April 3, 2024

Waking: harsh rain over the ocean. 

Family with young boys in the next room. They keep dropping something, sounds like marbles, if kids still play with marbles. 

Instead of retiring last night when I felt I should, I toddled into the little town and attended an open mic at Planet Follywood. For starters, pretty good vodka tonics were $5. It was red-neck paradise, with local boys hollering blues and zydeco into the little room. Those I heard were quite good, and emotive, clearly feeling comfortable among their peers. I walked home on practically empty streets, panes of light falling from windows where the waiters were mopping floors and setting up for the morning. This could be a decent hometown. 

Seated at breakfast opposite a high school baseball team from Virginia, here for a tournament. Perfect hair, round boy muscles, gestures and mannerisms hardening into personality. Courtly, as if they’d just learned manners and were trying them out. Two of the boys played catch in the hotel pool with the storm raging around them. 

Evening. The storm, which was terrifying for a while, goes out to sea where it may terrify the fishes. The water drained from my toilet. The sink thundered. I don’t know what causes that. The bartender says there’s a pond in the hotel storage area. Couldn’t leave the hotel until about now. Soon I shall. I feel that I’ve had a bout of anger, but I can’t remember why. Maybe reading email from my ordinary life, which I ought not to do. W calls certain music we tried to consider “boring.” The word “boring” loses meaning when he uses it. The Resurrection would bore him unless Christ wore a sequined gown and twirled flaming batons. 

The bartender noticed me writing out on the terrace in the sea wind. He too lived in Baltimore for a while.