When I met Betsy, again, I wanted to spend my time with her.  I wanted to stay up all night talking with her, to meet her out for lunch when I could, even with my mind stewing over work and money.

I walked down MacArthur to Foxhall, along the sidewalk taking me into Georgetown to cross Key Bridge.  Over the great bridge in the darkness, moon a sliver, underneath the Key Bridge Marriot, across the lanes of Lee Highway, and up the little urban skyscraper hill to Wilson Boulevard, and then it was not far at all to the nondescript Saigon Grill and Noodle to meet her.  I'd had a glass of Beaujolais, in a surreptitious Canada Dry little soda bottle, keeping to my right as night cyclists and careening electric scooters weaved by.   Over pho, hers vegetable, mine with top round and brisket and flank steak I had three glasses of Woodbridge pinot noir, we had a nice time, I paid the check, she took me back part way and I caught the Circulator Bus from Rosslyn back over the bridge, getting off at the first stop along M Street.  I attempted to rent a little scooter, but it felt dangerous and the pick-up on was very inconsistent.  With a need to use a bathroom, and not to pee, I made it up the hill to the Tombs, using the john, and then having one more glass of wine, and then I walked back along underneath the University up on the hill with the traffic zooming by, and then up the quiet hill and the long blocks along MacArthur Boulevard, coming in rather tired out and ready to hit the couch.

And then I was awake.  Unable to go back to bed.  So I pulled out On The Road, the copy someone left out in the laundry room, and like I say, it's easier to read, for me at least, after  you've struggled with getting to that Dean as Holy Goof passage in Part Three, when they are in San Francisco, planning to get back East.

For then the writing, Kerouac's, seems to better fall into a tradition, less about mad personal choices and irresponsible behavior, becoming a recognizable account, within the American Tradition, let's say, of writings of travel and adventure, like Melville, Twain, Hemingway...

I had some cheap Beaujolais in the rocks in a tumbler, and even pulled out my old book, and read from it, which is surprising in many passages, even to the author.  I'd passed out a copy of it here and there, and while there are parts I, in the attempt to get it finished and over with, over worked and things like that.  The narration getting just a bit ahead of itself, say, trying to sum up The Brothers Karamazov themes, when the action is not ready for it.

But I was reading, and it felt good, and I went back and forth a little bit, and of course Kerouac is laying down these magnificent lines, so rich in their offering of language and words put together gain in the way that fires up something inside of us.  And it was nice for me to have this reassessment of Kerouac in my own mind, not just oh, the drunk who ends up lonely and alone.

As if preparing for a next step, me, in life.  Putting a book behind me, a decent enough one, but assessing the cost of it, as it were, the cost of the time and the making of it.  I wouldn't say necessarily a wish to capitalize upon it, or monetize it, but to find a way of treating it as a kind of artistic professional accomplishment, now behind me, that would allow me to develop personally.

And then, tiredly, after speaking with mom again, having a nice conversation about New England Transcendentalist Literature, me maybe trying to ease Kerouac in with that, spiritually, I had a sip more wine and now went to bed in the early light, having assured her that Mary would indeed be coming with cans of cat food and groceries and wine if she needed.

And then I slept all day, even as the construction noise and the bachata music too loud and the shouting kept me ill and distracted from deeper sleep until the noise had somehow come to an end.

Well, shame on you, this is your day off, and this is all you can do with it and you don't even feel well, Jesus Christ, and I had felt earlier drinking the wine and reading, but one too many rounds in one day sort of a thing, can't you control yourself?

But I wasn't up for finding a barber shop, nor for getting out to the old movie theater CVS to charge up my metro card, the sky is overcast, and I managed yoga yesterday anyway, and now it becomes a matter of what to eat, and there are loads of laundry to do.

Somewhere, though, as a remembered thought from the early morning and the reading of one's own book, placed next to Kerouac, man, I begin to wonder, does one have to be his own sort of Neal Cassady Kerouac's friend character in order to generate the misadventures necessary for a narrative story line arch as they call it in creative writing classes...   And meanwhile I've become this fool who gets up at a late hour in the afternoon to get ready for work, work my five night shifts, struggle, etc., and don't even have the pay-off of any kind of a personal life of a consistent kind, except calling my mom many times a day...  and maybe two nights a week to meet Betsy out, but getting late for her or too early for me, though I will certainly make the lovely sacrifice...

And do I still write?  Do I still bother with it, except as some form of calibration bearing upon psychological health and balance...

I wake up with a heavy head and congested enough in my nose that a gag reflex kicks in, such that I spit up some bile then back on the couch.

Okay, it was a fine Transcendentalist thing to write such a book, as mine, and fine to keep on writing, but... can one sustain it...  is that even practical...