August 1998 Archives

10:50 AM, Tuesday morning. Bonnie: All Day Long...

We are in the middle of packing -- according to the Weather Channel there is a mandatory evacuation in effect for the Outer Banks. Hurricane Bonnie is heading this way.

The day is beautiful, warm and bright. The ocean is a bit rough but not too bad yet. Scattered folks are still on the beach, walking, sunbathing, surfing. We are paid up until Sunday so it sucks royally that we have to bail now.

Gotta look at it as an adventure, though.

11:38 AM. It is still oddly nice here. Not much happening: a few sirens, helicopters floating by for the news stations, lots of packed cars heading North -- not many going South. The surf is a bit more foamy, active.

All-in-all, though, it’s a pretty day.

12:06 PM. Haze to the North and South. The wind has picked-up and chilled somewhat. Fewer people are on the beach -- one woman and her children are sunbathing nearby, though. The surf is constant but not very high. It’s still sunny, more-or-less.

We are almost completely packed.

1:05 PM. Mandatory evacuations are in effect all up and down the Outer Banks. We’ve cleaned up the beach house, brought in all the beach furniture and packed our own stuff. The beaches are considerably emptier now. Winds are stronger but the skies are still fairly sunny. The ocean looks brown -- like foam-topped chocolate milk.

You can hear people hammering nails, boarding up. Bonnie is supposed to hit Cape Hatteras this afternoon. This part of the Outer Banks is supposed to get hurricane-strength winds by midnight. It’s all a lot of guesswork, however.

We have hotel reservations in Richmond.

1:53 PM. We are on the road, heading out of the Outer Banks. Big Traffic and swamped gas stations. This might take a while...

2:22 PM. Crap. I just remembered that I left my hat back in the cottage...

Two long lines of traffic leading out of the Outer Banks; lots of taped and/or boarded up windows along the way. Even though the sky is getting milky white with clouds, it is still nicely bright here...

3:42 PM. Still on the road. Can you say, "traffic"?

A young woman is hanging out of her jeep, snapping pictures of the lined-up vehicles. If I had a dollar for every SUV I’d have, um...a lot of dollars.

At this point along the route it is sunny. Pretty. A perfect day for lounging at the beach, wouldn’t you know?

I’ve never evacuated before and the experience is (not to put too fine a point on it) boring...

4:15 PM. Some people are downright nasty it seems. A guy crossing the road almost got run over a while back and there has been some very pissy driving going on.

Now they are predicting gale force winds in Cape Hatteras tonight and hurricane force winds by daybreak. Heard on the radio that 200,000 people are leaving this area.

All-in-all, I’d rather be sitting on the beach drinking a Corona.

5:54 PM. Still evacuating...

After a while you start to recognize folks in some of the cars you pass.

The most recent predictions place landfall for the hurricane a little West of Cape Hatteras.

7:53 PM. At the Holiday Inn in Richmond, VA.

Consider us evacuated.

I’m sort of hungry...

11:49 PM. It’s been a long day and I miss the beach. I hope we can go back and enjoy the rest of our week but I sort of doubt that we will get that chance.

Here’s wishing the Outer Banks good luck with the hurricane.

I’m going to catch some zees...

--- JWR, 8/25/98

12:45 PM, Monday afternoon.

Some clouds now, faint whispy swirls and puffs. A cool, steady breeze and surf that goes from nearly flat -- to foamy and rambunctious. Across the street two beach houses have been boarded up: hedged bets on Bonnie. It’s warm and I’m sweating -- mostly because I am pretty well covered up in Julia’s beach chair. I have on a tee-shirt, ball cap, and a blanket over my legs. Hiding from the sun. I’d go swimming but the red flags are up. Riptides.

So I’m sitting, reading (and writing a bit in my notebook here) and indulging in some cerveza mas fina. A few seagulls are hanging out nearby, facing into the wind as seems to be their habit.

It is a wide and beautiful day.

Tiring of sweltering, I have staked a red and white beach umbrella next to my chair in the sand. Divested now of my hat, shirt, and towel, I sit in the cast shade and savor a fresh Corona. I have definitely developed a taste for that.

