...
All of us.
My temporary boyfriend had to relinquish the wheel this morning, but we all look to be passably lucid anyway. Of course, Catherine is the very portrait of poise and alertness and just after she finishes speaking we're all going to accost her, rumple her up, muss her hair, make her look as wasted as the rest of us.
To tell you the truth, this is the day I have most been anticipating. Solid bodhisattvas from start to finish… my people.
I'm primed from bantering with Joseph over which of us is dopier this morning… but left here to contemplate that, despite his oneupmanship in the department of disconnected synaptic "activity" in the mornings, it's really almost certainly me.
Catherine got up there and knocked a couple dozen homers through our skulls. I clapped wildly. Yelled like my rodeo roots. And shot across the campus to pee. Except, of course, the sprinting part dropped to a brisk walk and brisk walk dropped to a stroll, until finally my stroll dropped my butt onto the toilet seat and I might still be there, snoring, had not there been already a very long line for my throne.
I ate a little grainless healthy bar, had a couple puffs, and a couple swigs of water and returned to the arms of hero Danny and the dulcet tones of Rappoport luring us into his elaborately slow journey to the core of our responsibility… the true nature of our culpability… and this audience is doing a lot of guilty little bursts of laughter.
He's giving out my new twist on the bodhisattva vow in deceptively modern standup English. Sing it, Jon!
Don't mistake my lethargic bearing for lack of solidarity. My musculature just isn't responding well to good form.
Almost certainly more later. Watch this space.
...
I have lost Joely. He came up to me to confirm his presence first thing and then, when it came break time and I could go look for him, he didn't seem to be anywhere. I ran all over looking for him, and then I held still looking for him… so he could find me… then I had my security guard friend dial his number… no answer… I don't know if he's been abducted by aliens or hauled off to the hospital or fell asleep in some corner I missed.
I'm trying not to worry about him, but… I keep worrying about him.
Richard Dolan is nearly done with his talk and I've had to be outside for it, barely hearing it, because I did not want to almost hit the floor from the stuffiness of the afternoon in that building. I think there are ways to let the heat out the roof, but nobody seems findable to fix this picklement and this is yet another sad fate to which I imagine Joely may have succumbed.
I'm here with my mellow, mellow, mellow mirror, my temporary boyfriend, and it's letting my heart beat the way it's supposed to instead of leaping into my throat over the invisible Joely. My sweet friend who tells me when he thinks I'm wrong and lets me consider if I really am so I can change it if needs must. How many people are that wonderful? Not many.
Many here, just this weekend, but in general, Joelys are very rare. If he's unhurt and hiding from me, though I'm going to hit him over the head with my borrowed laptop.
...
Joely has been found. He took off his overshirt and hat and didn't look like Joely at all. And he, in turn, decided someone else was me and so a comedy of errors has held the day, but all is well, and all are safe.
I'm here sweating next to my temporary boyfriend and listening to Joseph Farrell. The audience is rapt, learning how now is turning into a replay of the story of the Tower of Babel. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
...
We just got Col. Bearden on the phone and I couldn't quite put it together what he was saying, but it was sure nice to hear his voice at all. They're all up there right this very now and it's so darn pleasant also, to just hear the voices… beyond even what they're saying. Just the tones. The ability to feel in one's pores and on one's eardrums exactly who they are.
This has been a long, confusing, enlightening, wonderful and unutterably valued experience. I'm punchy as heck, but at some point soon I will sit down and try to give you a more thorough piece about all this.
Bless your hearts for your patience and gorgeous eyeprints these past few days.
always and any time....
