Every day, at least once a day, I am struck by this immense feeling of dread, that my head is locked in the guillotine, so to speak . . . I’ll be doing whatever it is I do, and suddenly a black streak of terror will shoot down my spine, and I’m sure the blade is coming down. And yet it does not fall. Even still, the feeling remains . . . lives inside me! and I cannot be rid of it. Maybe everyone feels that feeling whether they realize it not. Maybe for some reason I am just sensitive to it.

Thing is, the terror only lasts for a split second, if that . . . and then I feel a sort of whole-body acceptance of it. I wouldn’t call it passivity so much as letting go of what I do not have control over. Perhaps when you can do that you are walking the lighted path. After all, I had no choice in my being here . . . and I only have so much control over my staying. I’m not afraid to die, though I don’t want to yet . . . What’s there to worry about, other than the end of all things? And even then. I wonder. I wonder too what it is I’m even talking about now . . . I’m so tired . . .

It is midnight in Seattle and I only have three hours left with the cats. I’m so sad about it I almost feel sick. I love them! I of course had not forgotten how life-affirming being in the presence of cats can be, but I have felt it deeply the last two weeks I have been with them. And now I have to go again. Hopefully I’ll be back again with them sooner than later.

Till then . . .

Tonight Young Jackson and I saw Boris at The Crocodile in downtown Seattle . . . I had not seen them play live since I saw them in Tokyo back in 2009, so it had Been Some Time.

Since this year is the 20th anniversary of PINK . . .

. . . tonight they played the entirety of the album. It was incredible. And this was a smallish venue, so there were probably 150 people at most in the room, so it felt, God help me, “intimate”. It was a room full of nerds, and that’s who you want at a show. Other than the occasional picture, which I took as well, this was not a crowd of people holding up their phones and filming hour-long videos that they’ll probably never watch. All this is to say that it was a good ol time seeing Boris, the hardest-working (and probably best) band in the world, play one of their masterpieces at full force, as if they’d just released the album yesterday.

After the last song, THE TRIO left the stage . . . only to return moments later to do what Jackson and I had hoped they’d do all along, which was to play a truncated version of FLOOD . . .

. . . my favorite one! Talk about a two-for-one deal!! They shook the entire building for another 45 minutes, thanked us for coming, and then disappeared, angels all of them . . .

Back on the COLD STREETS OF SEATTLE, Jackson and his friend John and I walked to 5 Point Cafe in the shadow of the Space Needle. I had somehow not seen the Space Needle in probably a decade . . . I once ate a couple of tabs of acid and ran around Seattle at night in the dead of winter, and ended up at the foot of the thing. That was a hundred lifetimes ago . . .

Back in 2025 A.D., in the Here and Now, the three of us supped like brothers and discussed Love and Friendship . . . and MCCABE & MRS. MILLER. We paid the bill and left. John strutted home and Jackson got us a car back to his apartment building. I dashed down the street to catch the last bus home, only to watch it blow right past me. Having no alternative, I walked two miles home in drizzling darkness. Back home the cats went insane because I had been gone . . . I made tea and gave them some treats and they forgave me for my absence. Now we’re all going to bed.

Tomorrow is my last day in Seattle before I fly to Virginia for three hours only to board a night train straight to New York. I feel conflicted because it is going to completely crush me to leave Felix and Jupiter, my temporary surrogate family.

And yet I must escape to New York. I have a lot to do there, don’t you know . . .

Well, I have to be up early (11 am) to get breakfast with Brother Jackson, so now I’m off to Dreamland to get my beauty rest. Farewell for now~ ☆彡

(P.S. I once read an interview with Boris, and in it, the interviewer asked why they have two separate albums called HEAVY ROCKS. They replied: “Because we like heavy rocks.” That rules . . .)

only jupiter can save me

freezin my soul

moebius

i wait all year for this day

my brother visited me in a dream the other night. in the dream he was alive and he told me not to worry about him. jeb’s visit was otherwise bookended by nightmares . . . i had nightmares all night, so much so that it made me feel insane the next day. but i’m glad i got that little reprieve to see my brother again. it only seems to happen a few times a year . . . i miss him a lot