don't. you think it's rather fuuuuuuunnyyyyyy I should be, in this, po-siii-shuuuuuuun

Thurs|01.16

A mansion on Cathedral Hill, across from the park. I trudge up to the third floor and sit, and wait. I'm 45 minutes early but I don't have time to go home and come back so I lounge in one of the two armchairs and look at the books along the wall.

I'm used to being here in the morning. This is my first afternoon visit, and the light is different. Sun's fading; when I leave it will be dark. I'm alone in the room, as usual, but it looks lived-in today, another difference from the mornings. A huge book is open on the coffee table, as if someone was on the leather couch across from me, browsing through it. Looks like Da Vinci drawings. Or no, the other one. No, no, Da Vinci is right, he's the flying guy. It's the other one who cut off his ear, not Da Vinci.

I chide the disappeared person who left it lying there, open, but I don't make a move to reshelve it. I'm not one to disturb the universe.

I can sit there, unmoving, staring at the wall, for the entire wait, but should I? Maybe I should look at a book? My nose wrinkles and I look at the familiar titles: Leni Riefenstahl's take on the "People of Kau" which I'm afraid to look at because I don't want to see another WOW! WHITE WOMAN LOOKS AT PEOPLE FROM OUTER SPACE! book although I'm probably wrong about it ("I found the photographs in this book nothing short of astounding. It may be because I'm a graphic artist. The art which the people of Kau live within is jarringly beautiful; indeed, their tatoos and face painting did not cover or mark the human canvases, but instead enhanced and brought out the very soul of them. My hair stood on end."), books about archetypes of so many very things, lots and lots of old art books, symbols in dreams, Avebury Something or Other, Image of the Black in Western Art, books I, II, III, and IV. The Black WHAT? I wonder each week. If they mean MAN then they damn well should've put man. Do they mean man? Hell if I know. I guess I could open one up and see. They're on the top shelf though. So high.

[Okay, I'm ignorant, so sue me. Image of the Black in Western Art. Thank you google.]

A slim one I've never noticed catches my eye: Gargoyles & Grotesques. Ew, I think. Then, hmmm. Would there be pictures?

Get up and get it. I will. Do it now! Well we only have a half-hour until she gets us, why bother? A half-hour is a freakin' long time, GET UP AND GET THE BOOK. I will. Now. I will. Now.

Eventually I do. Yes, there are pictures. "Photographs" I believe they are called. Yes. Photographs.

The subtitle is "Paganism in the Medieval Church." Hmmm. It's from the 70s (of course; all these books reek of the 70s), and I read the table of contents.

Foliate Heads; Cernunnos; Creatures Devouring Heads; Non-naturalistic Severed Heads; Heads with Protruding Tongues; Glaring Creatures; Biting Creatures; Fertility; Nightmares; Beaked Heads and Associated Pantheon; Bicorporates and Animalistic Polycephali; Hermaphrodites; The Mallet God; Centaurs; Hagodays; Nobodies; Kilpeck.

Nobodies? No bodies. So, heads, basically. I flip to that page to see if I'm right. Ohhh yes, HEADS, with arms and feet sprouting out of them. Notorsos, more accurate. But hey.

There are only two nobody pictures; I examine them to see if the interpretation is wrong. Maybe it's a funny angle, so it only LOOKS like arms grow from the scalp; maybe if we take it from the side, whoops there's the body! But no, truly, there just is no torso. Oh well. Lalala.

I glance up and see that the sunlight is in a perfect square on the wall. But the gargoyles! I look back and forth, between the light and the book, and decide that the light will be gone soon so I watch the light. It's distorted, as if through water, and moves like glowing strands of hair.

I try to see faces in it but none appear; after five or ten minutes it moves away, fades, and is gone. I miss it already. I clutch the gargoyle book and wait for my time.

WIND PANTS!!

Sat|01.11

Hi, I'm back.

Things that happened to others while I was breaking on my break from my break:

Oolong died.

One of my favorite Oolong pictures. (You don't need to download the language in order to view the pictures.)

Write Oolong's fellow a note, why not.

Matt Gonzalez became President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. YAY!!

I added a link to more names, I like names. It can be found on the left under "Names."

I like Iceland. I've never been there. I think I will buy Icelandic language tapes and listen to them.

Of course those of you who "talk" to me every day already know ALL OF THESE THINGS. But it's different reading it in a different place, right? No? Oh well.

Strange dreams last night. Very involved, with casts of hundreds. Most of it took place at some camp, where I had to avoid two men who jumped from the trees and robbed everyone at gunpoint. No matter where I went, they showed up. It was a bad scene man.

I need to go to the library today in order to avoid fines but might just take the lazy way out and renew online yet again. But that would mean I have to walk over there (pointing across the room) to get my library card number.

Hmmmmmm.