I'm reading at Pete's Candy Store on Thursday, 7:30 PM. I'll be reading from END-TIME, a nonfiction book about a 100-year-old utopian society now divided into two competing communes on adjacent land. Come say hello.

When I went to see Myung-Jin this week, I told her about my car accident. She told me that loss often reverses itself. To illustrate her point, she told me an old Chinese story that went a little bit like this:
One day, a young boy who lived in the countryside went outside his house and saw that a beautiful horse had wandered into his backyard. This was fortune. The boy was so pleased at this gift, and went to ride the horse. He broke his leg. His parents though 'this is misfortune.' But then the country went to war and their son with the broken leg was the only who didn't have to fight and die. They thought 'this is fortune.' Then the horse ran away, and the family thought 'this is misfortune.' The horse, in the meantime, had trotted through the country gathering a pack of horses, and returned to the family with his new friends in tow. This is fortune. Etcetera etcetera. On and on.

Hi Jen

Ray of sunshine

Kid Rock came!

bitch and swap

These are not from the accident. These are Myung-Jin's cupping marks.

I am especially happy to be alive today. When I was hit by a fire truck on the BQE, I was sure I was dying.

Let me tell you what it is like being hit by a fire truck in a small blue Honda hatchback: you feel something hit the side of the car, your car turns perpendicular to the highway, and the truck continues to drag you forward in this sideways position. All you can see through the driver's side window is the front grill of the firetruck. And it isn't stopping.

I stared through the window at the grill and felt some sense of surprise that I was going to die like this. I felt like I was sitting in a shark's mouth, about to be eaten.

Then the truck finally stopped. It pulled back. I was alive.

The heavy truck pounded my little Honda at more than 50 mph, tore a hole through my door on the driver's side, and I walked away without a scratch. I don't know how it's possible. What's more, the car actually runs, though I don't know if I will be getting into it any time soon.

Needless to say, my plans to move upstate today are on hold.

I would like to send a lot of love out tonight to my little Civic, who took me to Wyoming, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire, Canada, Colorado, Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, Upstate, and to so many other wonderful places. And most of all, this car saved my life.

The rest of my love goes out to Dan Engber, who met me on the side of the highway, where I was still hysterical after my brush with death and the abuse that quickly followed from 8 firemen, 4 cops, and three tow-ers. That's 15 men, including the policeman who yelled at me and called me "little lady." Civil complaint to follow. But let's get back to Dan, who hugged me, stared at the hole in the door, told me I was lucky that my legs weren't mangled, reminded me that it doesn't matter if I don't move upstate today, witnessed the monstrous policeman, secretly took down the asshole's badge number, walked me home, reconstructed with pencil and paper how the accident happened, and made me a cup of tea, before returning to the quiet night at home he'd planned. Give this man a hug every time you see him.

If I called you from the side of the road and left a frantic message for you, I'm sorry. If I called you today, and told you I love you, I meant it. If I didn't call you yet, and you are reading this, I love you, and you should hit me up for something b/c I am very soft right now. But very sore, too.

Today, I love New York, because it's where my friends and sister live. And because Harry, the most fabulous mechanic, took a look at my car and believed my story instead of the fireman's fable. He said they never see little weeble-cars like mine.

Steve Carrell in GET SMART! 2008!

-crumpets
-the new Allison Krauss album
-a fleece onesie

-Papabubble.
-the Neue Gallerie
-Greystone Bakery in Yonkers
-Sri Chimnoy's compound in Queens
-Sunset Park for salted fish

John's house grows.

Chapman Studio at MacDowell, January 2007

I woke up on the wrongest side of the bed today.

Your present is coming soon.

I used the egg-timer: one hour to clean the dresser out.

I have a bad habit of using multiple notebooks for multiple purposes. I find lists weeks later, such as this one:

Bubbly
Thorazine
Candy
Aspirin
Banana Kelly
Cake--Chernobyl
Tea
Beer

I hope that's not my grocery list.

or

Veltschmertz
How we classify cults
Lloyd--Al Capone
Science/Hollow earth
This 3rd option: Nothingness

Looking good, Gandhi.

Look, Myung-Jin. I'm trying.

Captain Kangaroo-Dolly Parton performs

Lately, Augustus has been thinking really hard about something, but I don't know what it is. One day, he was so depressed that he didn't respond to little papaya treats (or "rabbit crack") or even a piece of apple. He stroked it with his paw and continued to concentrate.

A. must be reckoning with something very difficult. Or he has a stomach ache.

This is Jean. She cooks all the food at the City of David, or most of it. This means pushing beans and peanut butter and seeds and other stuff through an enormous extruder to make hocks of mock meat. I have the colony's 1930 cookbook if you want to make some City of David food with me.

This photograph is not beautiful but it is very true. Jean is having a very hard time with Carl's departure from the colony. He was, in many ways, her prodigal son, though not by blood. She did not attend the ceremony but came to the reception.

The End of the Road

I want one of these after my acupuncture appt, though if Myung-Jin had her way, I'd be drinking from a terrine of anchovy broth.

Kara Walker
Fiery Furnaces
Roller Shades. I need them.

Cora Mooney was Mary Purnell's constant companion, once Mary started her own colony.

This book cover and title makes me laugh.

Everywhere