work keeps surprising. throws out new ways of wanting to go. even as mind still demands to know how to deal with unexpected voice. this business of art, of creation, is curious. at least. tied to persistant thought of big bang; of how does all this, even with a big bang, come out of nothing? how does a bang come out of nothing? so thinKING begins to show some possibilities(?) this piece now in progress. it too came out of you could say nothing, no? where do ideas come from? and these came from Linda and Mike. how? where? why??? but they did. somehow. and got transferred to me. now, out of nowhere but with a beginning source the thinking begins again. also unknown where. not sure if it's in the head, at least not all of it. and the materials begin to suggest what they want to happen. can't take credit for that because there was no idea on how exactly to show the concept that Linda and Mike sprung forth. the materials just laying around, for years, some of them, and suddenly they want to be arranged like this. were they waiting for this? does the wood I collect in the desert, does it grow and die, knowing that somewhere in the future I will come along to harvest it for my fires? I suspect that there's a different way of approaching this creative process: one, where the artist has an idea of what he/or she wants to do. where composition and stuff like that come into play. my approach more random? more of a mystery unfolding, where it wants to be and it's not up to me? Some things I want to not accept
so I just take a photograph, but inevitably I must accept. sort of like explorers for the first time seeing new lands. you can't pick and choose what you want to be there. it's all there, like it or not.
does it come from nowhere?

Twenty more minutes!!!
Man.
A body can go crazy, waiting like this!
Waiting for what? That's the corker!!! No idea what he was waiting for.
Waiting for Godot.
Go dot.
Go comma.
Go fly a kite.
Go fuck yourself.
Just relax, ja? Let it go.
And stop swearing. Using bad words isn't a sign of worldliness. Just trash.

He seemed to remember. Some things you can't do anything about. Like wanting to eat an egg that hasn't been laid yet. Just sitting and staring has to be alright. Go smoke a cigarette. Maybe the smoke dissolving into the wind will bring relief. Clear the mind. Egg thoughts made him hungry, he realized. Another frustration! Another 45 minutes before he can eat. Scratching itch under a rib. For some reason Niagara Falls thundering kept yanking on a corner of his awareness
but that didn't mean anything either. Wanting a Corvette doesn't mean anything when you don't have money, honey. Toes curling and un. Tapping silent beats. The road to Nashville, right at the Kentucky Tennessee state line. "It's like wondering 'what brought that on?' ", he knew. 35 more minutes...

As ephemeral as the photo of him and Francisco Augustin Villa Garcia. He, the great-nephew of Sofia Russova, and Francisco the great-grandson of Pancho. Sophia and Pancho alive at approxi-mately the same time. And now they, though forty years between them, alive as contemporaries at least on the same continent. Sophia was over in Eastern Europe. Ukraine.
Thinking does not help in situations like this. What can you think about something you don't know? Actually, you shouldn't even feel anything about things unknown, simply because. The realm of premonitions? Yet fingers restlessly play with a rubber ring on the table before him, in search. He wants to understand, but doesn't know what. I mean, what's to not understand about a common, everyday sort of event as a phone call?
What actually bugs him is this gnawing suspicion that he's too old. That he's lost it. That the rudimentary social skills... No. what do social skills have to do with.... "What's going on?", he wonders.
What he doesn't want to admit to himself is that he doesn't understand how he could've ended their conversation so abruptly. Like a dumb ox, he sits and stares at the blinking on the screen.

An after-image floats barely perceptible before the eyes. Too long looking at the photo of Pancho Villa. Sort of like that, an after-memory persists. From yesterday, but already fuzzy. Was even fuzzy in the moments after it happened. Somehow incomprehensible. How could've it happened like that? A voice unheard for over a decade but still so close? Appeared out of the blue. Ringing of the phone. That, itself, unusual. Phone mostly turned off. Or dead. But there it was. Ringing. Too quickly he jumped up to answer, irritation in his voice. Lousy connection. Kept yelling "hallo, HALLO!" Thought it was his middle sister. She usually sounded unclear. But suddenly a word ending, and his jaw fell. Did he hear right? Did it sound like "betta"? And again, "It's eLisabetta!". Oh! My! Goodness!