In the distance, attenuated by the wind, Sinatra is playing from a portable stereo. Time to read for a while...

Does this mean anything to you? To me? Is it a code of selected images, experiences? Why do people choose to tell the things they tell? Is there meaning in it, or is it just reflexive?

Don’t ask me. I haven’t a clue. If I knew the answer to that question I would keep it safe in a box made of driftwood, with a few specials shells and a scattering of sand to keep it company.

--- JWR, 8/24/98

3:50 PM, Sunday afternoon.

I’m drinking ice-cold Corona, getting good lit from Michael Marshall Smith’s One of Us, and staring at the sea. The waves are big and robust, heaving up in luxuriant curls before thumping into foamy oblivion. It’s windy and the sky is a wide azure emptiness above me. The sand is warm between my toes. I am calm -- and sweating in slow motion.

There are about twenty seagulls sitting in the sand a few paces from me. By ones and twos most have now taken off into the wind. Another lemon chiffon butterfly just fluttered by -- hovering over my knee for a moment and then flipping away. The Corona tastes cold and fresh, that little swirl of lime tingling my tongue.

I just realized that I recognized one of the seagulls. He (or she) has a gray speckled head and was just here a few moments ago, staring at me for about fifteen minutes from about ten feet away. If I had some crackers or something I’d toss them to him.

It’s beautiful here: bright, sunny and warm. I’ve bet my mother a quarter that we won’t catch a breath of hurricane Bonnie. What can I say, I’m an optimist. A pretty girl with a ponytail just walked by and stopped for a moment to light a cigarette. She looked like she was doing a difficult math problem in her head and wasn’t pleased with the answer she was getting.

I miss nothing but the perfect person to share this with. And even that yearning is distant and calm.

Must be the beer. Or the view. Or the sleepy salty warmth.

Tonight we are going to have pizza, salads, and wine for dinner. I brought a special Chardonnay down with me -- to drink on the beach at sunset with Julia. But she’s not coming and I’d sort of like to save that wine for a memorable evening. I guess everything is memorable, though.

Still, I think it will be Riesling tonight.

--- JWR, 8/23/98

10:14 AM, Saturday morning.

I have a window. It frames the gnarled mound of a sand dune, fringed with misty gray sea grass. The tips of a weathered wooden-slat fence lie canted just beyond. Deeper into the frame tawny sands stretch down to the froth of the surf. Waves rise up and curl, stretching smooth jade backs before kissing the shore. The sound is a liquid whisper.

Julia called the other night to tell me that she won’t be able to visit. I miss her and wish we could have seen each other here. It is a beautiful, quiet, place.

And in my bedroom I have a window that frames the sea. The view is bright and calm. Warm. A lemon chiffon butterfly just tumbled by.

The sky is pure, limitless blue...

--- JWR, 8/22/98

7:43 PM, Thursday evening and all is well.

It’d be cool to compose writings by flexing and wiggling your fingers, sans keyboard. Creating images and metaphors by rhythmically gyrating your body, chuckling, smiling -- dancing sentences into life, playing words like notes on some exotic musical instrument.

I like to write while listening to music in the background (at least sometimes). Often I get into a typing groove that mimics the beat of the song I’m listening to. I have, unfortunately, never been much of a touch-typist, however. My keyboard chops are sort of a modified, high-speed, "hunt-and-peck" with my left hand doing most of the work. So when I’m "beat writing" (pun intended) the music and my mind often out-pace my hands. I know speech recognition is coming along nicely now and I probably will be able to dictate a story at some point -- but that won’t be the same.

For me writing is a physical thing. It’s about movement and rhythm. It’s not a vocal performance, if you know what I mean. At least not in the formative stages.

I’m listening to New Order’s "Substance" CD while I’m writing this, by-the-way.

Tomorrow I’m going to see a concert with a bunch of friends and then, on Saturday morning, I’m heading to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for two weeks. My family has been going to the Outer Banks in the Summer for over twenty years. Nowadays, getting everyone together for the trip has gotten a bit difficult. I try not to miss it, though (and haven’t yet). It’s a great time to unwind and recharge.

