(note: stan Requests that his name and address be kept intact)
DATE : 17 jul 1998 08:58
DREAM : cross country ski party
=( last night i was up until 02:30 preparing my presentation powerpoint slides and sample programs for today's lecture on pointers. when i got finished i tried to go right to sleep as there is a lecture on campus i would like attend at 09:00. the lecture is on instructional technology. the topics did not sound very advanced but it would be good for me to show myself at these gatherings, besides i would like to see what the woman has to say. i set the alarm for 07:55. but i can not get to sleep for more that an hour yet. when the alarm goes off, i hit the 15 min snooze and turn it off on the second sounding. still unable to move, i fall back to sleep without intending to. )=
mark littlefield's new house in massachusetts is a typical farmhouse, built in the mid1800s with large paned windows in kitchen where i sit with his wife, fran. the view those windows is very nice, taking in the valley and what used to be farm lots, now slightly wooded and developed into scattered housing. across the valley is a singularly steep mountain side, thin trees lost without their leaves in midwinter. and it is snowing. the start of a lovely new england snowfall with big fluffy white flakes floating down and beginning to accumulate on the mountain side across the way.
francis has a friend with her, a woman with large eyes and dark hair. we have been talking about renting some cross country skis so we can go skiing later tonight when the snow gets deep enough. it will be a little a warm, so early in the season, but it is fun to slush about even in the wet packing snow. the only drawback is putting the soft red wax on your ski base at the start of the season which has to be flamed off for a hard wax base later when it gets properly cold. of course, since the skis we will get are rentals, they will probably be waxless and so there will be no problem in gumming up the ski base.
"i am looking forward to skiing down that mountain over there." i tell the two women, indicating the view through the window.
"isn't that too steep?" asked the wide eyed woman.
"well, ninety degrees is too steep because you just fall and break bones and your equipment. no fun that. but anything slightly less than ninety can apply contact to your skis as gravity pulls you. that contact keeps your skis oriented to the surface and the slight friction gives you enough control to move left and right around the trees. it does not matter how fast you go so long as you keep control and the pull out at the bottom is gradual enough that your legs can support you on the shift from down to flat." i make this all sound thrilling and fun, but it really is not quite that easy.
"mark is here. we better go." says fran.
outside mark has pulled up in the driveway in a large american car, a lincoln or bonneville pontiac i think. it has huge bench seats inside. the exotic woman and i get in the back while fran sits up front. the drive to the university is short, but mark tells us that we are going to stop for witherspoon on the way.
herrold witherspoon is a friend of mine from new york, and i will be glad to see him again. but the wide eyed lady suddenly looks unhappy. she tells me that she and witherspoon had been lovers once, but this arrangement did not end very amicably. she squirms a bit as mark pulls into another drive down the road.
witherspoon's house is typical of a sculptor. parts of various projects scattered about like loose anatomy carelessly discarded at a butcher's shop. a head of a deer there, a small rhinoceros overturned there, a flight of small sea birds frozen in wood forever startled into almost flight. while we wait for witherspoon to come out, i notice something odd. in the wood lot behind the garage that serves as his studio, i see a couple human skulls among the leaves on the ground. these appear to be real bone and not some artist's model. around the other side of the garage i find a few more human bones among the trees. i understand that artists need anatomical models as well as medical people, but these appear to more natural remains like an indian graveyard being uncovered by natural erosion.
i do not have much more time to consider these remains as herrold comes up to the car. he is dressed in massive layers of a heavy coat and scarves. no sooner than he touches the front car door, then the dark lady in back with me starts to moan and squirm, upset by his appearance. seeing her, he pulls back from the door handle. she looks the other way, biting her hand and trying control herself, but she stills lets out a noisy wail in spite of herself.
this is all very nonverbal, but witherspoon mutters something to mark and goes across the driveway. he starts up a dusty blue bmw which obviously he has not driven in months. mark starts up our car and we proceed back out on the highway.
"what was all that about?" i ask her. "witherspoon has been a friend of mine for many years and i know he is not cruel or nasty. sometimes careless, but never deliberately mean."
"well," she says with a sigh, "one night when we were sitting around naked after a few hours of love making, he took offense at how i got this scar on my back." she slips her shoulder out of the halter top to show me her shoulder blade. she has a large pink white scar the shape of a wilted flower. a daisy, bruised and drooping with petals missing and a torn leaf still clinging to the stem. this is not some injury that happens to look like a flower, but definite decorative scarification. someone whittled that into her flesh with a pen knife.
"i guess he could not handle my days as a biker slut." she sighed again as if missing him. "you can not imagine how much fun i could have behind the vendors boothes at yankee stadium on a saturday afternoon." indeed, i guess i can't.
it is not long until we get to the university. in the main campus building of the student union i supposed we are there to get our skis and leave, but mark says there is some instructions we have to listen to before we can get fitted for the shoes. we have to go upstairs.
as we approach the stairway, there is another group coming down. it looks like a batch of new students on tour for orientation. their guide is explaining some feature of the student union and mentions something about antiabortion facilities for preparing rallies and protests.
i take a rattle out of my pocket and start to shake it so it makes its stacatto clicking noise. this is something new that people use to identify themselves as prochoice supporters. it looks like a small glass test tube with tiny steel beebees inside. by shaking it, the steel beads roll over tumblers and make a noise similar to a rattlesnake or a ratchet depending on how fast you shake it. the purpose of this device is to warn the prolifers that we are already decided on the issues so no one has to waste their time with useless rhetoric.
the crowd on the stairs makes way for us, my clicking clearly bothering them. but once we are on the second floor, i can put the rattle back in my pocket and we proceed to the shoe fitting room.
once i sit down and remove my boots to try on the rental ski shoes, i am dismayed by appearance of my left foot. the toes are all crumpled and blackened like they are dead. i reach down to straighten them and they have no feeling or movement. when i start to stand on the foot, there is only a numb tingling sensation from them. taking a step, the whole foot curls over so i stand on the back of it with the shriveled sole pointed upward. i quickly take the weight off it, worried that i might also damage the bones in the ankle.
i sit back down, massaging the poor senseless foot. perhaps if i get some circulation back into it. i think that the skiing might help to straighten and strengthen the foot, being lashed to a long board for exercise.
=( i wake again. 08:40. it is too late to go the lecture at the university, but enough time before class to type this in. my left foot does has a tingling sensation in the two smallest toes. this has been there for almost a week to a lesser degree, but this morning it is pronounced. i have wondered if this might be the onset of some nerve disease, like amyotropic lateral sclerosis, which begins with deadening of the peripheral nerve ending. earlier in the week it seemed slightly noticeable in the smallest toes of both feet, so it is less likely to an injury or due to uncomfortable footwear. today it is clearly pronounced on the left foot when i woke up. no idea yet what this minor discomfort is about. the real witherspoon i know lives in new york and has distributed the ashes of his wife and several friends around his wooded property on the edge of a reservoir watershed. that is probably where the washed up bones notion came from. )=
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=== qui non est hodie cras minus aptus erit
| | who not is today, tomorrow less suitable will be
--- -- Ovid _Remedia Amoris_ i 94
