Wow......

Facebook is as dead as a zombie plague tonight. Where is everyone? I'm afraid to turn on the TV. Might be a test-pattern on every channel. Then I really would be freaked. Maybe this is a conspiracy. Everyone messaged everyone else: "Hey, don't let anything go to the feed page. That'll mess with Tim's little mind."

Nah...everyone's probably out drinking vodka and smashing glasses on the floor. And doing the tango and the watusi. Having a blast.

I'll just go to bed now and dream, as usual, of stern looks from complete strangers. Of a pretty girl waving at me, except she's not. It's the Romeo standing behind me. There will be mud. From the flood that always shows up when I'm driving in a dream. Can't get across to the other side. And I don't even know why I'm driving or what my intended destination is. I'll end up in a godawful mess -- expected to perform on an exotic musical instrument. I will stall, deflect, prevaricate...until the dream people get bored and move on.

Then I'll wake up at 3 AM covered in moody sweat. Yank myself up, stagger to the bathroom. Stagger to another room. Scratch my head. Ask my cat what's on his mind. He will yawn.

Maybe eat cereal. Check Facebook. See if any of my geographically distant friends are up and typing. From across the ocean. There is no litter in Europe, I'm pretty sure. Israel never goes fully dark -- there's just no way to turn down that sun-blasted whiteness of those ancient rocks leaning toward the Mediterranean. No one sleeps across the ocean, I'm pretty sure. It's way too neat living over yonder to sleep and miss something. History is alive there. He scampers through the cities, weaving like a drunk through traffic. He ain't scared of nothing. He's seen it all. His beard is soggy with old tears, yet his burnished face carries a wrinkled smile, his eyes twinkle with absurd aplomb.

I'll see if Kris has anything new up. I never know where the hell he is. He seems to be geographically fluid, diffuse. He might even be made out of human-shaped plasma. Just show up anywhere. Like Swamp Thing -- who could navigate nation-wide through transformation, through reforming himself into basic vegetation and flying through underground root systems. Kris might be sort of like that. But I'm never sure if he's in the States or roaming around with headhunters in Samoa. He makes my mind quiver.

OK. Enough. I'm just typing straight from my head. Whatever drops out. Enough has dropped out. No one is reading this anyway. Sort of absurd. Sort of an existential caper...this typing for no reason except that my fingers won't stop. Enough...


.........

Just a little more.

I have a sweet friend who speaks French. And a secret language, not quite Martian and not exactly English. It's the only "foreign" language I can sort of decipher. My friend is beautiful. Has a voice I love. Has a mind that is telepathic. All I have to do is begin a confessional sentence, and *bam* -- all is known. And I'm at ease.

Yves Tanguy made paintings from the "other" side. I adore other-side people. My friend knows the other side. Knows that real art suggests, it doesn't show. My friend is going to be my friend for a long time. And good things have a way of catching up to people whose souls are textured with love, smiles, warmth, and deep awareness.


.........

True to form.

Made it through the night without waking up at 3 AM. But the dreams! As usual, so wrong-assed and spirit-draining. One of these nights it's going to be different.

I'll dream of Butterfly people who have come to me for help. To save their land from invasion by crazy-8s. Yes, human-sized 8s, bouncing around all over Flower Land...crushing flowers and making noise. Spreading panic and widespread depression (causes the Butterfly people's glorious, dappled wings to molt). The fairest of all the Butterfly girls will beseech me to rescue them all. I will be so cool. I'll amble into Flower Land like Kwai Chang Caine: swivel-kicking, shoulder-slinging, and just Kung-Fuing the shit out of those bombastic, chaotic 8s.

Their greatest warrior, Gol8th, will present his horrible self and laugh at me maniacally, as if he had hands on hips: an extra-large 8 made out of two over-sized ebony 8-balls. Battle ensues. I bounce off his surfaces. My attacks and counterattacks impotent against this hard billiard-ball creature. Bloodied and weary, I glance over at Butterfly girl. She flutters her eyelashes and the tips of her wings. A dewy teardrop hovers in her eyes.

Filled with a new, heroic passion and completely disgusted with Gol8th's arrogance, I try the move on him I've been holding in reserve: I whip out a calculator, hit a bunch of numbers, and get the result that mathematics has heretofore thought impossible. I have managed to divide Pi's first 8 digits by a secret, intuited fraction. My computation has quickly found the terminal number of Pi. And it is not 8. It is 9. I triumphantly step up to the glistening, now-bemused Gol8th. I show him the result. I tell him that 8 is not the transcendent, ontological answer. Rather it is 9!

He begins to tremble, his two black ball halves start spinning in opposite directions. A loud whine and whir fills the air. Finally...Gol8th explodes into billions of tiny octagon bits. All the other regular 8s flee mindlessly. Their great warrior is no more. Their philosophy has been annulled. With Flower Land free and peaceful once more, the king is happy. He declares a feast and celebration. That night Butterfly girl, with a strange combination of shyness and seduction, confronts me under the great Moon Flower. And what happens next will not be told here. Because I don't know. I just stopped typing.