I’m taking down two or three novels, a notebook and pen, a bottle of wine, and not much else. I’m looking forward to it (and to seeing Julia again, if possible).

Radiohead is up next on the CD player. I think I’ll groove a bit and then...do the dishes, I guess.

Hah, this was pretty plain text, wasn’t it?

--- JWR, 8/13/98

1:52 PM, Wednesday afternooning...

Moving through, driven by the smooth muscular exertion of rhythmically scissoring legs. The silken, intimate flow over every inch of exposed skin. Warmth, buoyancy. Liquidly-distorted sound: an audio dreamscape of organic rushing and gurgles. Suspension.

Flight.

I dreamt, repeatedly, of flying. It always started with motion -- running in feral abandon over night-swept fields or through moonlight forests; or with an internal feeling -- a swelling of emotion in the chest, lifting up, surging outward. Flight was smooth, fast, or drifting like a balloon. It took concentration to maintain altitude and direction. Ah, but the freedom...

Visual extravagance, strange colors and textures, shifting perspectives. Flowing mutabilities. A sense of profound internal isolation and yet, at the same time, the feeling of vastness: simultaneously in the womb and in the whole of the world. There is an androgynous sensuality to the curve and flex of the fins, the freedom of motion.

An almost inhuman pleasure this silken movement, but the pulse is vivid in your ears and the pressure of the lungs is as "in the body" as anything can be. How delicate and ephemeral is this flesh, how fragile this need to breathe. And yet, the omnipotence of thought leading directly into motion -- in any direction. Gliding. Flying.

Dreams of flight are always welcome. The exhilaration, the peacefulness, the control and calming isolation. The freedom. The imagined act is a basic human delight; the reality is hard to achieve.

That’s why I like to swim.

--- JWR, 8/12/98

3:20 PM, She told me that she likes my hair short. Then she smiled and looked away, shifting her body slightly. I don’t really know her. We danced together at a night club about a year ago: good for nods of acknowledgment when we run into each other now. She mentions the "glass half full or half empty" thing as we chat and I wonder to myself what’s half empty in her life. It’s late, though. The lights swoop and flutter around us. I tell her it was nice seeing her again. She gives me another smile. I leave.

It’s Thursday afternoon now and I have Bowie on the CD player.

I’ve been thinking:

Long distance relationships are hard. Decisions that would be quick and smooth as silk become fraught with complications and hesitant uncertainties. I can’t be with Julia now -- we both know why, but that knowledge helps not at all. I once wrote a story about change and distance. It never sold but I like it anyway. Now it seems that I am learning a lot more about change, distance, and whether your glass is half full or half empty -- much to my sadness at times. Perhaps I should re-write the story.

It was called, "Cherry Lipstick".

Folks on the Diary-L mailing list have been discussing online journals in terms of maturing forms of expression, criticism, and quality or growing lack thereof. I’ve found the conversation to be both annoying and enlightening. Online journals are very much a new flavor in this nearly post-millennial land. Though they’ve been around for a bit it seems that notice is now growing more widespread. Critical analysis is happening, and I agree that it will continue, however "quality vs. dreck" assessments are pretty shaky. Especially in a medium so new and so intimately subjective. The taste of this wine is personal, you have to roll it around in your mouth and enjoy the shadings. Any journal, if true (and sometimes even when not) has the goods. Presentation and polish make some easier to consume, and a few experiential glasses are definitely more full than others -- but you can catch a buzz from all of them.

Or: you get back what you bring to this exhibitionistic cocktail party...

So it’s all stuttering lights and heartbeat rhythm in the club: smoke, sweat, and alcohol-flushed skin. This guy is watching a girl. She’s pretty. He’s nervous.

I observe his approach. He leans in, smiles, says something. She’s polite -- but not buying. He nods and moves away, bright smile, fingers snapping to the music. Once out of her view, the smile and jaunty finger-snapping go away. He’s just a guy moving through the crowd then. Looking for something he may not find tonight.

Everybody is looking, I guess. A quality journal, a close relationship -- a dance.

What do you think: half full or half empty?

--- JWR, 8/6/98