Now that I think about it, Ben really is Childermass from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. The same archetype—what would you call it? Vagabond spellcaster? Autodidact magician? Loki? But anyway, I dreamed about him last night, and as happens every time I dream about Ben, the connection was strong enough to throw me out of my everyday life entirely. I woke up thinking, This world is an odd place to be.

In the dream, there were a lot of people and some kind of Renaissance Faire-y setup through which Ben and I were circling each other. At the very end of the dream, he made a clumsy, unexpected sexual advance—and I remember thinking, This isn't fun! No, wait—maybe it is, 'cause I could feel my body beginning to loosen and orgasm.

I haven't thought about Ben for months.

And I can't imagine why my psyche booked him a ticket to last night's dream world.

Except maybe he's still the sphinx that guards the entrance into the Temple of Writing.

He was the best writing partner I ever had—and I like having writing partners, that other voice in the inner dialogue you can bounce ideas off. We worked together very, very well in that capacity, seamlessly you might say, so that it was impossible to tell where my ideas left off, and his began. A world-class banterer, too! And very, very smart. I find myself wondering this morning what his take on artificial intelligence and diminishing human returns might be.

And, of course, I recognized the changeling streak in him from the very beginning. Did not have enough self-preservation instincts to steer clear. But on some level, I knew what I was getting. Though when I met him, I was brokering in mere verisimilitude: I didn't have a whole lot to give up. It never occurred to me that over time, I would acquire those things that would make the deal I struck with him a bad one in hindsight.

Whatever, I am thinking the karma between us is resolved, and I'll never have to encounter him again in subsequent lifetimes. I mean, I may see him from a distance. I'll smile. I'll wave. But I won't circle closer for conversation.

###

On his deathbed, he struggled out of his coma to grasp my fingers and croak, "I love you."

"I love you, too!" I chirped. But I was lying.

Whatever the thing between us was, it wasn't love.

But you don't lay ambivalence on a dying man.

###

In other news, I finished approximately half the things on my To-Do list yesterday.

The stuff that didn't get finished was all the housecleaning shit.

My bathroom is absolutely disgusting, so much as I hate housecleaning, I really must tackle that today. And vacuum!

I also have a couple of bananas that got overly ripe overly fast, so I thought I might hunt down a banana pudding recipe. I do ❤️LUV❤️ me some banana pudding!

In the late afternoon, I tromped back up Malloy Road. I wish I had a name for the old farm acreage up there! It's Harrier Ridge so maybe Harried Plateau? Right across from one of the super-deluxe five-zero-price-tag McMansions (with its own gazebo and faux corral), I saw this:



Photo doesn't allow you to read the fading paint letters, but apparently it was once a packing house for an ancient apple orchard whose ghost haunts the McMansions and whose last few gnarled trees still struggle to put out blooms (all blighted by last night's frost, no doubt). This part of upstate was once famous for its apple orchards.

A few yards to the right of the packing house sat the trashiest trailer you've ever seen. I saw movement in its window when I looked at it—somebody lived there still. I made up an elaborate fantasy: It was the great-great-grandscion of the original apple orchard owners who, for some strange reason, will not sell out to the McMansion developers. (Attachment to ancestral lands? Tax problems? Tertiary syphilis?)

When was the last time this building had been painted?

Probably, in the 1980s.

And I realized that's what's wrong with today: Everybody thinks the 1980s is "long ago," but it isn't 'cause I was young and gorgeous in the 1980s.

The 1930s were long ago!

The 1980s were yesterday.