time anxiety. anxiety of the times. it could just be a lacuna, between the solstice and the new year, it could be a nesting time. the anxiety of time is separation. the old ghost of anxiety creeping in.

now xmas is almost past. though we didn't have to do it, we still have to pass through it, and now then we can sing for auld lang syne to the dog of memory and sing the refrains we can't forget, for days of auld lang syne.

should auld acquaintance be forgot

and never brought to mind?

should auld acquaintance be forgot

and days of auld lang syne?

for auld lang syne, my dear

for auld lang syne

we'll take a cup o' kindness yet

for days of auld lang syne

it's about memory, even forgotten or unspecified, it still makes you want to cry.

i forgot to publish this yesterday. now it is past, but we're still in it, in a way.

 i heard a series of explosions last night. many nights i hear guns, and rarely get the shooting story, maybe it's not news or too common to be told, but these were like small bombs. still, no story, just sounds in the night, when my ears are ringing before and after the booms, and my head is longing for a silence to come over the city that can't be heard. whatever goes down it seems nothing is out of the ordinary, though we can't help speculating, so we just keep mum and go on.

 now several members of my close family have the virus. as d.b. sings, i'm not lost, but i don't know where i am. i got a question.                              i'm a shadow among the things i don't understand.

 

 i got a copy of the nome nugget from jenni monet. i didn't know alaska was so close to russia, 55 miles across the bering strait. people crossed in skin boats. there are sister islands 3 miles apart separated by a border in 1948. what will happen in the new cold war. jenni has a couple articles in the paper. one says there's a cultural festival said to open up the border for 7 days, but nobody knows about it in nome. 

 i think jenni's a guest writer. you can see her on her own site, indigenously, and subscribe for free. 

 my horoscope from the nome nugget says, there is no reason to let emotions get the best of you, sagittarius. your confidence will diffuse many situations as long as you are tactful and respectful. well, it's an old horoscope, from 12/2/21. i have let emotions get the best of me, and i have been less than tactful. 

 i remember a downtown analyst. george, red hair i don't know how i got there. i was reading a book on hypnotic suggestion and asked him to do it. it wasn't his thing but he did it, and i faked it. he said look at this stairwell in the base of a tower going down. go down. so i faked going down and but i couldn't fake what i saw there so i said i don't see anything, it's just blank, and wondered if he knew i was faking it.

 i remember the fake santa came to our split level house in deerfield. he grabbed and picked us up. i pulled his beard off finally, after a couple visits, and it was some guy named charlie i think. did he smell like booze, i think? i was tired of the show and tired of faking enthusiasm. but years later i was still faking enthusiasm, watching my half sister ripping through a mountain of presents waiting to unwrap my holiday sweater. for a few years after dad died his 3rd wife sent me his left sweaters. they still had the scent of him for a while, until his scent faded and now they mostly smell like me. 

we search for things to extol. that was tagged on this picture left from yesterday. maybe from a song of sufjan. i talked to maw. she says the same things over and i feel sad. she says we boys never went to dad's, laura flew there alone with her trans world airline wings pinned to her gingham xmas dress — i add that detail. but i recall many painful xmas's staring at the roaring hearth in silent communion with the grim pops.