The Sound of Old T-Rex Sunday, September 28, 2003

A sleepy day in Bayonne town. Sleepy in the sense of putting together furniture, moving it into place, cooking a quasi-elaborate dinner, etc. Worked also on Secret Thing 0.5--an offshoot of a Secret Thing I could've sworn I'd finished months ago but keeps catching me in its penumbras and enamanations. This project is following the usual arc: I began it grudgingly, found a way to entertain myself with it, and now it's as unstoppable as a Vespa on cobblestones. Whatever. I'll just turn it in and see what happens. That's what editors are for, right?

Met a new neighbor over garbage yesterday. A nice guy, maybe twenty years older than Mrs. WTJ and me. Speaking of whom, Mrs. WTJ had made pals with him earlier on, found him personable and worth knowing. A challenge!

At any rate, he was wearing a pendant when I ran into him. I told him it was nice, and asked him who the picture was (a barely visible black and white).

"Meher Baba," he said. "A great spiritual leader."

Hey now! And me a Pete Townshend fanatic! Me who haunted eBay for Ronnie Lane rarities! Dude, I've got thirty alternate takes of "Baba O'Reilly"! So what if I always skip the songs off that one live album where he keeps going on about enlightenment and crossing the ferry and whatever?

I made a hash of all that when I tried explaining it. The only thing that got across right, I think, were the exclamation points. He went his way, me mine, and I can't help but wonder about guys like that--him and my mother's cousin, who took a wrong turn somewhere in the thickets of the 1960s (at least from my family's point of view). Smart guys, counterculture, living in theoretically lousy neighborhoods for their purposes but finding a way to fit in. They do yard sales, they chat with retirees, they answer questions happily.

So lookit me: I've got everything, but have to struggle to give somebody the time of day, let alone a good word. What happens when I find myself twenty years down the road in a neighborhood where I don't belong?

Smiles, everyone! Always smiles!

@ 10:52:00 PM,

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