Learn From It

I'm in the Castro. In the drug store to pick up a prescription refill. The inside of the building has changed, but some things never do.As I wait for them to retrieve my relatively-incidental 'script for Restoril, I see there's someone in far worse shape than me (like I don't remember this anyhow): a paper grocery-bag sized bag with no fewer than thirteen separate script tags stapled to it.

Did I ever pick that many up at one time for Allen? No, not at one time.

Ahh, but only because most HIV drugs didn't exist then. Ahh, that explains it.

Cold Comfort.

I go to the greeting cards section. Tears too swift. Too much anguish in the Now. What kind of anniversary card is appropriate for us right now?

Last night as we talked in bed I looked up at the projection of the time on the ceiling. 12:35. Dread. It's officially September 13 and what would be or might still be our second anniversary. I hate this in-between space.

Even in San Francisco, even in the Castro, there's not an anniversary card for this.

I go to Pasqua Starbucks across the street and sit in my old seat—the one up in the back corner on the riser where I wrote more than half a thousand pages of fiction.

If I have an addiction, it's to Time. But it's not an addiction really, even if and even when the swoon of it overpowers.

The Castro, for me, has so much Past to offer. The Castro, for the world, still has so much Future to offer. But what I need is to be grounded in the Now.

How Soon is Now?

Dear goddess, save me from quoting Morrissey.

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