Drunk at the Arbat

Something strange happens when you allow this to go on for too much time... the world fades in and out of focus, streaked with running colors and punctuated by the desperate clapping of high-heeled hoofs against the pavement. And I fear that i has been broken again and I swallow in resolution and I will not fall anymore. I have come to accept such a crush as "expectation."

But all is not lost...

The night has been highlighted with new faces and in this semi-consciousness I realize that although I am distanced form the world, my mind has become quite lucid and tickles me in a floating space and I am conscious of my brain and of the fact that even my handwriting has changed.

And it is 10:30 in the morning...Monday! It is 10:30 on a Monday morning and I think about going home and reversal and wonder how anyone can make any progress that way... Here on the Arbat, sitting at the market center (Araby?). And it seems like lifetimes ago that I read Dubliners and the man at the Kiosk recognized me and waved and this warped, Albino pigeon comes desperately close.

I should never have woken up this morning and dragged myself so far from my bed... I won't be surprised if I pass out here. (Soldiers!) I won't be surprised (Moscow soldiers that saunter!) If this graying, dripping, painting becomes black...

"RESTAURANT, ITALIA, PIZZERIA"

Although I don't feel half as bad about yesterday (because nothing was revealed) and against this sky of spun silk and Renaissance blue, my handwriting has returned (sort of).

I wonder if someone will make me move off of this stone chilled ledge where smoke only makes me feel sicker... But I know that if I write it makes one less approachable. The sun peeks out now (slightly!) and I feel an irreproachable pain deep in my very pit-- well, it's not a heart, only stomach, but I'm dizzy and wonder where Ally and Katherine and Tricia and Dan and Diana went and if I'll get arrested if I fall asleep here.

(A Russian man puts a green piece of metal in front of me. He's REALLY Russian with the eyes of a cat, high cheek bones and short blond hair which is now tinted green from the umbrella that he stands under).

That was a waste of my time, drawing all that. He's doing something with a metal box now. I think I'll get up and look around the souvenir market. The nicotine is making me feel better and besides, it's already 11:00 AM.

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Later and on the bus to the airport, and I don't want to go home, however much I would like a shower. With Jaques Brell on my ears and triumph in the skies and I know that one day I will be able to make my own life forever... Make my own inventions and live with it in freedom.

The bus is too bumpy to write. And besides, I want to look out the window.

PS: It was the back of a palm reading machine booth