Coat, quilt, pillow....
To: ms_allthat@hotmail.com, loveisarose11@hotmail.com, dee_offner@hotmail.com, wahine10@hotmail.com,
mystree_1@hotmail.com, lorelis@hotmail.com, decafi@hotmail.com, someone_new1@hotmail.com, RTMW62@cs.com,
chantellspring@hotmail.com, sierra34@angelfire.com, lighthouse75@hotmail.com, ksotulsa@yahoo.com, darcysmail@yahoo.com,
tlfie@groupz.net, poetinmotion@hotmail.com, chart13@excite.com, clavonec@excite.com clavonec@excite.com
Subject: Coat, quilt, pillow....
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 16:52:50 CDT
Dearest Ones,
Am told it got down to 38 degrees last night, so it is no wonder that I slept with the maroon sweats on, my quilted shirt also. None of that erotic nudity when it's *that* cold. Smile. But I slept well, all things considered.
Finally got the bike legal. Cost the outrageous (*s*) price of a QUARTER for the license, and it is now affixed to my seat tube, all yellow and official looking. Picked up a long bungee cord at the downtown hardware store, so am taking home a nice thick quilt and pillow which the Service League gave me free of charge, as well as an 80 percent down, 20 percent feather filled coat. It's *very* warm, so I am set for the cold, what with the mittens Monte dug up for me last night.
All that you need will surely come.
I am still looking about for some of those very comfortable running shoes, and they will happen when it's time. But for now I have all that I need.
Have started the process of finding the document for my name change. This is to get a social security card so I can go to work. Nancy's handyman needs will sustain me until then, so all is abubbling away, back-burner. Cooking. Now...time. They charge $11 an hour research time for looking up yr documents. When did this happen? Some brainstorm, eh? Some bright young bean-counter from KU or somewhere came up with that. Ohwell. It will happen. Am supposed to call tomorrow and find out if they were able to find the document or not.
The day passes so quickly. Seems I just got up and already it is late afternoon. But I have gotten some things done which needed to be done. The chill and cold hold no current fear for me. What is mostly there is this absence of...touch. Just to touch someone, opposite sex, in some kind of intimate embrace. Missing that. It's been awhile and of course that, too, like anything else, will happen when the time is right. But whoever said I was the patient type?
Thus far I've not said word one at the meetings. People ask how I've been, *where* I've been, and so forth. There are the obligatory hugs from the women, handshakes from the men, and I sit in the corner and listen to people say things which no longer make a whole lot of sense to me. I suppose I will say something sooner or later, but just now this is the place I share what's going on within me.
And this time feels...good...very, very good, as Msallthat sometimes says in reference to a poem. Of course she lies a lot (grin), YO!-heh (MS) but who doesn't in the channel? This time feels good. Lawrence feels right. I wish you could all come visit so I could show you around, but since that's not going to happen, I will try, from time to time, to describe it to you. There are things which happen, little things, which somehow in aggregate come together to define a place far better than a mass of detail.
For example, I leave things on the bike. When I come into the library, I don't have to worry about unpacking the bike, lugging everything in here. Lawrence is *not* a town of thieves. There are thieves here, of course, but not the kind who need to rip off the contents of a carrier rack.
My bike is a Trek 700 with a luggage rack and two baskets on the rear. A red blinking light and a flashlight for the front. I must remember to ask the librarian for a rubber band to attach the front light with. That's legal. Lights front and rear, although you can get by with a reflector on the back.
Hardly anyone goes to the trouble of registering their bike, getting a license. Lots don't even know it's an ordinance. And bikes are everywhere here in Lawrence. A college town, there are probably 25,000 students this time of year and each of them is drunk on any given Saturday night. Well, okay, there are probably two or three who are exceptions, but that's only because they're in jail and can't get to the bar. Hee hee. A drinking town, yes. Party town.
Clark, a friend of mine, was telling the table about a party he went to last week. Seems all the college kids did some kind of drug, Ecstasy, and got nekkid and danced the night away. I asked him how to go about getting on the invitation list for the next party, but his eyes were too glazed and bloodshot to focus on me. Sheesh.
Once again I appear to be running out of time. Can you imagine? Lawrence has just TWO computers for the general public, so we only get half an hour at a time. I must go up on the Hill.
And, yes, the librarian just said. Your time *is* up.
Luvyas. Keep writing. I owe some of you some long letters in answer. Get me in debt that way, keep me in debt that way. Hugz n kizzez.
Dickens
