Saturday, February 02, 2008

I gazed up to the roof of the Marriott from the eighth floor bar and lounge atrium, with the elevator column in the center shooting straight up by dozens of stories, with cars gliding up and down its exterior. I sought some apprehension of wonder that this thing could be, that here it was before me, some notion of future now. But instead it all seemed leaden and dreary, grayed by the relentless come-and-go of conventioneers and bored and surly kids with their put-upon moms and pops in tow.

Last night I dreamt about my dad and as I spoke to him, in some version of his stricken state, blue and rose clouds roiled and gathered in tight, contiguous spheres. Somehow reminiscent of the gathering clouds of mothership activity in the sky above the government-installed landing strip on Devil's Tower after everyone thought the show was over and it was time to pack up the big synthesizer and go home in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Today on the phone, wanting to allude to that, I told him it was stormy in New York, which in fact it was. "Ah," he said.