say something about memorial daze. ok i'll try. i'm sitting in r.'s place without r., without cats crying for breakfast, looking out the 15th floor window on a peaceful morning with birds singing on the fire escape. a series of 12-15 gun shots. an ambulance. sound of traffic rising. most of what is dread is anticipation. what is waiting in the brief silence. before full waking. if waking comes. on memorial day weekend. i was gonna say, i don't recall what memorial day is, but i imagine it is a celebration of our dead, some of our dead, those ones who waged our wars. thinking the living celebrate the dead by living. lighting the grill, drinking the wine, roasting the beast in celebration of the dead who gave us our uniquely american life. i think of all the death that went into this way of life. i'll go down there today and hope to avoid guns and autopilots, the fumes of petroleum briquets, the how'd we do, the memorial exhaust, and i'll think of all the dead, all the ones we don't know, the countless therefore uncounted, even the dead who were here in yesterdays not far away, in time what we displace.