Five minutes in the life of your muse.

( The printer spits out sixty-five pages of court opinion—only the legal system could produce a sixty-five page 'no'—and Alan gathers the still-warm stack of paper in his hands and carries it to his office. )

"Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that's how we've got to live." Haruki Murakami.

Denny and I are in Luray, Virginia (at his behest—I don’t voluntarily venture south of the Mason-Dixon line unless it’s to see somebody executed) fishing the Shenandoah. I’m pleased to announce that in our time here we have been neither sued, arrested, imprisoned, nor elected to public office, though this may speak more to the remoteness of our location than the rectitude of our conduct.

It’s quite beautiful. We’re surrounded by mountains—I forget, sometimes, that they actually do exist in this country, that they’re more than a poetic conceit or the name of Colorado’s baseball team. This morning Denny woke before dawn and I sleepwalked alongside him down to the river, which is every bit as breathtaking as its name, and we stood knee-deep in freezing water and watched the sun come up.

I haven’t witnessed a sunrise in I don’t know how long. Not that I’m exactly—at all—eager to repeat the experience (and you can be sure I stalked off to the lodge for coffee the moment the thing had situated itself in the sky), but…he and I are accustomed to looking out over a city that’s more or less packed it in for the night, and…this morning it felt like the day, replete with all its clichéd promise, was ours to share.

Monday we were at Arlington—that, too, was Denny’s idea. Ironic, isn’t it, that he of all people should insist on honoring Memorial Day. Or perhaps not. I’m not sure what to say about it. Public displays of sincerity and reverence never fail to make me feel like a fraud—I don’t know how to properly fold the flag (for that matter, I was one of those kids who cleverly substituted phrases like “and to the republic for witches’ hands” into the Pledge of Allegiance), nobody close to me has ever died in combat or in service of their country, and I’m still half-convinced my acceptance into the Coast Guard was the result of a clerical error or the work of an IBM machine with a sense of humor.

We stayed for some time, though. Eventually I got over myself.

Tomorrow, assuming all goes according to plan, we’re headed to the North Carolina coast. I need to work on my sunburn.

Current Mood: quixotic

Name three things that you're looking forward to in the near future and why.

( 'Don't we have anything lighthearted? Something about teenagers trying to get laid.' )

Current Mood: melancholy

Write about a lie your parents told you.

( If you insist. )

Current Mood: uncomfortable

Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane.

( Temporarily, anyway. )

Current Mood: drained

He’s sure got a lot of gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall.
How can I explain?
Oh, it’s so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn

( 'Dirigibles coalesce in the maverick guava.' )

What is the one thing about yourself that you don't want anyone to ever know?

( [private] )

I'm a lawyer.


ooc: Yes, Alan's still sick-and-dying (I'd be posting more trippy drug stuff if I weren't in much the same state), but if anyone is astounded by this revelation, you're free to comment. Not sick!Alan will reply.

Current Mood: uncomfortable