presences

there was the biggest raccoon ever sitting by the steps to my house when i got home tonight. it eyed me suspiciously, daring me to pass. i was quite daunted. i crept around the house and went in the back door. can a raccoon be a sign? of what? it's presence was insistent and otherworldly. once inside, i watched it from the living room window for awhile. then i went upstairs. when i came down several minutes later to get something from the kitchen the raccoon was gone, though there was an indent in the grass to prove it had been there.

yesterday slogged through edits on the no-name novel-in-progress. had a fun evening with the housemates. all three of us went to the gym together, and made supper afterwards. drank wine and explored the not-really-all-that-coincidental coincidences in our lives. i'm liking living with people.

today-- reading kevin chong's _baroque-a-nova_. did a little shopping. had supper with ashok and hiromi before they bomb off to kamloops tomorrow. and rita, who called this afternoon wanting to know, with some urgency, what marx meant by "socially productive forces." thank goodnesss i have a sociology degree... ashok has set up a series of mini-residencies in the loops for a bunch of writers. hiromi will be the first.

after supper, we ran into my friend nadine chambers, for the second time in two days. nadine is a talented writer/performer i've known since we were young things. she has a friday night ritual of dinner and cake at two local establishments i also frequent. she and ashok had a long chat about trinidad, where he is headed shortly, and where she spent a couple of years in high school. it's always interesting to see who the universe places in your path, and at what moment. nadine's presence makes sense. but what about that raccoon?