anti:freeze

I am back, and it feels good.

Where have I been? Writing, job-hunting, starting a new online teaching gig, and sending out manuscripts.

What happened while I was away, you ask? What could possibly distract me from anti:freeze for a whole month? The short list: Another of my essays ("Boy Down") was accepted for publication; I was offered an opportunity to write a book review for a big newspaper; and I landed a normal job to go with all the freelance stuff.

Last week, some paramedics picked me up off a wet sidewalk in downtown Portland, where I lay unconscious following a seizure. They did a routine EKG and discovered something (possibly) wrong with my heart. More on that later. Needless to say, the hospital bill trumps the Christmas plans. Fa-la-la-la-la.

Lots of writing coming this week.

You stand facing an airport terminal window, a cigarette pinched between the fore and middle fingers of your right hand, where a narrow yellow stain rings around the skin between the joints - the bad boy version of a golden band.

A United jet lifts from the runway. I watch you take a drag from your cigarette and turn around.

The jet disappears over the horizon, then suddenly reappears, flying straight at us. I look behind me, and I realize: This is not an airport terminal. We are standing inside a cafe, on the top floor of the downtown Portland Hilton. The nose of the plane aims at our window as if shot from a gun - fast, with murderous linearity, volition.

You grab my hand and pull me into the stairwell, where we jump down three stairs at a time.

"Someone once told me I move like a gazelle," you say, and I silently agree. You have grace.

Later we run into the street and stop to catch our breath. You take my hands and whisper, "It keeps happening. Over and over. And every time, I end up saving you. Every four years."

And then I wake up.