Tom Lake

How am I going to do this; this setting my keyboard on what Ann Patchett described as "a cookie sheet," upon which she composed the entirety of her latest novel, "Tom Lake," from the comfort of her bed?

I have my keyboard on top of a clump of quilt that I rolled together in the general shape of a cookie cutter, whatever that is. I imagine that it is one of those "breakfast in bed" contraptions...
Bad idea, breakfast in bed. Best to start the day with a grapefruit and nothing else...

I finally wrote an email to Ann Patchett's bookstore's website figuring that it might come to her attention; since it was directed towards her along with my acknowledgement that I was going about contacting her in a circuitous manner.

There was the question of why I would want to contact an author just to say that I liked her book. In this case, it was a book she had published in 2001. It won a bunch of prizes, something that none of her subsequent books have seemed to have done (with the possible exception of her most recent one, from 2019).
So, she has gone about 20 years without winning any trophies or any "Orange" awards. This is understandable and actually admirable in my esteem as it could be a sign that she abandoned her quest to have a top-40 hit on the NY Times list in favor of writing stuff that just fewer people are equipped to fathom...
Anyways; I e-mailed Ann Patchett in a way; and these are things that I surrender control to, to God and Universe; so, maybe I will be sitting and busking in front of her Nashville based bookstore this coming summer, or not.

It does seem that a lot of adventure went away from my daily existence as soon as I was given this apartment to occupy until the end of my biological life....
What about my spiritual life?

That seems to involve learning how to love the complete scumbags and worthless wastes of human flesh that live at Sacred Heart. To love them though they don't deserve any love at all....
Haha, just kidding; it felt good to type that, so....
 

My triangle, which I had suspended from one of the arms of the keyboard stand using a rubber band, fell and clanged against the base of the thing, emitting an abbreviated sample of it's tingly sound, before coming to rest on the rug.
This was just after I had opened my door upon hearing something that sounded like a skinny black lady pushing a cart of some kind past my door, just in time to see that Jackie, who lives 2 doors down had been the source of that sound. It was just when I had some thought about her that I can't remember the details of that the triangle fell and made its sound.

I have regularly heard sounds in my place that a more naive mind might attribute to "ghosts," and, having lived in a house where there were most probably the same kind of energies (where my girlfriend at the time would be physically thrown out of the bed, causing her head to bang on the hardwood floor, as if to prove that her body had been limp; and that she hadn't just thrown herself out of bed) I certainly "believe" in them (although I'm more apt to credit the phenomenon to the power of my mind, rather than some spectre; a mind strong enough to throw a 113 pound girl out of bed, but not one to fear it having been done by some ghost) and, I am only half skeptical about the cause of the things that have bumped and clanged in the middle of the night.

It was quite a coincidence that the triangle fell at that instant. It had been suspended by a knotted rubber band for about 6 months at that point. I guess rubber bands gradually slip; and perhaps the actual sound frequency of Jackie's cart that she noisily pushed past my door was just right to shake the triangle free...

I'm not going to worry, nor devote one more word to it...
Everything else I planned to write here was negative -the residents got their monthly checks from the government; I saw a gaggle of them gathered around the ATM machine at the bank across the street from Sacred Heart, shortly after midnight.
And, so now I can have some peace; none of them will be knocking on my door asking for anything; nor offering anything.... Like I said, anything else I might add to this post might be negative.
I should be able to go out and busk tomorrow night, as the cold/flu that I have had the past couple days seems to be receding.
A familiar scene will play out; I will see derisive grins on the faces of those who will try to lord over me the fact that they don't have to ride a bike 2 miles to the Quarter and play a guitar for a few hours each night to make a living; they are masters of the Social Security System...
Then, just like every other month, by the 10th of it, some of them will greet me with mock friendliness upon my returning at 2 a.m. from playing and casually ask me if I had had a "good night," and then, after congratulating me on the good night; ask me for money. It happens every month. Ten days into the month, they are broke with no way of getting more, while I am going out night by night and basically making the same amount as them, where they to divide their monthly check by 30.
Anyways, I guess I will see if Ann Patchett writes back to me. It's at least more probable than that Charles Dickens will contact me; although with Jackie around, who knows....