my date and a day of freedom
Adam.
Ice Cream Cone.
Devoured.
I woke up after noon, and after breakfast with jono and friends, adam and I went shopping on newbury street. Well, shopping in the sense that we went into a store. Neither one of us bought anything. Adam left to look for a Mother's Day gift on Charles St., and I went to the Boston Public Library (BPL, really. People in Massachusetts hate words that aren't abbreviated: Mass Pike, Mass Ave, Com Ave, The T. Emerson: CPK, NYP, ECPD, LB, C-store). The only Douglas Adams book checked into the library was The Dark Teatime of the Soul, or something along those lines. I really wanted to read a Hitchikers's Guide to the Galaxy, but I guess so does everyone else. I read the first four chapters of the Teatime book, but it was too beachtowel-trashy, so I left it on a table somewhere and started reading one of Lorrie Moore's short story collections.
"You know, I'll tell you a secret: I've never been to New York. I'll tell you two secrets: I've never been on a plane." And he waved at her sadly as she pushed her way in through the terminal door. "Or an escalator!" he shouted.
BPL
Reading Room
Entrance Hall
Lion
Sitting in the indoor courtyard, drinking coffee, I felt like I was back in Europe, in a very at-home sort of way. I went into the vast, vaulted reading room with all the green reading lamps in long, glowing rows, and all the long, deeply quiet rows of people studying their books. The ceilings are 3 stories high, and they belong to me. But if my cell phone had started singing Swanee River in there, I know I would have fallen down dead, crumpled into a heap-- killed by the silent hatred of all the people sitting in the long, green rows.
Corner of Com Ave and Marlborough
I was walking home, looking at the new, green leaves lining the streets, when I realized I was clutching my library books. Clutching them. The thought of sharing books with the city, the knowledge that I could read anything in the entire library that I wanted to, looking forward to folding down the corners of pages with the best pieces and copying them down, and drawing secret magnolias in the margins: all thrilling and comforting in a way that only a librarian's daughter could imagine(librarians themselves never underline passages, not even in pencil. librarians never leave books lying splayed open on desktops. "bad for the binding."). The idea of paying money for a book strikes me as a dirty deal. i don't want books. Bookshelves are nice for decoration, but I think they should pass through people's hands like water or paychecks.
Red line.
entrance.
Around 7, Adam and I took the redline to Harvard (eating strawberries along the way) and the 66 bus to Allston. He took me out to Grasshopper, a "pan-asian vegetarian restaurant" where living vines grew along the walls and an illuminated fish tank bubbled with bright orange coy, and the waiters who came to our table were so adorable that Adam wanted to hold them in his hand. or something.
Attracts Fish. Fascinates Reptiles.
We just talked and talked and talked. In a way that maybe bordered on pretensiousness, but mostly we talked about real, meaningful things/episodes/thoughts/experiences, the piece, Theater, life directions, painful memories...
After shivering at the bus stop for what felt like a really long time, we rode home, and went our separate ways. And it wasn't until I crept into Jonathan's empty room that I realized how sad I felt.
Jonothan's empty room:
I read a couple of Lorrie Moore stories: about a woman dying of cancer, and lusting after her repulsed and broken husband, and announcing her plans to commit suicide on Bastille Day to all of her close friends at a party: about a woman who has fallen out of love with her lover, but can't leave him because his kidneys fail and he starts pissing blood and she is fantasizing about his funeral. And I just put the book down and started weeping. A leaky, gasping, disbelieving kind of emotional spilling. jonathan came home,
"hey, you smell like tears"
for a long time, i didn't say anything
"what, what, what...?"
and i kept spilling. adam is leaving. and i don't have big enough dreams. and i'm afraid i have no purpose. (KNOWING how i sound, still admitting...)
we listened to jonathan richman for a long time, and i nestled up in the down comforter while jonathan cleaned his room and held me in a i'll-smile-for-you, so-don't-worry kind of way sometimes. Meanwhile, Pat came in with his film-project, talking to us in a lisping Mexican accent, and we couldn't help laughing and laughing. So, Pat and Jonathan and the other Jonathan made me feel better. and pat's girlfriend katy came over: their last night together for the next... 4 months? jono did some work and i took pictures.
And then feeling vaguely tired-eyed, we came home to 132.
And went to sleep, lovingly. but i dreamed about digging and protecting children.