Woke at home. Am home for the duration now, and this is good. I'm ready. I missed everything, everyone. Even Romulus-the-biter. Cloud cover is confusing. I could sleep all day. Also remind me to reset my watch because it seems to think it's nine and though I don't know what time it is, it ain't nine. --Came home to the perfect jeans researched and ordered on line weeks ago. They're too big now. They'd have fit weeks ago. Is that good? I've never returned clothing by mail before. I don't even know how. Now what? --There is no milk in the house. Ought to learn to pick up milk on the road before coming home. This is state of affairs too often repeated and too sad to talk about. No tea without milk. No mind without tea. No day without mind. Predictably.
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And so I went to the drug store to drop off all that film I've been carrying in a bag since leaving Arizona and you know what? They smiled when I walked in and said Hey, how are you and It's so good to see you and Did you have a great summer and Can't wait to see these photos, and I felt really really good. Like I'd walked in the house and gotten hugged after the wanderlust had worn off. By people who take care of my images. And when I said I have more than 20 rolls here, I don't want to overwhelm you, they said No No we can do it and We want to do it and They're half off we have a special and So come back for them this afternoon. And I thought I think I could really live in this town. That's exactly how it happend.
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I bought curry, chicken, tofu, mushrooms, a big hard pear. They're going in the stoneware pot together. I went in search of a ripe avocado because now I must make my own salad. I found none. I went in search of a priest because I miss my conversations with Michael Suarez already but the rectory was closed and the two churches were closed, just as it seems I left them when I last tried the doors. How many times must one brave the elements before finding a perfect avocado, perfect jeans, an imperfect priest? I am not brave.
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Oh and do you know what this place looks like? I'm scared to unpack the car. As it is I'm avoiding one room by wandering to the next and I'm going in circles and it's not getting better. Where the fuck to start. Yeah, I'm having advisees over to dinner on Saturday. They can sit on the heaps and eat oatmeal.
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Images, dear ones. They exist. There is work screaming to get done, but tonight I'll spend looking through your faces and bringing you home. Say thank you I've been saying to myself all day. Wow and thank you. For everything.
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(walnut table where I sit in my kitchen thinking, typing this)
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