It was the kind of day that makes you want to lick it’s cotton candy sticky sweetness from your fingers. 90 degrees and everybody running around showing skin. The sun roof was open and I was sharing the sounds of cLOUDDEAD with everyone whether they liked it or not. The psychic fair this weekend rocked. I had a relatively endless line of Asian women of all ages for some reason sit before me. Patterns like that tend to make me wonder what I’m working on. Am I secretly Ami or Yumi and don’t know it? I tend to believe coincidences are just the Universe’s way of being anonymous. Little synchronicities and patterns at times create a tapestry where the oddest things can and do happen.
I spent the night with the Swarthy Italian. He got that name from one of our favorite readers, Ms. Kiki Von Trapp, after a great date awhile back went nowhere. She wrote in to ask, “Excuse me, whatever happened to the Swarthy Italian?” Answer: nothing. And here it is months later and he unexpectedly makes a fresh appearance in a later episode. On Friday while answering phones at the psychic school, I compiled a list of phone calls I had been extremely tardy in returning. The last stop in phone tag with Swarthy Italian ended with me – and even though it was ages ago I thought I simply must call him, and you know what? I didn’t anyway. But who do I run into out in the world after the fair? I’m walking down the street and a guy passing me says, “Hey, aren’t you Philo?” Yes, dear reader, it was that Swarthy Italian himself!
Laughs led to dinner. Dinner led to an up close and personal evening between the sheets. It was hot to say the least and afterwards we’re lying there. He’s smoking a Marlboro menthol light. I’m thinking to myself about the unlikely oddity of running into him 24 hours after making a mental note about him. I start thinking about what a nice guy he is, and I wondered where all this could lead some day. Deciding that I’m not going to wait months again, I open my mouth, “So, what does your week look like? Can we meet up again soon?” He says, “This week is crazed Philo with the move. Oh, I didn’t tell you, I’m moving to Los Angeles in five days. I got a new job.”
It does seem like a pretty major thing to forget to tell someone, particularly when you’re catching up over dinner and the like. So it was nice to say goodbye at least, but why does a character reappear several chapters later only to probably vanish without a trace? Earlier today I went to Amoeba Music and spent some of my Dubya refund bonus bucks on new tunes, then I went for a long drive out of the fog covered Bay Area and into a starlit night listening to the likes of Califone, Autechre and The Gossip. The moon is coming up with that beautiful orange glow. I have cigarettes, a bottle of water, and a lemon zest luna bar. It’s a beautiful world.