Excerpts from a Stream of Consciousness on a Springlike Winter Walk with Ani and Liz

It’s amazing out here today! I wish it were like this every day. Maybe then I’d forget how good it feels, without a basis for comparison. That’s one of the reasons I love it here so much - these days. The ones that remind me why I stay, after I’ve been locked away for the winter. Today would be a good Galooney’s day. It’s too bad Christine’s away this weekend - I could walk all day.

In a coffee shop in a city/Which is every coffee shop in every city/On a day which is every day/I picked up a magazine/Which is every magazine/Read a story, and then forgot it right away/They say goldfish have no memory/I guess their lives are much like mine

This is home. Look at all these people. There’s something so comforting in feeling so familiar with a backdrop - it never seems to stifle me in its sameness.

And I guess that you dialed my number/Cuz you thought for sure that I'd agree/I said baby, you know I still love you/But how dare you complain to me

Isn’t it funny how well you think you know yourself sometimes? Steve was talking about that a little (drunkenly) last night…“We live too close to ourselves -- at the same time others cannot accurately describe us because we are opaque to them. People can only be experienced through the five senses, and even then you only ever see a sliver of the whole.” Ain’t it the truth? Even your expectations (or seeming lack thereof) betray you. Will I ever really learn?

I put too much on my table and now/I got too much at stake/And I might let you off easy/Yeah I might lead you on/I might wait for you to look for me/And then I might be gone

That horse is pink and has a bird for a penis. Ah, art.

And imagine you're a girl/Just trying to finally come clean/Knowing full well they'd prefer you were dirty and smiling

A fluorescent pink gorilla stands at the corner of 28th and Lyndale, a self-made flyer for the grand opening of the new and improved Loon Grocery. I think I’ll cross the street a little early. I don’t want it to talk to me. How bizarre. It must be hot in there - I hope they’re paying it enough.

I used to be a superhero/No one could stop me/Not even myself/You were like a phone booth that I somehow stumbled into/Now look at me/I am just like everybody else

The story struck her as somewhat melodramatic at times, she’d said. I am nothing if not somewhat melodramatic at times.

I’ve got no illusions about you/Guess what/I never did when I said/When I said I'll take it/I meant/I meant as is

On the other hand, Charles said of that story that it needed MORE heart, MORE “internalness” (he's so him). As out there as I feel sometimes, it’s not the first time I’ve heard from someone about my writing…about me in relationships, friendships…sometimes it’s all so intertwined I feel like I’m looking for a single strand of yarn in an ill-kempt knitting bag.

I don’t crack the door too far for anyone/Who’s pushing too hard on me /I won’t decorate my love

The melting ice water, warmed by the sun, falls like rain off the roofs of the buildings on Dupont. It still looks like ice as it falls in huge drops, reflecting and refracting the sunlight…how beautiful. I can’t believe I think in composition like this - more often than I‘d like, really. I wonder if it’s any good…on the other hand, who is it really there for? “Them” or me? I have to get to a computer.

I want to be cool, tall, vulnerable, and luscious/I would have it all if I’d only had this much

An empty cab sits in the parking lot of Planned Parenthood on Lagoon Avenue, awaiting its passenger. Who is she? Is she alone? Sad? Numb? Will she cry on the cab ride home? What must go through the cab driver’s head as he sits there, waiting? Even the most simple things can be so complicated.

Whatever happened to a [girlfriend]/The kind of [girl] who makes love cuz she’s in it?

I’ll have pictures tomorrow - Halloween, Fashion Show, New Year’s, Grand Marais…waiting for pictures is so nerve wracking and exciting. I hope they come out okay. Not like the pictures from the first trip to Grand Marais - I still can’t believe I lost all those awesome pictures. The images are still in my head, I focused so carefully on them through the camera lens that I don’t think I can ever really forget them. Still, though, I could have cried.

God, Hennepin/Lake sucks. What are all you people doing here? Go back to Edina.

Moderation is a memory/Dive right in and let him send me/I could take this in doses large enough to kill

This reminds me of college. Sometimes I’d set off into a day knowing that if I just made myself available I’d be bound to run into someone who could rescue me from my own head. Too bad there’s never anywhere to fucking sit at Cafetto. Guess it’s the Spyhouse, then.

My head hurts. Maybe I just need some caffeine.