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<div>April 30, 2000000000000000000003</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>My dear friends,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>I'll
share this with you if you promise not to call Adult Protective
Services on me. Sometimes, as you know, these things just will
have out. It ain't pretty, but writing it is lots better (and
tidier) than doing it. Also note, that I probably couldn't
actually DO all these things, so there is some exercize of the fantasy
muscle......always good for the mood. </div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab>
</x-tab>Love,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab>
</x-tab>Tobie</div>
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<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Tuesday, April 29, 2003</div>
<div><br></div>
<div align="center">Let Me Count the Ways</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>#1<x-tab> </x-tab>While stopped at
a major intersection in the dark bad night, waiting neatly at the red
light, I climb out of the passenger seat, leaving the car door open,
walk out into the middle of the cross roads and stand there. In
my shabby purple canvas coat, my oversized blue cargo pants rolled up
for a cuff, because I don't shorten with needle and threat, my hair on
end, brittle and baby fine, I raise both arms to heaven in prayer, or
defiance, or surrender. My chartreuse and pink and orange crazy
striped socks show between pants and old brown suede stained clogs.
I stand there just like that, painted white in the night lights, until
someone who isn't paying much attention to sight or plight plows right
through me, ruining his car's hood, his windshield, my cunning outfit,
and his whole evening.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>#2<x-tab> </x-tab>I take the bus to
the University, walk through Sather Gate and take a right, proceeding
straight to the Campanile. I buy a ticket and take the elevator
up to the top where the carillon bells hang, huge and tiny, have been
there since they were dragged or hoisted a hundred years ago.
Nightly, morningly, they chime their corny slow bonging tunes in
spastic rhythm. All around the top balcony of the Campanile, the
openings are sealed with suicide proof thick glass (or is it
plastic?) that was installed forty years ago after the second
ambitious depressed person leapt off the top to his death below.
The first ambitious depressed person was actually also insane:
my cello teacher's father-in-law, a holocaust survivor who didn't
really survive, an honour - such a trend-setter.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>except
for those nasty glass barriers</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>So I climb up on the ledge, lift my arms in prayer, defiance, or
surrender, and wait for heaven's last breath, which sucks me up from
the low height, lifts me up, snatches me gently up, carries me off, up
into the sky, past the clouds, up into the sky. I am so far
away, no one can even hear me run out of oxygen and explode in the
stratosphere.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>#3<x-tab> </x-tab>I stuff myself
down the garbage disposal and reach back out to turn on the water and
flip the switch.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>#4<x-tab> </x-tab>I write in this
journal until I croak from neglect and old age. Also, the
sheets, by that time, are so filthy you could die from it.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>#5<x-tab> </x-tab>I keep on doing
what I've been doing, living the same life I am living and have been
living until it catches up to me and I yank my soul out by my lungs
and fry to death in my own anguish. This is done quietly so as
not to interrupt the real people. </div>
<x-sigsep><pre>--
</pre></x-sigsep>
<div><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Tobie Helene Shapiro<br>
Berkeley, California USA<br>
<br>
tobie@shpilchas.net</div>
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