drunkencynic's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- anipaniphy I feel as if I'm in my own little Renaissance. I know I've said before that the world is changing around me, but it's truer now than ever before. Yesterday was slightly surreal. Part of me wanted it that way, but I didn't start out wanting it that way. When I got to the coffee shop, I looked around for the famous Camaro, but it was nowhere to be found. So I text-messaged JR- "No work today?" A little while later the reply comes back, "Kona...Heidi..." Cryptic. Disturbing. Makes me feel incredibly insignificant. I walk into the coffee shop and buy ginger tea with peach. And put honey in it. I'm sticking to this, remember? And it's absolutely lovely. Tastes like freedom. The coffee shop is full of people, and kids, when I wanted it to be quiet. So I decide to walk a little ways to get some strawberries at the strawberry stand. I've been wanting those for a long time. The sky is gray and overcast, the air is the perfect temperature, slightly heady, and there is booming music coming from big tents where there is a parade/festival. I feel small, compared to the light gray sky and the throngs of people safely away from me. I walk to the strawberry stand and it's deserted. So I sit on the concrete ledge in front of it and just take in everything. After a while, on a whim I decide to head back, and it's still crowded. So I sit in my car and just think. From the rearview mirror I have a gorgeous view of the mountain, and I sip my tea and think about anything that comes into my head. That happens to be Thomas. Lonely me, 'rejected' by JR, wants someone to talk to, someone to pay attention to her. I seriously start considering it. Way too seriously. But I decide against it. Finally I go back to the coffee shop. It's deserted. Finally. I plunk my tea down, then Sam comes. He sits by me, and we talk a little. Then Anthony comes. I know I've said before that Anthony is brilliant. Well, that's truer now than ever before. He and Sam start throwing out book titles with lusty excitement. Their enthusiasm is catching, and I sit there and soak it all in. The names, the descriptions, the utter old-book and new-book smell and feel of it all. The yellowed pages are metaphorically floating all around us, the names of the brilliant authors conjuring their energy, the whole area seems charged with intelligence and vibrance. The conversations linger for an hour after the coffee shop is closed, and it ends with Anthony fervently describing a book to me, drawing on other books and prior knowledge. He is animated, passionate, and I find myself completely wrapped up in his eyes, almost incapable of looking away. It is new to me to hear someone talk like that, to know someone who has such volatile passion permeating their person. It's intoxicating. When I am done being talked at, I thank him, and he says, "No, thank you. It was a real honor to sit here and get to look at you and talk to you." At the end he is almost schoolboy-ish, suddenly slightly awkward and nervous, as if he didn't realize how much he'd rambled. But I adored every minute of it, and I tell him so reverently. After a sweet goodbye, I climb into the car and prepare to drive away. As I am sitting at the stop sign to get out of the parking lot, I get a sudden sense of Thomas. He's around. Sure enough, he drives by, with a pink-haired girl sitting shotgun. It is a shock, and then it isn't. It makes perfect sense, and it makes no sense. And it does not hurt me. In all naked honesty, I think something is watching out for me, because every time I am even leaning in that direction, even thinking about talking to Thomas again, and I decide against it, an event happens that reassures me that it was the right decision. Then I drive to the health food store, and buy strawberries, which the cashier informs me are, "way underpriced, since strawberries are usually, like, a million dollars here," and proceed to park myself on top of the hill above our house and eat the entire box. It was gorgeous, it was heavenly, I could not contain the ridiculous goofy grin on my face as the juice dripped down my chin and arms. I don't know when I've ever felt so at peace. 9:06 a.m. - 2003-09-21 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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