For a brief moment, everyone was quiet.  And it all had to do with Mattie.  She had stopped before the men, and was staring somberly at Jason.  “Mister,” she said, her voice atremble.  “Don’t go.  Don’t take that stage tomorrow.  I got a bad feeling...” 

Jason froze numb at Mattie’s words, his brow suddenly moistened..  This was the second time she had even looked at him.  And now she was talking directly to him, warning him about the stage.  He didn’t quite know what to make of it.  Except he felt encouraged.

Aug 21,  We all love him.  Tiger Woods.  My parents do.  I do.  Even Stretch watches golf now, because of Tiger Woods.  Isn't that incredible?

Aug 22.  See, I don't love him.  I can't love him.  We don't communicate.  And he is abusive.  It doesn't matter that his abuse comes from boyhood inculcations about "men shall have dominion over Mother Fucking Females who can't be smarter, more clever, more accomplished, with more style.  Oh, no.  Females must be in their place.  Cuz the Bibbo tells me zo.  Poor Eve.  She is really downgraded because she ate an apple, because she was a curious creature after knowledge.  She was probably accomplished too.

Aug. 24  Today is a very difficult day.  My car didn't start last night, when I decided it was finally time to take my old cat Mai Tai to the vet.  That had been a very hard decision because I know what's inevitably in store for my old and dying cat.  Then the car won't start.  Stretch hopes to fix it this morning, otherwise I have to call a service for large sums of cash.  Please, my old cat is dying.  He is thin and gaunt now.  He isn't eating.  He likes to lie on the white cushioned chair under my dining table.  That is where he wants to be now.  Under the green satin cloth, covered glass.  The cloth came from China.  It has two dragons on it and the edges flutter around the table because of the fans above.  My cat, Mai Tai, likes to be there now.  But I will take him to the vet today, if I can get the car fixed.  I don't want him to suffer.  He is a seal point Siamese from a Boston pet store.   $200 --16 years ago when he was about six months old.  $200 for 16 years of Love, Bodhisattva love.

Aug 28  Life is overwhelming.  Mai Tai is still with me, though he is aging.  It makes me cry to see my old cat about to die.  It's as though he has been part of my spirit, is part of it:  and that part is leaving soon.  I cry.  But now is an extremely emotional time for me.  I am building a business by seeking loans and venture capital, and I am pushing my writing career.  The writing in itself would take me away totally.  I mean, I wish I could simply devote myself to that. But I'm a multiplex person now.  A power woman with tentacles out in every feasible direction.  I am a woman who has to make it now, on her own.  I have to work twice as hard, because I am a woman.  I am always interrupted and often patronized, even if subtly.  This is my difficult relationship.  And, at the same time, my old cat is dying.

The thing is, I've so much to do, and then I get busy, and then I stop and see my old cat Mai Tai.  "How are you doing, old man?" I may ask.  My eyes always well up with tears.  This is a "Here and Now" thing, interrupting my busy life.  It is life, stopping me in the here and now, for life, because this is life -- the here and now.  The past is a myriad of phantoms, some helping, some harming, some just in the way.  The future is the dream where we walk, only in the here and now.  My heart belongs to here and now when I see my old cat age.

I say, no wonder people take to altered states of consciousness (drugs, alcohol, addictions).  the here and now, like phantoms of the past haunting, like nightmares of the future, the here and now is a difficult place to be.  

But here and now is also where I am learning how to love.

Sept 2, 00:  been a few days.  I am hand feeding Mai Tai.  a big vat of margarine exploded today

Labor Day, Sept 4:  I'm going to have Stretch take Mai Tai to the vet tomorrow.

Sept 6:  Mai Tai is still with me, though he's deteriorating.  A small black kitten showed up last week.  I call him Mai Tai's Shadow.  He's pure black with almost red eyes.  Very frisky and alive, walking in the footsteps of a Prince.  You see, Mai Tai is a high level Bodhisattva spirit.  Anyone could tell that when meeting this Siamese Cat from Boston.  He simply has a noble personality.  The aura about him is that of a very old soul. 

