Gardens and the Dark Side of the Moon

Very long, labyrinthian dream, which I mostly can’t remember, except in the very last scene, someone asked, Wanna drop acid? and I said, Sure. Why not?

Thinking we’d set up a date for a future time and place.

But, no! He whipped out a tube, kinda like a miniature toothpaste tube, and proceeded to squeeze out this little shimmering dab of product.

I remember thinking, Wow! Dose distribution technology has really improved in the last 40 years!

And also thinking, But I don’t really want to get all messed up and hallucinatory. I mean, how long is this stuff gonna last anyway? If I do it, how long before I can think straight again?

The LSD had a very pungent scent. Like orange oil.

###

Spent most of yesterday in the garden.

Which was very pleasant.

Claude and James came by, and we talked about llama manure and eggplants.

James rigged his iPhone up to a portable speaker and blasted Gordon Lightfoot, a musician I don’t ordinarily like but who seemed perfect for this beautiful day, sunny skies, temps in the low 70°s.

Headlines have been yammering for days that we are on the verge of an historic heat wave, which will be just like that Twilight Zone episode where the Earth started careening toward the Sun, and everyone hallucinated they were living on the North Pole.

So, I figured I better enjoy the outside world while I could.

It’s interesting how every year, the garden grows a little bit differently.

This year, I am getting a bumper crop of peppers:



I am very fond of peppers having used them to wean myself off a (mercifully) very brief heroin addiction way back in the Jurassic era. I have never seen this particular detox method touted anywhere, but hey! It worked for me. Peppers release endorphins and speed up your metabolism.

My basil plants are shoulder-high and have the most heavenly, lemon-balm-y aroma you can possibly imagine:



Cukes are finally coming in:



And tomatoes should start ripening in another week.

###

In the evening, I wandered back to the casa. Neighbor Ed was over, and we argued about politics, but these days, the assumption of good faith is factored in, so it doesn’t get personal.

I whipped up a meal from the remains of the Bolognese sauce and a mass of beet greens, which I boiled up with apple vinegar and caraway seeds. I also had some raclette and morbier cheeses, which I trotted out for dessert. L provided a nice Riesling.

L and I got mildly tipsy and entertained the table with a duet from West Side Story. “A boy like that! Who keeeeled your brother!” I sang Anita; L sang Maria.

“I didn’t know you could sing,” said Neighbor Ed.

“I’m just a frustrated cabaret artiste,” I said.

So. A very, very pleasant day, which I’ll never remember because nothing really happened.

###

At 6am this morning while I was trying to decide what to do about coffee, I got a text.

B.

In the hospital.

Massive GI bleed.

I’m thinking this has more to do with the fact that they’re feeding him massive doses of Tylenol mixed in with his painkillers than it does with any organic progression of his disease.

But, of course, what do I know?

I was kind of shocked by how little I felt on an immediate emotional level.

No crashing waves of tenderness or protectiveness.

I thought, Hmmm. Can I afford to pay his rent for a month?

Long ago, I realized for people like me who were brought up in dungeons, those momentary surges of neurotransmitters that other people use as emotional gauges cannot possibly be used as Life’s GPS. I consistently go in the wrong direction when I make decisions according to what I feel on the basis of transitory chemicals.

I mean. I certainly act impulsively. But I’m always very careful to make sure that nothing about those actions is… irretrievable.

No, for me, “love”—if you want to call it that—is an intellectual decision made on the basis of a weighted arithmetical average.

When I think about B, I think about what a complete manipulative cad he was. Probably still is.

But I also think about how present he was when I gave birth to Robin, when the pain was more intense than anything I had ever felt in my life; when I howled, and he howled with me as if we were together on the dark side of the moon, and there was no one else in the universe.

The weighted arithmetical average is still on "love."

So, I want to do what I can for him.

Though my strong suspicion is that isn’t much.