be drawn out of it.
In particular, it amazes me how everything and everyone that touches us can cascade down through our experience for the rest of our lives, in the most unfathomable ways. I fell for mrmorse in no small part because he reminded me of this guy. And I was initially drawn to Tiger Boy in no small part because he reminded me of mrmorse. How often in my life has that happened? Turning my head at just the right (or wrong) moment because I thought I heard an echo or saw a ghost?
(Oh yeah, so, the book that's eaten my life for the last six weeks was duly shipped off to press today! w00t! queue and I left early [read: a whole ten minutes to 5pm] for drinks to celebrate. Tomorrow... on to the Cryptoclub! Oh, also my third book cover is coming out next month. :-)
(On the other hand, I have apparently lost my hat. The Best Hat in the World. I had it walking from the office, and I thought I had it waiting for the train, but I think it was gone by the time I got to Diesel, and I didn't notice for sure until leaving Redbones. Crap. My life is already colder for the lack of it. Wonder if the commuter rail has a lost & found?)