Last night I took Mai Tai out by the pond in the cooling September air.  This seemed to stimulate him and he even took a drink and enjoyed watching the goldfish.  I though maybe I'd find him gone this morning, but he's still here.  And, I am getting used to his parting.  My debate is whether to let him go naturally, or have Stretch take him to the vet.  Unless he gets terribly ill, I want to let him go naturally.  I want to burry him in my front yard under a large lion fountain, which I'll call Mai Tai's fountain. 

Anything else, less maudlin?  My dobbes have locked after four heats.  I want to be a grandmother just once, then I'll have my son's balls lopped off and my daughter's tubes tied. 

Otherwise, I am finishing up editing on Kill chapter one and am ready to put up more writings on my site.  Soon, I'll advertise.

Later:  I'm inspired to write:  (this is my first rough draft written online.  It will be fully developed and edited at Mai Tai's Shadow.)

He is old now, my cat Mai Tai.  My seal point Siamese.  He was always a beautiful cat, with bright turquoise blue eyes and the disposition of a Prince, a Cat Prince.  

But now, after fifteen years, his time has come and he is dying.  It was very hard at first, because he aged in but a week.  That is, in a week he became a very aged cat, an old and dying cat.  Though I knew this was coming, the vet had already diagnosed kidney failure.  Still, I'd hoped for more time.  We will always hope for that, even though the timing of death is not our to chose.  It's not even ours to hope for.  

So why do we hope?  

It's the parting that's sad.  The final good-bye.

But he, my cat, is dying with such noble grace and dignity.  He is sitting by the pond, enjoying a September breeze.   And I was going to have him put down.  Now, I will let him die in his own good time (unless he appears to suffer).  

He is fading from me, but he's still here, taking one last look around, like only a cat will do.  You know, that look from a window for hours at a time, or from the veranda.  

Mai Tai is gracefully tip-toeing out of my present life, kindly telling me good-bye as he walks, so skinny now, step by step through the gardens by the pond.  

It was, perhaps a week ago now, that the little black kitten showed up in our yard.  At first I didn't think much of him, just watched him play.  He was skinny, underfed, probably lost.  But he was frisky.  I picked him up and took him to the screened- in veranda.  It didn't matter now, about bringing in a stray kitten home who might have Leukemia or something.  Mai Tai was dying anyway.

I sat the kitten by Mai Tai, both hissed at each other.  And after five or six days, the kitten, now fat, is still afraid of Mai Tai -- when we try to put them together.  (I have many pictures to come).

Mai Tai is fading now.  He quit eating perhaps two weeks ago and he is now skeletal, despite trips to the Vet and my attempts to hand feed him.  But he keeps going, a step at a time, to look around a while longer. 

His eyes are no longer bright turquoise blue.  They are marked by a dying body.  Dying flesh. 

But Mai Tai has a very old soul, as only a Cat Prince could have.  So he stays around a while longer, perhaps to help me along, or simply to gaze at the world in the here and now, as only a cat would do.

And as my old cat fades away, he has with him a Shadow, the little kitten

How Noble are those footsteps that his little soul has come to follow.

Sept 8:  The deed's done.  I had to put him down because he was suffering.  I had to move him along.  Now I plan to bury him in the front yard.  I will have a large Lion Fountain there.  Today was hard.  Three of us cried, me, Stretch and my ex-spouse.  But I feel better now.  He didn't have to linger on.

Sept 9:  Yesterday had been a day like this:  Harried.  My computer modem had burned out because of the thunderstorms.  I'm in Sam's Club, at the computer aisle and some old couple who look like tourists in Hollywood, stop me and ask, "What's a modem?"  the old man grins, "What's a modem?" he asks again.  

I was harried, Stretch had stressed me about something unnecessary, my old cat was dying, and some old tourist looking man and his wife are asking me, "what's a modem?"

"I don't know," I said, harried, headachy.

