Jesus. I really do just drift.

I start thinking about something that’s really important to me — for instance, what I’m planning to work on today; what I want to get done. The next thing I know, my mind has drifted far out to sea and a couple of hours are already gone.

I was impressed, though, that this morning, I was able to remember  a lot of stuff. Old foreign movie titles, mostly — and sometimes even the names of the directors of the movies. I was, of course, thinking about Baden Baden, Germany pretty much the moment my eyes opened — at 4:44am. (Nick Cave is having a Conversation there tonight.) I seemed to recall that it was a sort of “spa” town.

And then I wondered: what was the name of that movie — I think it was French. And people seemed to be at some sort of resort — was that Baden Baden? And I recalled that at some distant time, Keith Richards had talked very positively about the film in an interview. And it seemed like it was an interview from before he become just a relentless heroin addict — wherein he hardly gave any interviews. (And after he got clean for real, he became the chattiest guy, ever, hence his memoirs being 547-delightful- pages long.)

Anyway, the title of the film came back to me: Last Year at Marienbad. (I sort of got the “bad” part right.) It was directed by Alain Resnais, but I had forgotten that it was written by the truly iconic writer, Alain Robbe-Grillet, which, alone, explains the entire movie. (Even though it was made far back in 1960, you probably wouldn’t want to watch it nowadays while on drugs — it’ll only make you want to shoot yourself; trying to keep up with it. But if you’re totally sober, man, what an interesting premise. And I think it’s what “real life” is actually like — all the probabilities of physical reality, playing out at once.)

Well, anyway, I drifted far afield from Nick Cave in Baden Baden and was then thinking about The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (French, 1972, but directed by Luis Buñuel, who was Spanish). And then recalling Murmur of the Heart and how much I loved that movie (French, 1971, Louis Malle). And then I started wondering if anyone still makes movies anymore that treat incest in a positive, thoughtful way — within an intensely complicated, affluent family. (In this case, mother-son incest, where the dad’s a successful gynecologist.) And I figured, probably not, because nowadays, everything is all about how horrifically we’re all treated, assuming we aren’t just making movies about comic book Super Heroes, fighting against Evil.

I don’t know, it seems kind of regrettable to me that the nature of storytelling in film has changed so drastically — in a way, exploratory thinking itself has sort of been censored. And also this seeming need, at least in the Western world, to be so critical and eager to lay blame on others and on Governments, without wanting to spend too much time wondering what delicate thing we might have learned on our difficult journey…

A thing I don’t seem to be able to ever stop doing…

Anyway, a couple of hours zipped by. I was still laying in bed, in the dark, drinking my coffee. These thoughts just kept coming. Then I forced myself to get out of bed — and stay out of bed — and then found myself sitting on the end of the bed, halfway between being still in my PJs and out of my PJs, and found myself thinking about this nature of probabilities and wondering how many various probabilities could be at play in my own life — you know, if my mom hadn’t given me up for adoption, or if I’d been adopted by different parents, etc. How are those probable lives for me playing out? Are they affecting how I’m thinking right now? Did I have a drastically different past? Am I already dead in some of those probable lives?

And then I found myself on this other path, wherein I decided I wasn’t looking back anymore. You know, not going to think about the past, or if I did think about it, I wanted only to imagine how it would have felt had it gone differently or gone better. But mostly — just don’t think about the past (“that was then, this is now”). Only see here & now and look forward, imagining the best outcomes from now on.

But then almost another hour had passed and I was still sitting there, half-undressed on my bed.

(I also sort of wonder about how to contend with writing two memoirs if I’m not going to think about the past. Could get tricky.)

And here’s a photo of Weenie, sitting on my night table as the sun was coming up:

Okay, well. My “ex” in Seattle did indeed send me a number of links about the predictions for the Year of the Rat. They seem pretty positive in regards to my career. Actually, really positive about the career. Not so positive about anything else, so I decided to ignore what I didn’t like. But both East & West zodiac systems seem to think my career will go well this year.

One of the Chinese sites predicted that my love life would be very interesting, in that I would  fall in love with someone who was exactly like myself and the relationship would be like a Hall of Mirrors. (They said this like it was a good thing.)

Well, that certainly gave me pause, as I tried to figure out what the hell that meant.

I did like the idea of a relationship that was like a Hall of Mirrors — well, I liked the sound of it; I liked the imagery. But I can’t really grasp what it’s supposed to mean, besides constant reflections, back & forth.

And it’s interesting to think that it’s a prediction meant for everybody who was born under the sign of the Rat. (In my case, the Metal Rat.) Every 12 years, a ton of people are born under the sign of the Rat, and all of us are going to be engaged this year in a positive relationship that will be like a Hall of Mirrors.  That’s a heck of a lot of people walking around the planet who won’t really know where they’re going, lost in that Hall of Mirrors and all. So I’m guessing life is just going to get interesting for absolutely everyone in 2020, if only by default.

(And isn’t a Hall of Mirrors a Western thing, or did we get that from the Chinese? Do they have Fun Houses? It’s kind of hard to imagine that. I don’t know.) (Although, back when Neptune & Surf was first published, another writer who’d tried to read it said that it was confusing — “like a Chinese Fun House” — with the opium den, the Chinese prostitutes, the Cuban guitar player, the Tilt-A-Whirl, the fire at Dreamland…)

Oh well. Can’t please everybody.

On that note, though, I did manage to eventually get dressed here, brush my teeth and all that. And I do really have to get the day started!! (Although everything just feels different today, you know? Like I woke up in a different reality, somewhat similar to the one I recognized last night, but somehow different. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, though.)

Okay. Have a good Monday wherever you are in the world. (It’s a holiday here in the States — Martin Luther King Day. Although I’ve noticed that now people just call it “MLK.” They don’t say the whole name anymore, or even the “day” part. Just “MLK.” I guess there’s not enough time to say the whole thing anymore because it would give us less time to look at our phones.) All righty. I was back to George Harrison this morning, for whatever reason — probably subconsciously thinking about Jesus and how glorious it felt to see those icons of him in the church at my stepmom’s funeral. So I’ll leave you with that. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya.