More crap from you-know-where.  You probably don't care anymore.

Oh well.  Whatever.

--

11 Mar 2008.  3:42 pm.

Sitting in the basement, watching the clothes spin in the dryer.

There are other things I could and should be doing, rather than being trapped by the jumble of my own clothes.  Their motion seems to be the only thing that can hold my attention.  My Elliott homework isn't going to get done today.  Neither is the critical analysis of Valle-Inclán.

I'm watching the clothes dry.

In the midst of the sea of thick, blue levis, brown and black shirts, overflowing with fugitive socks that escaped the batch of whites, I see a quick flash of red.

Hillary loved that shirt of mine.

And my focusing on the spinning laundry, I had done such a good job of pushing her (mostly) out of my mind.

Crap.

10:41 pm.

-What did you think of the laser show?

-The what?

-The laser show we just saw . . . it was like an hour long.

-I thought we were at a clam bake.

-What?  How could you possibly think that?

-I thought it was just a really cool clam bake.

-...

-So what's the hold-up with the clams?

Thanks, Elliott.  And not you, T. S., you annoying twat.

12 Mar 2008.  12:12 am.

My roommate is watching Dumb and Dumber at full volume and laughing at full tilt.  It's not enough that I never cared for that movie really, but come on.  He sounds like a braying jackass.

Now, in 'days long past', I had somewhere to go when he drove me crazy like this.  Nowhere to hide now.

I take the wallet out of my pants pocket, grab my keys and mp3 player and walk out the door.  He says something, probably asking where I'm going.  I just walk out and lock the door dumbly behind me.  I don't feel any compunction to explain my behavior to Pervy McPaedophile.

The city has an entirely different ambience at midnight.  The streets are mostly dark, except for a few lonely lights (deadlights) poking out of the thick fog, showing the bar patrons out into the cold mist.

It's chilly, and there is no-one to press up against me, sharing heat.

The mist can relate, it says.  It knows what it's like to be cold and alone.

We make a secret pact, we create a blood brotherhood.

The fog and I are one.

2:17 pm.

I stand, for the first time, on the beach of the Mediterranean.  I've looked down on it from the Roman walls, I've looked down from La Rambla, onto the deserted shoreline, but this time I'm here.

The ragamuffin flock of pigeons is my only company as the swift wind buffets them, forcing them into ridiculous midair acrobatics.

The smell of fish is almost oppressive as I stare into the vast, blue deep.  the music blaring in my headphones breaks, leaving me (and the pigeons) in silence.

The tide is washing in.  Impulsively, I kick off my trusty sandals (ten years worth of mileage on these babies), pull the contents out of my pockets, dump them into the shoes, and slowly begin to walk down into the water.

Sand sticks to my feet until a wave crashes up and washes over them, and I'm stupidly surprised by how cold the water is, until I realize it's March - but at this point I don't care.  I continue to enter, step by plodding step.

(I remember that this is how it all 'went down' for Virginia Woolf, except it was a river and pockets full of rocks.  Morbid.)

The water is up to my knees, kissing the edge of my shorts as I move further forward.  I'm in regular clothes, the last thing I should be wearing, but something prods me forward into the chilly Mediterranean, as the water reaches my waist.

I continue, my arms, my torso, up to my neck.  I take a deep breath, lean forward, and push out into the salt, deeper, farther out to sea, fighting against the current forcing me back towards shore.

It's as though a weight is lifted from my shoulders as I swim further into the sea, trying to wash my emotions away.  I swim until I'm exhausted, and let the tide take me back to the beach.  Before I reach shore, I dive under again, rising from the ocean like Godzilla on the coast of Japan, reborn, beautiful, terrible.

It's my Spanish baptism, my renaissance.

I hose off, put my sandals back on, and walk home, soaking wet.

I feel like I can put Hillary behind me now.