They laugh, thinking I had made a joke with them.  I'm one of them.  I don't quite know what a modem is, but it has to do with computers.

What a day.  My old cat was rapidly deteriorating, still noble, uncomplaining.  A cat.  A Cat Prince.  I told the vet I wanted to bury him at home.  She put him in a box with an artificial rose on top and a wonderful letter called "Rainbow Bridge."  I seemed to be about reincarnation.  Our loves, our companion animals, have moved on now to the Rainbow Bridge, a wonderful temporary place.  But they will one day be back in our lives...

It was so appropriate.  I buy into all this now.  The spiritual progression of souls, all souls.  Together we are, together we will be.

We buried him in the front yard, Stretch and I.  And so mystically, I looked around and all our other cats were there, for the funeral.  There was Tiger the out door yellow tom, who plays now with the little black kitten we call Mai Tai's Shadow.   And Andrew, my other old tuxedo cat (alias Monsieur, the cripping putz), came out to watch.  He sat by the front walk.  Tri, the fat white cat everyone thinks is pregnant, sat up on the front awning to watch.  Even Tara, our psychopathic lesbian Amazon aloof Siamese who stays under the house, came out last evening, for the funeral of a Cat Prince. 

Today I am rallying all my resources to see about buying this wonderful lion head fountain, three tier, about 4K.  It will sit above Mai Tai's resting spot.  I will tell more about this in a later entry.  

Now, I'm off to buy a new computer.  How can I survive without the Internet and working computers?  Can't

Sept 12:  the foundation for Mai Tai's fountain is laid.  He is really entombed now, my cat.  I'll call my book about my cats:  Mai Tai's Shadow:  Legacies of a Cat Prince.  It'll be about my love affair with cats (I used to not like them!) and the mystical power of this regal manifestation of beauty and grace. 

Mai Tai's Shadow, the little black kitten, was either a panther in the jungles of Guatemala, or a Bengal Tiger.  He loves to stalk prey in our jungle-like gardens.  He has some of Mai Tai's spirit because he is more frisky with life than any kitten I've known.  He flies out of the garden onto a chair, he dashes to the house when I first appear on the veranda, and he lets me hold him as I held Mai Tai -- a teddy bear cat.  I am happy for the moment.

I talk to the banker about loans, this morning.  She's stopping by on her way to work.  I'm trying to get a lot of things going.  And I can't have any doubt when it comes to believing "I can do what I aim to do:  I will do what I aim to do!"  This can be my mantra, along with "I won't let this trouble me, I won't let this trouble me!"  (especially if it's an insignificant thing on the path to greater things.)

Later:  I live in a house of ghosts.  And what's most haunting is that these ghosts might be lapses in my short term memory.

Sept 14:  I came across two gems just now, as I sorted through old notes.  One was the original scrawled out plot outline for And You Learn How to Kill.  I'm writing histories to all my novels for my book: How's the Flow:  Masterbations of a Writer.  Now I'll be able to add this original outline to the history of "Kill."  Also, I found the following bit of prose that I wrote back in the 80's, when I was in Thailand:

"I was very young at that time, though I saw myself appearing old.  Now those years are occasional reflections, becoming clear, then fading out.  Those years of youth are visions of beauty and love un-scaffolding hate and repentance.

Now, I am far from those years, enough to see a dream I once chased into far distant lands, to penetrate cultures I never knew before. 

I was like an ant, never really alone in my meanderings.  Always part of the whole, the inseparable, though I fancied myself as being alone.  

I was so young then, my youth became old.  And as I now look back, I am no older than that youth, just in another spot."

Now, what am I saying here? 

And lastly, I found the outline to this book, which sounds good enough to pursue.  I have done enough research and have enough notes.  It's called:  Makeup, Purses and Heels:  the Sexually Impractical Hidden Minority.  It's a book I really must finish.  Curious, there's a post and pre Internet World of mine.   Now I have Internet for everything from book research to my own marketing.

