March 3rd, 2006.

Nightmares about apocalypse. Heather claims I have a lot of them, but I think they’re just the most memorable, perhaps. All in all, this one was a lot less graphic (I’ve had a good number where I’ve woken up with a very intense memore of childrens slack-fleshed fingers rolling out from under my boots), but a little more stressful. People packed in a panic into some sort of shelter, and then realizing that some unspecified THEM has taken the opportunity to launch a nuclear megadeath at us. Watching the red lights trail across huge maps and action boards… realizing that we only have space for 30 or so people in the reinforced shelter below. Trying to figure out how to get 30 people from the hundreds without causing a panic…

Of course, looking at it all, I vote that it’s money well-spent. I’m always in awe of what we as a species have created for our myths and beliefs. In God’s name we truly have created our greatest works.

From the Cathedral we go to the Bonaventure Cemetary. Up north we can have graveyards, but I almost feel it’s a dishonour to bury our dead sans Spanish moss.

Pamela and I had a great time discovering these waxy fern things. Their texture is Lovely and they have these crazy fuzzy interiors that make you want to poke’m. Of course, they’re also weirdly cavernous on the insides, and you get the vague feeling that whatever you poke in there might just get bitten off.

I Love the sculptures of women attached to old grave sites – they are invariably beautiful in an ethereal way, and the tones in the stone have an elegance to them that just isn’t often captured in any other medium. Ignore the fact that that sepia tonality is probably mostly dirt. I feel sorry for the loss of her fingers and wonder where they are.

And Deanne had gone to see the New York Museum of natural history recently – the idea that we’ve only been around for 100,000 years and that the dinosaurs had existed fro hundreds of MILLIONS of years had a real effect on her, and her thoughts had been echoing in my head. Hell… we haven’t proved ourselfs, we could be just a fluke. Look what we’ve initiated… red lines crossing the Atlantic… why are we worth saving? Don’t bother, don’t cause the panic.

Wake up.

Moving from the older sections of the cemetary, past the marble eyes of women dead a century or more, and into the more modern areas – the graves are less flamboyant, but they are Living things here… still visited, mourned, marking Lives that are still celebrated – it got me to thinking about my own parents’ choice to not be buried, to leave no marker. We’ll soon be scattering my father’s ashes, and then there will be nothing left to visit. I hadn’t ever really examined my feelings on that. I think I’m fine with it, but there might be some hidden desire to have some marker to leave tokens and souvenirs at. Perhaps postcards from my travels, stones from tiny towns that he would’ve Loved but never got to see. Pictures of the girls that I’m sure he would’ve liked. It could be a comforting lie, but even such a neutrally shaped monument would probably become an uncomfortable cross to bear.

Last night we played at the George Washington Bookstore and Tavern. Just an open mic, but nearly as lucrative as most of our gigs. Had a lot of fun watching people jam and playing along and just enjoying the people we’ve been meeting. Someone bought me tequila again, and I think that I shall be taking that in smaller doses from now on.

Spooky gives me Love when I make strange noises. Spooky gives me a lot of Love.

And of course Chris has to show me how the wrassling is done. Artemis is NOT amused.

Heather and I got very, very lost on the way back to Katie’s house, and what should’ve been a 30 minute drive on the outside took well over an hour. Maybe even longer – I don’t remember when we left the bar.

Ugh, got back to the house at around 3am and then got wrapped up in my online world for about half an hour before just collapsing into the waiting arms of the couch, under the watchful empty eye-sockets of the skeleton in the corner.

Ugh.