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Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2004 / 9:37 p.m. ~Books and Cat Sleep~ Norman sleeps tight. Curled in a tight ball on the floor, eyes closed tight, balled up tight, holding on tight, to sleep. I bought books today. It had been so long, but it felt right to do it, to be in the store, to smell the books, the coffee, the slick paper of the glossy cookbooks, the magazines, to hear the people on their cell phones, to get lost in the books, not even looking up, books, books, and I straightened as I went, putting things back, calendars, books, things. I wanted all of it, and yet I bought relatively little. Could I blame it on the full moon? Desiring to connect, desiring to do something different, to have a plan and stick to it, but in the end to go my own way and do whatever I wanted, as if I could, as if it were all okay, as if there is money for whatever I want, as if I don't have bills, and as if anything could happen, and I could do whatever I wanted? That was how it felt. Not just shopping for books, but remember what it's like to be there, around all those books again, getting a library card and not even looking at those books borrowed by so many, living on coffee tables and in cars belonging to so very many strangers, not even stopping to look at those books, just inquire about the one, and when it wasn't there leaving for the land of the smells, the new books, the ink, the paper, the unbroken bindings, the unblemished covers, the stacks and stacks, all the same book in multiple copies, a perfect gem amongst them. I want to curl up tight against an overwhelming gush of uncertainty. I want to sleep Norman's sleep. And yet I feel that I've broken routine, in the smallest of ways, and yet it's the small ripples that will carry me to the edge, to wherever it is I need to be. I can make it there. A haircut is next. So small a change, but I need it. In small ways I want to change everything. And if I write that I want the bungalow with the one room that's walled with built-in shelves, and I want to fill them with books and have a place for all this that's good and comforting, and I can pull books off the shelves and read or look at pictures, sit for hours, then get up and stretch on the carpet below, like a cat, and curl up to sleep tight like Norman, will it happen? I carried her in here curled up in her tight ball, placed her there where she curled tighter, and there she lies, a paw twitching in a dream, flexing, claws out then in, whiskers up and down, and eyes back and forth, then calm. Looser now, calmer now. Like me. Cost of the War in Iraq
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