Salamanders Green (part 2A) 19

It's impossible to swallow without pain today. Getting through breakfast required a real effort. I'm just waiting for the coffee to be ready - need a few cups then I'm gonna go and lay out in the sun. I wonder if my tonsils are due?

Screwed up on the coffee - put enough in for 8 but only 6 cups of water! Haven't even dared a taste yet.

Now the bitch has arrived but she has been friendly since yesterday when she got wind of me having some cash.

You: saw you last night in full moon light, walking in the ball field by the reservoir, to talk, to wrestle, to laugh and I still don't know what to do with you Maureen...

Stayed in bed all day so I could listen to the rain - there was no way I was going to walk to work, this non-depressive lacy summer rain was just too good to miss. Made orange juice, coffee, and peanut buttered toast for a mid afternoon breakfast - the toast a little burned, the juice a little warm the coffee a little bitter - just right for this little rainy day.

There's no one here today except my sister, she's watching soap operas and sketching pictures from fashion magazines - drawing during the commercials I guess. Of course I'm here in the kitchen at my favourite table writing and watching the rain through 3 different windows.

A cardinal in the maple, a grey squirrel up and down the fibreglass patio roof, the pearls of rain tipping needles of evergreen, It's a day for dreaming, a fantasy day, a wish away day.

Wishing for someone to dance in the rain with, that Denise won't be fool enough to get married, that I had a publisher, a friend a gallery, a place to live wishing I could reach out and touch you Mary, it always ends up you Mary. I couldn't have you so I broke my heart looking for you in other women until I had my life turned night mare by my "wife", heart numbed by these stone cold women but still I'm wanting, still I'm wanting to find you somewhere Mary.

There are 3 black birds playing in the grass, they play the serious game of feeding while I play the hilarious game of self therapy in hopes of liberation. Is solitude symptom or cure? Must one be alone to learn how to deal with others? Can it be that in seeking solitude one has given up, gone into exile, attempting to create an environment under ones own control?

Poured another cup and threw some seed out for the birds - sparrows, starlings and my favourite blue jays. There was quite a crowd then this pigeon flutters down and scares the rest away. The sparrows are the bravest they are always the first to return.

Salamanders Green (part 2A) page 16

Made the coffee extra strong today. Deep black hot the simple exotic imagery of fresh coffee. I'm just cleaning out the dreams. Just realised that it's eleven thirty and I didn't go to work. My ex-wife just picked up the kid a little while ago. It seems that she and I got along better when we were still married. I think I'm past the pain and loss but then sometimes I can't help but feel hate towards her. It's not even so much for the things she's done but rather for the things she is doing. I never had to deal with that feeling of hating that steady sturdy kind of hate that only pretence makes seem other wise. I'd like to get rid of that feeling but every time I see her... Maybe it's a negative approach at keeping myself connected with her? I mean even though it's negative it's still an intense emotional involvement or should I say attachment? Maybe it's that I still can't or won't let go and admitting that I still love someone who doesn't want me, must have some effect on the ego. Past the pain? I think if I had someone who was close to me right now I could cry for days but it's too sad to cry alone... and if one can't deal with the pain then it can be buried, avoided - This day is too nice to get into being miserable, all I need is the sun, (those rainy days are the killers) the sun is my meditation, my healer, my direct link. Here I am in the sunlight, with eyes closed, brown skin and my hair wild in the wind ready to enter the breath taking void...

Starting to eat better. Bought some groceries and even ate breakfast this a.m. The simple things eating, swimming, sunning, writing. I'm proud of myself; I am making good recovery - staying out of bars, staying out in the real world, the green wet bright world. It's pleasing to be alive, to just breathe is great! I'm not trying to be what I'm not, I don't spend myself trying to change for a woman who doesn't want me anyway. I may not have much but I have my self, I have the freedom to be that. Finally for the first time in years I'm living up to the responsibility that I have neglected for years, neglected for marriage, child, lovers, parents, bosses, friends - that major responsibility is to live up to myself - To Be My Self. The true responsibility of the individual.

There are 6 packages of birthday cake candles, 3 boxes of Bicycle playing cards, a stack of pot holders, yesterday’s mail, some paper napkins and a dish towel on the kitchen table. The proceeding still life has been brought to you courtesy of my sister cleaning out the kitchen drawer.

From where I sit I can see the flower box on the back porch window, the little things have handled the drought quite well, ( no thanks to us) the big evergreen it's friendly shadow of protection extended to those geraniums and whatevers, saving their lives, killing the grass. I want to paint. I think that will be the next step in my self proscribed therapy. I've got my easel and stuff but I need to go down-town for canvass and with the temperature not being bellow ninety for the past weeks I just haven't been able to work up the ambition to go bus riding. Also I think what to do with the finished paintings? This is not my house I don’t even have a room of my own. In fact the last time I left a painting here someone poked a hole in it. I think that I'm thinking to far ahead. I'm not gonna let anyone talk me out of painting in - especially my self.