I stopped frozen in the doorway, too stunned to think. Holy shit, who is this woman! She's doing it again.

Then I looked over to the teenager waiting in front of the elevator. The daughter. She was talking with the daughter. She turned toward the elevator and glanced at me, still frozen in the door, the same position I'd been in the last time we'd met in the lobby. She smiled briefly, a quizzical expression. The elevator doors closed and both were gone. I, um, closed the lobby door behind me and checked my own mail. Pretty soon, I hoped, I'd awaken.

Enough about house cleaning. I think I've milked it far beyond patience or comprehension.

Now, I wrote that last night while reading James Ellroy's The Big Nowhere, the second member Ellroy's L.A. Quartet, set in the Los Angeles of the 40's and 50's that includes L.A. Confidential, Black Dahlia and White Jazz. Amazon informs me they've finally found White Jazz out there in used book land and they'll be sending it to me real soon now. MSM informs me that White Jazz is somewhat experimental with Coltrane like rhythms and not for everyone. We'll see. If James Ellroy's cops were ever real cops, who ever really existed in the real world, then you would stone cold know why you wouldn't want your daughter to marry one, your son joining the force, or any member of your family bringing one home to dinner. Still, for noir, they're damned good, and my old anarchist buddies from the seventies have obviously read all of them with pleasure. Those of my anarchist buddies who are still alive and reading.

Anyway, reading Ellroy last night, I wrote the snippet at the top which I bring up now only to mention I'm keeping a writing pad next to my bed these days so I can mark down any little thing that passes. Otherwise I forget and there goes a perfectly good entrance into a journal entry. I'm still looking for something waterproof for the bath and something less funky than a ball point pen rolled up tight in a sheet off a legal pad, both stuffed together in my pocket when I'm walking. But, you know, a start. I'm looking through some of those pages now: "...if it makes you queasy, good, it should.". Did I use that anywhere? Nice sound to it. Nice chunky rhythm.