but you would probably wake up, gasp and I’d be all, “it’s okay! It’s just Mig! Mig from the blog!” and you’d be all, “Goddamn it, get out of my fucking house you crazy goddamned bastard!” and call the cops so I just think about doing it, or rather, think about the words, not the action, and how poetic they sound, and melancholy, and about how one thing leads to another, like one minute I’m four, standing by Multnomah Falls with mom and dad, worrying my parents will abandon me there like starving woodcutters and then how will I get home, the next here I am, 48, sitting at a kitchen table in Austria at five in the morning all WTF happened? Or in a car in a parking lot waiting for eldest daughter to get back from walking her little sister to school for her second day at the new school because I was afraid to let her cross the street on her own yet didn’t want to embarrass her by walking her there myself.
Connecting the dots. It’s like a pile of dots you can connect however you want. Burrow through them like a worm. The slow road to realizing my touch might not make people unhappy, but it doesn’t make them happy either. Realizing my touch alone does not suffice, that the math is more complicated than the last chapters of your math book looked on the first day of school.
One thing leads to another. I swing through the jungle, from choice to choice, until perspective shifts and there is no individual, just the path, the worm burrowing through a heap of moments in all directions. No individual, just one thing leading to another. Someone’s sleeping lies at a tangent to the path and there is the lightest contact.
Mornings like this, I wake up at 4, give up a half hour later and get up, make sandwiches, coffee, feed cats; there are no things at this time of the morning, no leading, no next. Barely potential, just peace and a ticking clock and a cone of light in the darkness and, come to think of it, ringing ears and a pen scratching on paper. Soon, though, one thing will lead to another, and so on, and the narrative will resume.

Something about Saturn has allegedly changed, meaning things are set to go my way for a spell, allegedly, according to the newspaper. As evidence of this: I cannot sleep, I am in a state of constant low-grade panic and my boss is mad at me. On the other hand, I got another job lead through a friend, the rain is pretty and Gamma’s first day of big-kid school apparently rocked.

I had been worried about Gamma, going from being the biggest kid in elementary school (4th grade) to the smallest kid in the big school (Gymnasium). She wore a plaid skirt, white blouse under black sweater, white stockings and shiny black pumps. I suggested braided pigtails and she went along with that. I dropped her off on my way to work, so I was wearing a dark suit and tie. We were a fine-looking couple. She got lots of stares, because all the other kids were dressed, you know, cool. Gamma didn’t mind the stares, though. She appreciated the irony of her, Gamma, dressing like that, and did so at least in part to make a positive first impression on teachers, which would later come in handy, perhaps.

I told her she could wear her clothes with the skulls on them tomorrow.

She came home totally enthusiastic about school. She can’t wait to go back tomorrow.

She’s a Taurus too. Saturn’s got out of her way. I’m still waiting for a clear sign.