- Indoor plumbing. I might be repeating myself here and if I haven’t already I surely will; but can one really say enough about indoor plumbing?
- Gordon and Jimmy with whom I just had breakfast. We talked about the shame that today’s war photos are sanitized and how the public is not making truly informed decisions. Jimmy’s uncle pulled him aside as a kid and asked, “you wanna play soldier? Okay, but let me show you something first.” What Jimmy most clearly remembers is the German soldier with the top of his head blown off by a tank shell: his eyes were open. Anyway, I’m grateful to have had the fellowship.
- The top of my head has not yet been blown off by a tank shell.
- I can write. Physically, I mean. A thousand vets have come back from Iraq/Afghanistan missing limbs and in cases where the dominant hand was lost, they had to learn to write again with the other. It’s such a simple thing to be able to quickly scribble a note; how terribly I’d miss it if I couldn’t.
- Uma, who teaches you like she’s being using cocaine; she can barely hold herself still or stop chattering. I don’t seriously think it’s cocaine, but she does have a palpable vibrating energy about her, radiating out of body parts one doesn’t typically think of an energetic: her shins, her forehead, her ribs.
Many thanks,
Me