Human's Animal

for lack of anything better i'm writing about the typewriter. my mind is clear, i don't know about clear and strong like result of meditation but anyway clear. my responsibilities are few for the summer. it's a state of mind i forgot i'd return to.

new york is a lot dirtier than california but surfaces are ready for it. in california we have carpets and metal window frames. hardwood floors in brooklyn are supposed to be covered with black dust that never leaves your feet until you scrape that skin off. and the open windows have leafy trees outside them. that is what i want in my life. leafy trees outside my windows. shade trees. we don't have those so much in oakland. just oaks with tiny leaves. live oaks, stubbornly alive.

llb and i are using the mail, the real mail, the realmail. writing poems and mailing them. however there are glitches. we had to drive up a huge hill to get one of the typewriters and then climb a long stairway. they were moving and the man's grown child seemed reluctant to let her take the typewriter. was the child there or did he just mention it?

llb moved three times without trying out the typewriter. in her current residence, we wrote one poem. first the typewriter was broken. then i fixed it by snapping a piece together. it was not really broken. the poem was called "first poem." yesterday she was typing a copy to send me. three lines in, the ink ran out. that typewriter is electric. it erases the whole word when you make a mistake.

now she'll have to go to the typewriter store for a ribbon. i have a typewriter. a black smith-corona. it takes serious finger muscles to get the letters out. the poems i wrote on it in grad school seemed momentous. so much noise for those letters. the force damaged the table underneath. but those poems...not as good as the effort.

here my sister has an underwood. i could type this post on it, photograph the page, and post it as a jpeg. then it wouldn't be searchable. i think the underwood belonged to my great aunt mary. correct me if i'm wrong.

UPDATE: LLB: my typewriter IS really loud