dreamt of a birthday party over the equation for creation

I dreamt of your birthday party, Myrna. It was hosted at an expanded tree house, which was attached to the back of some hipster/tres chic restaurant bar. Hmmm... the convergence of the bucolic and the urbane. If not a paradox, at least a strange and pushed juxtaposition, yeah?

I was there with a date (who knew that you were my ex-) and I do not know how we were invited -- or if we even were. As she and I sat at the picnic table under copious foliage from the mighty oak that the tree house used for structural support, you walked by.

You and I made eye contact. You nodded. I winked. That was the last we saw of each other.

During the party, I found myself in a conversation about the algorithms of the fast pace of modern life. I was explaining to another writer the equation of getting to a destination before you ever leave, which seems to be the goal of conquering/getting through the daily machinations of modern life.

It is a paradox -- the pace at which the population gets through each day, which transcends the good ol' "D = R x T" or "Distance equals Rate times Time."

I said the new equation could be written as Infinity over zero. I wrote down the symbols on a napkin. ∞/0.

He studied the semiotics on the napkin and then looked at me. Then he said that ∞/0 was also the equation for creation.

bellwether

After four hours sleep, the alarm sounded before the coffee maker switched on and it was time to get dressed and prep the bicycle for the 80-mile ride from Pasadena to Long Beach and back.

The sleep deprivation and the accompanying delirium were the results of staying up at a rock and roll nightclub until it closed, and charming some cute, lithesome lipstick lesbian and a pair of still-in-school make-up artists. The lesbian was ignoring her equally cute girlfriend, and as we talked about the field of journalism, I had to explain to her what the word "bellwether" means.

Staring at the ceiling, smelling the espresso grind brew, and attempting to focus my eyes, I closed them long enough to visualize touching your leg, kissing you on your sleepy cheek and whispering to you that I was leaving for a bike ride and would be back in the afternoon. In this vision, you giggled and pulled the covers up over your neck.

I opened my eyes again. The room was cold and the windows were socked in with fog. It was going to be a long, chilly bike ride. The warmest things in the room were the smell of coffee doing an interpretative dance up around the ceiling and the ghost of a memory that never happened.