Listening

"The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught."
-- George Santayana

The weather is back to loveliness. I'm reading journal entries and talking to George. Remembering what I like about Austin. Watching the Croatian couple kiss and talk. I bought many books today at the Globe, and more soap. Chamomile, lavender and kiwi squares. Had a drink full of vodka and rum and Midori that takes the edge off my headache.

Bought D'Alembert's Principle by Andrew Crumey, Oranges by John McPhee and Sofia Petrovna by Lydia Chukovskaya.

Mailed postcards this morning. It made me cry at my desk, mailing one postcard to my father and one to my mother, at different addresses. It hit me today that by now the divorce should be final, and that my life is different now. That I will never go home for Christmas to everyone again. That I will never see my parents together again. But I'm okay, I'll be okay... It's all about momentum and if I keep walking everything will be okay.

I can hear the bells of the cathedral down the street. It's twilight outside, and the net cafe is pretty quiet.

"Nothing ever becomes real 'til it is experienced. Even a proverb is no proverb to you 'til your life is illustrated by it."
-- John Keats

(no subject)

I have clawed away the bump on my hand, leaving just a smooth white scar, a tiny circle. I had a nightmare about it.

I've had a lot of nightmares, probably because the bed I sleep on is so damn uncomfortable. My room is nice though, bigger then most of the others. We have a quiet Soviet ghost who opens and closes the door, and the ghost keeps me company. The worst nightmare was about a four year old boy, the AntiChrist, and running frantically around Prague.

Tonight I think I'll walk down the street to the kolej and smoke a cigarette. Pretend that I've never lived anywhere else and never had any other life than this moment. I have trouble telling if I'm awake or not, if this is real or if my life before this place was real.