31 March 2003, 10:58 p.m.

Not ... but ...

back & forth

Instead of writing about how sad I am about THE WAR, I am going to write an entry about the joy of listening to music with two big speakers, one either side of my head. Favorite crazy antiphonal songs: Communist daughter, Abigail, belle of Kilronan, assorted Venetian ceremonial music.

Instead of writing about how frightened I am about THE WAR, I am going to write an entry about the friends I have on all sides of the country, the planet, this revolting town, whether I know them in that sharing a pleather sofa way or in that sharing a few words or a few songs a few times a month way.

Instead of writing about how angry I am about THE WAR, I am going to write about the crowd of fellow-B*st*nians, fellow N*w-*ngl*nders who made our noise for peace on the Common on Saturday. I am going to write about the way the papers and television screens don't show how angry we are about this war. I am going to link to an article from the (London) Times about traveling across Pennsylvania in a Greyhound bus, and the real voices you hear in this country. Because I sure as fuck wouldn't find that in an American newspaper.

Instead of writing about how tired I am about THE WAR, I am going to go to bed and dream more of those awful dreams of destruction and then wake up and try like hell to get to work on time.

* * *

At the front of the 1375 to Pittsburgh is Mary Singletary, 60, from Connecticut, who is off to visit her daughter in Newark, New Jersey. Like many Americans, she does not like the idea of flying during the war. Her son, Raymond, 38, is in the US Navy aboard the USS Constellation somewhere in the Gulf. She hears from him almost every day, but still worries constantly.
�I don�t like war, period. That�s it,� she says, �but all you can do is keep on living. And hope that he does, too.

* * *

Abigail, an evil wind is blowing through the land, / And they need every man to drive it away...

* * *

Then there was the day my five year old son Samuel called me into the bathroom to see something. He stood before the toilet, peeing. "Look Mama, my penis is a weapon. Doesn't it look like an arrow?" I had to say it did, and walked out of the room wondering as Woolf did, whether men's urge to fight is "innate or accidental." Given the spear-like nature of their love-making apparatus, I wasn't so sure.