Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Drinking tea she sat smiling at the thought that, when she'd opened her P.O. box the Tennessee counter clerk had sent her on to get her box saying in front of all the line of customers, "tell Maria I said you're cool". It wasn't what she'd meant, she'd meant that I'd passed all the requirements for the box, but this is Berkeley, it's where cool is cool and the clerk speaks in song and the stout man walking into Trieste has eyebrows bushy and wild that stick out two inches, that is his cool. We all have our cool. Hers is the hat right now. Berkeley is where the mind reader in the blue hat - says "they know me as 'blue' on Telegraph if you need to find me". He's really old money from England and a crazy artist, but maybe really makes money from his art, which he says will scare her. He says he created a good deal of the Star Wars metalworks, she wants to see it. He knows the Angel Pub and he knew the pond was gone and he knows Dick Turpin was not hung at Tibbits Corner, he knows they dragged his body there only after a judge told them they should have hanged him at Tibbits, but it's too late because he's already dead. He's told her that he can see the distinguishing mannerisms she uses and knows what part of her brain she's using, and that she is unique. Of course that works for her. "We used to cut up the brain you know, dissected them, we know what's going on there" and it's interesting to listen to him, even though he's crazy. In any case after that he tells her they're like sister and brother and that will work for her. How many characters can you gleam in a day - all of them she thinks.

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