Americano instead of blood: you are hereby forewarned.
Let a man in Oly World News buy me a drink tonight. He was going to buy Louise one too, but she's not 21 yet, so he taught her some chess moves instead. He told us both the story of his life: it involved getting secretly married to a girl of another race, having her family freak out, and the two of them planning to imminently leave the country. It's amazing the things that happen in quiet, sweet little cities, like Olympia -- or Binghamton, for that matter. It's just that you never really understand that they happen until you're in a coffeehouse and you listen in on conversations. Louise and I brought the man back to his house, where he thanked us for the ride and kissed us both on our heads. Weird. Sweet, but weird.
Louise bought some mushrooms today; they looked like thousand-year-old mummified flacid penises. She asked if I wanted some with her. I declined; I wasn't in a good enough mood to ingest mummified hallucinogenic penises. I told her if her boyfriend wasn't available, I would "babysit" for her when she took them. But she found her boyfriend, and they joyously ate the mummified penises together. I was torn between wanting to stay and watch the fun, and wanting to go to the Computer Lab and do some real work. I opted for the latter.
Somehow learned a new technique of visualization the other night that allows me to tap into parts of my memory I didn't know existed. I've been reading a little bit of quasi-stream-of-consciousness work, and this nice boy online asked me what I remembered about his hometown, South Bend, Indiana... And somehow, these two things, plus a keyboard in front of me, managed to evoke some of the most astonishingly accurate memories... Then he told me to do Chicago. I told him the color of the napkins in the bar where we ate in Chicago. I told him the color of the walls and the floor. I could have told him that there's some sort of funny pavement just past the stock exchange building: maybe cobblestones or something. I haven't been in Chicago -- unless you count the bus station -- in over three and a half years. And I was there for less than six hours. Yet, somehow, all of this came back... Thanks to this nice Indiana boy, and gahd knows what else, I hit a sort of mental jackpot, I think.
Worked a little bit in the computer lab. Printed out my work. Came back home, spread my work on the floor, adoring it, and it came to me: I asked a couple of people to go back through their records for dates and things... But I don't think I'm going to need their help. I've GOT it, dammit! This stuff might be locked inside my head, but I can get it out quite easily now, without the struggling and the frustration... I can't explain any better than that. Just... yeah.
There was a girl in the lobby of my building sobbing hysterically into the payphone when I walked in. She said, to the person on the other end: "It's like... It's just like, there's nobody to hug me... there's nobody around to tell me it's okay..." She was really crying. It scared me a little. It hurt me a little. It was a very raw, ugly, desperate sound.
I went upstairs to my room for a moment and got a pen and paper. I went back downstairs to the girl, and slipped a note to her. It said: "Hi, I don't know you, but I heard you crying and I heard you say that there's nobody around to tell you it's okay. It's Okay. Love and peace, Helena." She looked up at me, her face red and puffy, and she was so, so beautiful. So raggedly, uncontrollably sad, but so beautiful. She didn't read it; I didn't give her a chance to read it in front of me before I ran off, but I think she understood that somebody gave a damn. She smiled a little, and that was like an Olympia rainshower, with a little bit of sunshine always coming through the clouds and all. That was enough. Then I ran off.
Was leaning over my work, adoring it. It's not really MY work yet, just the ribcage of what I'm going to lay my own work over.
Was thinking about fairies and dragons and elves and suchlike. There's a lot of talk about such things in my book. As I was proudly, excitedly fondling a packet of my "firsthand source" materials, in which is written a dozen references to fairies, dragons, elves, and suchlike, Louise, eyes shining with a mummified-penis-glow, leaned over the edge of her bed, and said: "Helena, you are an ELF!"
Weird.
"No, no... you are an imp! A brain imp, because you make my brain do funny stuff! ...But... no, wait, you LOOK like an ELF though..."
Louise. Sweet Louise. GEEZ, Louise. Even when she's fucked up, she's got an impeccable sense of timing. I value that greatly.
Am finally beginning to get tired. After such a Twilight Zone evening, it's amazing I have the energy left to move...
~Helena*