I Want His Picture So I Won't Be Lonely

           

 

            I’ve noticed that the guy who rides the little elephantine vacuum trash sucking vehicle for the city, spends a lot of time cleaning around the Capital Espresso. The other morning I saw him even pull out the bench to clean behind it, then he took a coffee break. I assume he gets a little something for free for the extra attention that he pays to the place.

On Friday I finished the last fifty pages or so of Elizabeth Wein’s “Code Name Verity” and bawled my head off.

            I started reading M. T. Anderson’s “The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing”, but I got sleepy and decided to doze on the couch before I had to get ready to go to PARC and see if anyone would come to my yoga class.

            At PARC, I had just finished sweeping the floor of the Healing Centre, which is what the room where I teach is called, when a woman walked into view in the hallway and tried the door opposite mine. She knocked on it and asked me if anybody was there. I told her I didn’t know. She left but came back about fifteen minutes later because she’d been looking for the Healing Centre all along. She wanted to take my yoga class but it was fairly clear that she had an intellectual disability, so I had to alter the way that I normally teach in order to accommodate her. She was also about my age but not in very good shape and so I couldn’t give her anything even remotely strenuous to do. So we did mostly exercises for the extremities, along with some light bending and twisting. I had to do every exercise with her otherwise she would lose track.

            Marilyn wore a lot of jewellery and told me she wanted to get fingerless gloves like Madonna so she could wear her rings. She also told me that she has a boyfriend named George and she wants to get his picture so she can carry it around and look at it so she wouldn’t be lonely and it would make her feel good whenever she sees him.

            My cat Amarillo smells like a corpse. It really stinks up the place when he’s here. I’m certain it’s not something that a bath would fix. I assume it’s an internal problem that has something to do with age.

            I switched the batteries of the back red flasher on my bike. It seems that the batteries that no longer serve my guitar tuner adequately are still okay for giving my bike light a brighter flash.

            I decided though to not take a bike ride that evening, even though the clouds looked dramatic and interesting to ride under. I have 300 pages of a book to read and then I have to figure out which essay topic on which to start form a thesis. I have an appointment with my TA for next Thursday, and need to have something of a draft to show her in order to get feedback, then the following Tuesday I need to hand in the essay, so I don’t think I can sacrifice the hour and a half for a bike ride.

            I did though watch another short silent film by and starring Buster Keaton. This was called “The Boat”. He had built a boat in his house so his family could sail in it for their vacation, but of course he hadn’t considered how to get it out. He had to cut the doorway bigger, but when he hauled the boat through it tore down the house. Then, in trying to tow the boat into the water to launch it, his car went in first and sank. When the boat was finally launched, it also sank. Somehow it was made to float. Once out at sea, they were caught in a storm and sent out an s.o.s, but the person receiving the Morse signal asked the name of the boat. The answer was “Damfino”. The radio operator signalled, “Well I don’t either!” and went back to reading his paper. They ended up abandoning ship and so Buster, his wife and their two sons were in a lifeboat the size of my bathtub. One of the boys pulled the plug and their boat began to sink, but it didn’t because they’d reached land. As they walked ashore one could read his wife’s lips as she asked, “Where are we?” and his as he said, “Damned if I know!”

            By the end of the day I’d finished almost half of “The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing”. What a bizarre but creative and well written story! But I won’t comment on the story itself until after I’m done, hopefully on Saturday.