moleslog04262007

Life is a thing in fingers. When I curl my fingers round the handlebars, the plant doesn't hurt me. I push fear into the pedals. What solution is not temporary?

I rode to Culver City yesterday -- simpler than I thought. I rode up Alameda, out Manchester without stopping for a lot of lights Saturday morning. London, L.A. -- the cities of empire hollow, don't they? -- motilities of force, like rings from a drop of water; motilities of consumption, like rings of mold through a loaf of bread.

I haven't seen Grey since before Paris; he'll be farther when he gets to Perthe. I pedal across town because it's Grey, not someone else, but I spill about my Situation, which I could have had in Lakewood.

My conversation has become hygeinic, like the bicycle. Since I could blow this all in a sneeze, I'd rather sneeze at Grey's. He'll tell no one; I don't need to ask. He's worried about me, not even the plant. I find myself defensive of my endeavor. I'm not a fool. Ho! though I wince to write that! No shame before articulation, I suppose.

We had a few hours; then he left for work in his cab, and I had that sense of having passed time without appreciating or partaking: Has it been hygeinic for you, too?

His roommate had shot into her room with his first mention of work, I called Trish and actually found her in, then pedaled up to Studio City, a bit of a trek. Trish lives up Fredonia, and it crooks straight into the damned mountain, so I actually got off the bike for the last couple blocks. I'd waited an hour or so down at the liquor store so as not to arrive early, but I felt just as well off the bike for a bit.

"No sex," she says for openers, "How was France?"

Not half what it seemed a couple of seconds ago.

"But I'd like to act in ways that might seem like we were."

I'd hoped she'd clear my mind -- a lot to ask. But we sat in the jacuzzi with a demi of chardonnay and the sun casting shadows across the 101 so far below it seemed actually far enough, Trish stark naked and the water just over her nipples. Should I touch her?

"No."

She's on about her website business. She does small intranets, primarily: company presence for company personnel. She likes it; she likes playing in Photoshop and Dreamweaver and talking to business managers about concrete desires. She likes to know she did or did not fulfil some human goal, and see the money when she does her work. But it takes her time and she had thought of a child and I know what's sad in the reddening shadows because she's Trish whom I'd tell most anything and I'm glad she has all this but I can't timeshare even this wine. So I watch the freeway spread San Fernando into the Basin and vice versa to create the illusion of seeing all: the Souths go south; the Norths go north, but if one arrives, one gets off the freeway. And look at the freeway.

A musician would be perfect, Trish informs me: intense, romantic, and absent most of the time.

She pays for the massage: "I'll enjoy it more." I slink and accept, and stay an hour or so after the hour and a half just touching her back and her neck until something in my insistence wakes her and she stumbles to bed, the sheet gathered around her breasts and momentarily translucent between her thighs.

She has pointed to the linen closet, and I look at the furniture and consider curling up like her cat and leaving early, very early, but I lock her door behind pretending I'm a ghost and slide off down the river valleys past the streetlights riding the curves and slopes so it's downhill most all the way in to Lakewood.

Which leaves us where?