As Hemingway might have said in one of his early stories, it was all quite amusing. The barman on Monday nights gets to take care of the whole top floor. Sixteen people, grouped into nine parties come at once. And the barman, stretched as he is, gets a group with a waver. A table of young Latin ladies, and one of them, the first one, likes to stick up her hand, even when I'm coming toward her. One, two, three, four, five, six times. As if I am not a member of humanity, as if I'm a dog

And I've had other types who wave. The gentleman on a date who sticks his hand up, wanting if he could, to stick it right in my face. That's the effect anyway. He's some human rights watchdog lawyer type, crusading out to do good in the world. He's on a date. Hard-on is the word.

The wavers... I want to say to them, 'oh, I didn't realize I was a fucking idiot.'

It's a long night. The kitchen closed at 9:30, but I don't get out of there 'til past 2:00 AM.

I go home, and this time I can immediately fall asleep. I have somewhere along the line of sleep, a dream about opening one of the '93 Petrus we have down in our cave. For a customer, though in the dream it also seems an old friend of mine, who often writes about French wines, is there to enjoy it. And I think I even have some in my dream. In a proper Bordeaux glass even. "Fuck you, wavers."

Hemingway, I think he is Buddhist sometimes, in his late career, but his early one too. Not much is thought of the posthumous Islands in the Stream, but I never had much of a problem with it.



And last night, or morning, I dreamed of walking home, tiredly, with groceries, on a fall evening, coming up through Rock Creek Park, edging past the fancy mansions of Kalorama, and curiously, my route has a short cut that takes me through a group house apartment. Apologetically, I walk in through people's rooms, their beds and stuff there, students getting by. They have a few cats. And in the dream over the course of work and back and forth and time I get to talking to them. One cat has three legs, and is a talker connecting with you. One gets up on hind paws stretching up to you. And we start talking, me and one of the guys there, about cooking and groceries and modern life, the loneliness of eating alone, and people's comings and goings. Gradually I meet the others. One seems to be on his way to being a professional psychologist. He studies dreams, and I kind of envy his progress. And by and by, the people become friends with this soul who trudges through politely, who asks questions, and the stranger becomes welcome somehow, accepted.