A Little Oahu

I'm tired of all the pills, the smoothies and other stubborn colin remedies, the teeth guard, the back exercises, all the oil it takes to oil the jaw and joints of my tin woman body. I'm tired. I want a vacation like the brief one I had on Orcas in October, even though it took two buses and two ferries to get there. A pool. A condo. Water. Fish and chips nearby. Plenty of food hauled in. Books. A notebook. Oh, and a hot tub. That was good. I'm tired. The refrain here. Yesterday, Gregory and I gave a talk at an expensive private graduate school and were praised for our courage and forthcomingness, and I was tired of that too. Afterwards, we walked through the Market, and I bought half a dozen hot donut holes. The man who made them, threw the last one high in the air before catching it in the bag and twirled his donut grabber thing like it was a gun because that's they way they do things at the Market. The donuts were marveously warm on my fingers which were becoming pincherlike in the cold. I'm writing about it because it was like a little Oahu to be with a friend I so admire and am so comfortable with and have a sack full of the best small donuts in Seattle and just be walking around with no real agenda or place to be, talking about nothing in particular. A pesky Greenpeace guy had been trailing us for a while, partly because Gregory, who is nice to everyone, made the unthinking mistake of telling him his mother had a windmill so then the guy, who I realize was just doing his job, begin talking to us about solar energy. We entered the area where all the stalls are and I could tell, because I know Gregory, that he was trying (kindly) to lose him so, finally, I stepped in. It's what Gregory and I often do for each other, ballast each other's weaker parts. I said to the guy, "I have to tell you. We are speakers. We just spoke at a graduate school for two hours, and are kind of wiped out. So we are going to need to stop speaking for a while." Gregory said, "Thank you so much for what you are contributing to the planet." Because he's like that. Sometimes, I think Gregory is one of the reincarnate disciples or Buddha's half-brother. But my point is, as much as possible, for the next two weeks, until my job starts, I think I need to stop speaking. Need to at least have a faux vacation. Do all the tin-woman oiling mechanisms I'm required to do, and especially several I've gotten lax about, and spend my evenings making shadow-puppets on the wall.