and you give

i just sat on my ass in the odious chain bookstore and read 'a wolf at the table' in one sitting. no, this is an exaggeration. i read the first five chapters yesterday, at elliot bay, before enjoying the first thursday artwalk (drinking two-buck-chuck from dixie cups and indulging my monthly envy of other people's motivation and architectural space). interjection to parlay the magic of these environments: the sun was gold and low in the sky. i was in a fourth-floor space in a building adjacent to the viaduct, wandering through white-washed rooms as people cooler than i sprawled smugly on sofas under the huge windows. and through those dirty windows, open to let in the incessant roar of traffic, cars sped past and obliterated the sunshine, an unpredictable strobelight, an effect that i consciously thought: if this was my space, i would stretch out on the floor and stare at the patterns those shadows make, and that would be all i needed- i would never be bored and i would never feel alone.
but i digress.
'a wolf at the table' is a fucking great book. i place it a notch above 'dry'. i enjoy reading things that make me unconsciously pull at my lips in nervousness and think "oh shit oh shit oh shit." to stroll onto the relatively inocuous sidewalk after 2 hours of tea-and-book bingeing felt trepidatious; my lips were still red and swollen. it is nice to remember how easy reality actually is- relatively, at least.
*
3 days off in seattle:
wed: after leaving the shelton library, drove north on hwy 3. the water was flat and glittery, snake-eyed. took the ferry from bremerton back to seattle. i sat inside my car on the deck and took pictures through the window. the man in the car behind me read 'modern home', then slept. the water grew greyer and choppier as we approached the city. that dreamlike feeling again... not quite pleasant. wednesday was a day of drifting.
thurs: walked downtown in sunshine. took pictures of the mayday immigration march. a calvacade of motorcycled cops led the way. they all had annoyed expressions. it was a much smaller crowd than the one i attended 2 years ago. the masses rounded the corner and myself and all the other onlookers dispassionately filed away. i wondered: what in this world would truly make people engaged anymore? walked into the sun, finding my way by the shadows made by others. see above paragraphs. left artwalk, drank some tea, walked through the night. jangly. insulated.
fri: visited my grandmother in her "independent living" facility. she has her own "cottage" but takes meals in the main building. it was much nicer than i'd expected. my mother and i laughed rudely at the activity list: "down-home with dale", "scrapbooking!", "square-dance-a-thon". my grandmother is incredibly cynical about the entire place. she has lived there for 6 months, since my grandfather died and the rest of the clan rallied for her move. i find her contempt endearing, but i am not around it all too often. she reminds me of me. i saw her high school graduation yearbook, class of 1933; she was on the basketball team, one of the tallest girls in school. she was 5'9" then. now i tower a good four inches over her; i look down on her scalp. her nursing yearbook, army cadets, 1948- she was 31. four years later she would be a nurse in germany and meet my grandfather, 13 years her junior; he would knock her up with my mother, they would get hastily married. they would have 3 more kids and be married for 54 years, and then he would die. and she would say to me last fall, "it wasn't supposed to be this way. i was supposed to go first."
i look at the things she retained, the items she moved into this new world, and i feel really fucking sad: these are the few tangible things she has chosen to keep with her to prove that she existed.
i absconded with a few photographs: her and my auntie ann in bathing suits, both incredibly hot, circa 1930. a promo picture of my great-grandfather eugene kaplan, the vaudvillian. my mother and i found a collection of press clippings and programs today. he was a fucking stud in his day, as any sly-mouthed jewish man is. i asked my mother if she remembered him. he was alive until she was 10. "he used to always say "is everybody HAPPY?" she said. and she said it with a flamboyant east-coast accent, and it was immediately familiar because my mom used to say it also, when i was a kid, without even thinking about it.
*
"i kept to myself that when i ate vanilla frosting straight from the can, i could feel god standing right beside me like a real best friend, watching and smiling and wishing he had a mouth."
or
"maybe god was simply that part of yourself that was always there and always strong, even when you were not."
*
the cafe just started playing 'with or without you.'