Last night I had a dream that I was staying at an airbnb – somewhere warm, near a beach, a place with very white walls. I bought and started to install a ceiling fan, but after drilling a sizable hole in the slightly slanted ceiling above the bed, and partially installing the fan, I realized I would need to drill additional holes to add mounting brackets – because the fan wobbled. That’s when I remembered that it was an airbnb and I would probably get charged for damages and why the hell am I buying a ceiling fan for a house that isn’t mine? I think in the same dream, a friend and her dogs were staying with me, but these were different dogs than the ones I knew. They were smaller dogs and one of them attacked me, sorta.
Last night at the bar I met a man who recently got married. He talked about his wife as though he had hit the jackpot. It was sweet. He shared some pictures. He doesn’t seem to believe he deserves her – is afraid she’ll leave. Their inside joke is the phrase “the only exit is death.” They like that as an acronym, it spells toe id – or toe tag. The only exit is death. He likes spending a lot of time with her, and sometimes she needs alone time. They’re preemptively doing couples therapy to learn how to manage their triggers and how to communicate when they’re pushing each other’s buttons. This all felt eerily similar to my relationship from a few years ago – the needing space, the learning to deal with triggers, the feeling like I hit the jackpot, the preemptive therapy. There are, of course, other exits.
An attractive, young woman sat next to me at the bar. We talked a little. She’s new in town – doing post-doc work. She came out to the bar to watch the Penguins game. She had red hair, moved to the area from San Diego, and her name was one or two letters off from my ex’s name (who also had red-haired and was from San Diego). When she left, some of the other regulars wanted to know if she and I hit it off – I said she’s too young and also engaged. Having had my fill of coincidences, I came home and went to bed…. dreaming of a ceiling fan and being attacked by dogs.
Today I bought a bunch of books. Once a year, there’s a big used book sale put on by the American Association of University Women. The line to get in was probably about 50 people deep. They only allow 300 or 400 people in the building at a time – a big Ag arena near the stadium. Nearly everyone there brings a tote bag, or several. The serious hunters line up at 6:30 in the morning. The doors open at 9. I am not a serious hunter. I went hoping to get some new books of poetry and maybe find an interesting inscription or odd find. I was hoping there would be a section just for poetry, but instead, those books were mixed in on a table for “literature.” I hovered around that table the longest. I briefly checked out the religion table thinking I might find some books on Buddhism, but it was full of things about god and Jesus and I didn’t feel like sorting through all that. I bought 12 books for under $50 – most of them poetry. I took one of the books on my walk downtown where I read at a coffee shop, and then at a bar. In between, I stood around and listed to some live music on a street that was blocked off for a street fair.
At home I started reading a few of the other books. One of them is a first collection of poems published last year. The collection won a prize named after a poet I think I had published way back in 1996 when I started my own literary journal. The author, a young woman from Brooklyn has published poems in a few well-known journals. I wasn’t quite jealous, but had this feeling like, “man, I really need to get on it.” I felt like I was really far behind, like I couldn’t possibly read or write enough to get caught up. This was a weird way of thinking, and yet there it was. I brought my computer out as though I might try a poem or two… but the more I wanted to write something, the more I couldn’t. When I get this way, it feels like I’ve forgotten how to write… like I don’t know how to start a poem, much less, middle or end one. I read some more. Nothing. I scrolled twitter. Really nothing. I started this nonsense post of my yesterday and today.
I’ll read a bit more before bed. The air in the house is warm and still. The windows are open, but there’s no breeze, and it’s too early in the season for the sounds of crickets. I associate this warm type of night with crickets in the summer. It might be hard to sleep. I wish the room had a ceiling fan.