freewrite

i love ampersands. &. something about neatness & curviness at the sametime. &&&. surfeit. &&&&&&. it would make sense that someone who likes ampersands like knots. i kind of like knots. but not in so much of a like that i remember them afterwards. one-knot stands. i must have swallowed a clown. these little red flowers have four petals and their own publicists like matt and maati who try to get the rest of us to suck their sweet sap. i used to play a game with my mommy where we would watch for the yellow dumptrucks on the way to school in the morning, competing to be the first to see it, grab an imaginary handful of garbage, and slosh (why this verb? it sounds right? does it matter if the meaning is wrong?) it onto the other person's shoulder. i also like dashes; and their name sounds exactly like what i would imagine an old fountain pen or quill sounds like when it writes the dash...point presses into the paper for the D, swoops across the page for the -ash. sublime. and semicolons too. a feeling nurtured by "eats shoots and leaves"...the last time i saw that book was in the best borders in the whole wide world (in palo alto). it's not even the fountain or the conservation or the gaudy marquee that gets me. i think it's the space between the columns in the courtyard. somehow they seem so cozy. if i were a sleek long breeze i'd cuddle up there. they sure need breezes now in california; i can't imagine what it'll be like in scottsdale in august. good thing it's highly unlikely that places like the fairmont will ever run out of airconditioning, and good thing there's probably nothing else in scottsdale to see that might make anyone feel bad about wearing their footprints into the resort floors. i don't think anyone ever believes me when i say that the sky in hawaii is bluer than it is elsewhere. it's so blue i feel like i could peel it in soft rolls with my fingers, like you might do with softening ice cream or like i *do* do with my conditioning hair mask. only you couldtut never get to the bottom of it, so it'd be even more satisfying because you'd pull off as much as you pleased. i'm really supposed to be working; sometimes i think i will want a job that involves a pen, as much as i like computers. an ink pen, not a ballpoint. but what if it makes me tired of pens? what if i lose the funny little pen-itch? but itches aren't hard to come by...ones for paints, ones for a good solid shifter and a familiar clutch, ones for topsoil, for spatulas, for mixers! fishing poles, cocktail piece-rings, lemons, sunglasses cool to the touch. i've forgotten what it was like to write, kind of like pulling strands of raw cotton out of my fingers but cotton that behaves like thick honey. no, not honey...maple butter. we were meant to be poets, and i don't mean always with words. but even with words...i mean, the indians named the lake winnipisaukee...smiling waters.