Sept 17:  here I am, trying to make it safely through a few disasters, winding through technology....  Max is by my desk.  I hate to cook, but I have to eat.  and I am finicky.  Went camping under the harvest moon, then on the way home, the car's electrical system went haywire (technology) and we were stranded in Baker, the backwoods of an already backwoods area.  A kind man towed us to a Ford Dealer.  Someone merely pushed a reset button we didn't know about.  And we headed back home.  Could've been worse. 

technology:  I have to get cords for my scanner.  No telling why they're missing.  I think there are ghosts in this house.  As a member of the Internet Revolution, I must have in full operation:  1) two computers online, speedy access accounts; 2) a high quality printer for all applications; 3) a fax 4) several phone lines and cordless phones that work.  ( I must pause here.  It's the ghosts again because since I've been here trying to run this business of mine, I've had nothing but trouble with phones.  I've bought expensive phones too belaboring to figure out and about 5 cordless phones -- top of the line.  So, a ghost comes between me and this phone technology, I don't know why.  I try to answer a cordless, and nothing happens, I try to switch to another line -- Zero!  Forget about head phones.  I belabor this phone thing but for me, somehow, it's been the most difficult technology to solve [have it working for me, not me for it])  5) an operational scanner   6) a high quality digital camera 7) appropriate software:  latest operating system, Corel's latest, front page, quicken...  this is boring me.  I move on.

Sept 20:  Another technology problem (or perhaps another one after another one before this one). 

Today it was my HP Photo Smart printer.  I was trying to print out a draft of Brass from the actual site (so I can see what the reader will actually download).  It printed out gobbledygook cryptic lettering with large stretched-out print and then, it started printing one line a page, then one word a page -- I saw the "number of pages window" scroll into the hundreds!  Technology.  

Figuring I had to re-install the software because I possibly didn't install it correctly in the first place, I quickly sloshed though a yet- to- be- completely- organized office and found the Photo Smart disk.  I restarted the computer, slipped in the disk, but the software installation didn't work for me.  It -- the window -- didn't like something I did some time during my relationship with the printer.  It said something like, "WE CAN'T HELP YOU IF YOU USE WINDOWS 98."  

Of course, I use Windows 98.  Do I have to explain myself?   I then pulled out my file with computer manuals and found two PhotoPrint posters (I hunted for the printer book, then found it atop the printer).  "How to install your software,"  I read.  The first question was something like, "ask your Mr. Wizard Hardware Man -- the little paper clip guy I thought I had annihilated early on --  Your Ace Hardware Man...."  Actually, it read, "1.  When the Add New Hardware Wizard appears, insert the PhotoSmart CD."

Problem:  I don't know where the Wizard will appear.  I'm a get- by type person with Windows (as if I have time to be an expert in everything) and I don't really know about the Wizard help program.  So, I'm stuck.  Can't even make it past point 1., the Wizard Guy (and there are 7 more steps to follow).  I pull out manuals, go to www.hp.com, dig for a phone number to some technical guy that really knows his stuff, his precise technical niche.  In this case:  setting up PhotoPaint software.

I swam through several sites and phone numbers finally reaching a guy who truly was a Techno-god of sorts.  A Techno Guru, at least.  He waltzed me through the problem, my problem, the de-installation and the installation of this printer software.  At one point he even took me through the inner sanctum of this world before me, my computer's operating system.  I was in some kind of off gray world with turquoise tabs where I had to use the arrow keys to maneuver, not the mouse.  It was quite magical -- mystical -- how step by step I followed my Guru (a male voice sounding from the speaker phone) and got my printer rolling.  "How's it going," he ask when I paused for lengthy booting up and downloading moments.  "You're doing good," he'd add.  

I must set up a techno-help page.  So far I recommend: hp.com phone help:  tech support:  1 208 323-2551.  I usually can't solve a technical problem at a web site.  I have to reach these techno-gurus specializing in their niche.  This HP guy knew his stuff and became my guide in the way I could guide a reader through my own web site.