I made a dash to Calvary yesterday, for no reputable or clear reason. I wanted to see if the chapel was open, not expecting it to be. It remains closed since Covid. They may have conducted some services in there but its former status of being open every day until 3pm looks like it might never return.

That’s too bad. it’s a quaint, dumpy little structure. The roof leaks so whenever it rains the place puddles and ponds. Poodles and pundits.

Speaking of which I had a crazy stream of dreams. One was horrible, of those types that make me question what goes on in this mind of mine. Dreams like this, as a sliver of my conscious mind looks on, make my brain feel like it has mold growing over it. Mold and dirt and sewer debris.

Only question about this one is what did I really do?

In the dream my mother had been gone for 4 months. I did something to her, but I don’t know what. Mumblings about her status and location never articulated her fate.

I was too young to be considered a suspect in anything to do with her disappearance. But I knew I  was responsible. I did something  horrible to her, or I caused her to walk into something she could not escape.

As the certainty increased words began to form. Sentiments and suggestions. She had not disappeared, a distant family member suggested. She left of her own accord. She walked out. She had had enough. As this sentiment gained traction I felt safe. Never a suspect for a crime I would live the rest of my life knowing I committed, even as I found mental resources to whitewash the details away.

Had it been a deliberate act of aggression? I think not. I think I set a trap, one too clever and unlikely for an 8-year old to concoct. It was a supernatural kind of trap, such that only a ghost could fall into. She had to already have been gone for this to have been her choice of action.

That was the genius of the ploy. Make it seem self-directed. This was no accident.

I woke from this dream feeling it was all still real. That mold and congestion on my brain increased to a point of suffocation, then instantly evaporated as consciousness tapped me on the forehead.

Another dream followed in which extended family welcomed me to an unknown city. Elvis was our driver, and we made a couple of stops to pick up friends I’ve made through my websites and through chat rooms. Digital people in the flesh, coming along for the ride.

We didn’t know the rains were coming. Floods so fast and silent we didn’t know we were drowning.

Some kind of dry land was reached and we landed in a multi-room suite that had been home to extended family for generations.

In that respect nothing about the place made sense. There was no booze. There was no suicide in any of the rooms. These absences, even of beer, made it certain this was a trap. I tried to climb through some windows to escape but the windows simply led to more rooms, more clusters of ever-extending family members huddled in corners, or else sitting on easy chairs, legs spread, playing poker and masturbating.

Where was all this coming from? I have met members of the so-called extended family but I don’t have any connections among almost any of them. With one exception I had nothing to talk about or bond over.

The closest I ever felt to my extended family was when my father read the family tree. One great-great-great–whatever after another had died from alcohol poisoning or else under suspicious circumstances. They didn’t suicide back then. They just died “unexpectedly”, as did my father, even though his planning and deliberation made the actual event anything but unexpected, to him at least, and ultimately to anyone who bothered to understood his motives.

This is some upbeat morning chitchat which went straight to hell after initially intending to recount something more joyful. Conversation yesterday at the cemetery led to some surprising intimacy and plans for more. Nothing serious. no strings. Just a couple of growed-ass New Yorkers getting to know  each other up at the boneyard. Too bad the chapel was locked up.

…

LANTERNFLY SLAUGHTER

The lanternfly carcasses are everywhere now. I squished at least a dozen yesterday, and missed 5 or 6. It’s amazing how they move. Just BOING.

It starts to feel ghoulish, though. I’d posted a video or two but don’t think I’ll keep at it, glorifying the sudden death of a creature that is a danger to crops and forestry, yes, but also an innocent creation, unaware that its very existence is a crime punishable by instant death. How might these creatures feel wandering a sidewalk littered with carcasses of their brethren? Do they think anything of it all? Do they really think in any kind of introspective or emotional way?

I first spotted them in the lobby of this office building last week. Just one bug. Today I think I spotted 12. They have to have launched into the elevators and infested the offices, not that there is anything here for them. No crops or forestry in these offices and cubicles.

I heard about a swarm of them in Brighton Beach last week, so many of them that they made quick mincemeat of a flowerbed and some garden vegetables.