mavis and i both don’t know if we want to see each other this evening.
mavis wants to protest with black women not upper class whites.
mavis texted to see if i still want to see her. she’s unsure about seeing me. i think she thinks it would be easier to go home, eat dinner, and go to bed even though she will feel insecure and lonely and bored before she goes to sleep.
i didn’t have sex with mavis but i was able to sleep in her bed.
i love mavis more than ever. is that because i didn’t get to have sex with her? she should deny me what i want and give me something else. instead of giving me a breast maybe she could give me her foot to suck. she said she was too sick to have sex. her eyes were red. she didn’t admit to having a headache. she has them more often than she tells me.
i read a book about dutch agriculture. there were photos of northern cows and life stock in it. the dutch know how to farm and to trade. why am i so bad at competition?

bobby’s three year friend charlie overdosed on zanax because her bf broke up with her. she has been smoking heroin and doing coke with bobby. i don’t know how often bobby smokes heroin, i think he does it every now and then for recreation. in his mind he’s not an addict. he has been having sex with charlie. charlie has been having sex with other men and women as has her boyfriend. bobby thinks she called him first and then 911 when he didn’t answer. he feels guilty about not having been there to help her and scared that he could have been with her when she could have died.

i’m so sensitive these days, bobby said.
bobby looks like he’s about to cry. he has a hard time concentrating. i know what that feels like. i take public transportation in my dreams. i’m feeling and thinking more but i’m not as steady. i haven’t taken a shower in five days.

some days mavis thinks bernstien is a genius, other days she thinks he’s obtuse and a dick.
funding is being cut for future projects at foresttrust.
mavis has four projects that will continue. she is currently writing a grant for
a cooking show that will be video taped.
a ny times critic amanda worked with on a panel wrote an article about how the protesters at standing rock are fed.
mavis is desperate to find ways to resist fascism, but she doesn’t really know how to do it productively. i don’t know if there is a productive way to do it.  mavis is not one to do anything extreme. she said that she was more unyielding and intense when she was younger and that she intimidated people. i don’t think many of us in middle age know how to change our behavour.

thomas is here. i haven’t seen him in awhile. i wonder if he still is living at the ymca. he’s reading his paper. i’m curious to see if he will start get himself worked up from what he reads in the paper and start yelling things out loud like he did at green bean. i hope he does. he must be livid about the old folks not voting for bernie. we can use chaos here.
thomas’s hair is whiter than it was. he looks more respectable. i think i will bash him if he loses self control.
i guess thomas hasn’t moved to venezuela like he said he would.
i saw sue lynn looking for cans. she has ocd. she’s a collector. i ignored her to get some food at whole foods and felt badly about it. i looked for her for an hour, stopping at laurel thirst her favorite haunt to give her a hundred dollars but i wasn’t able to find her. she’s very skinny. it’s not easy to make her out in the dark rain. i want to tell her i saw thomas. she likes him. she doesn’t like it when he loses it and yells at children.
thomas likes to feel the newspaper in his hands and to smell the print. when the wings of the paper flutter he yells obscenities at fascists and corrupt conservatives.

have you read larkin, bobby said.
i have, i said. i haven’t spent a lot of time with his writing. he’s one of the greats, i suppose. he’s british?
sharon olds, bobby said.
which of her books should i read, i said.
i forget the title, bobby said. i have one of her books. the cover is gold and there is a snake eating itself on it. i also have a collection. i’ll lend it to you.
bobby like myself loves women writers.
he gave me a purple piece of paper with the names of two women poets on it. i’m going to save it to have something to remember the endangered young man by. i don’t know how much longer he will be alive if he keeps smoking heroin.
are these women poets, i said.
yes, bobby said.
thanks, bobby, i said.
i will always be there for you i remember bobby having said to me last week.

thomas is ripping out articles, the paper is shrieking. his left brow is moving up and down. he has a red file with a newspaper article in it. he removes his glasses. he examines a scrap of paper. he grabs his red file, puts on his glasses and takes out a ny times magazine. he has his day to get through. he still is alive. i want to say his name so that he can hear it. thomas how are you buddy? how is life treating you? thomas, thomas, thomas. i remember you buddy. i will never forget you. you are impossible and you are loved.

thomas is reading his paper out loud to himself. i’m waiting for him to go off.