Tax Day is Over!
The brokerage fund wants two days to process my withdrawn money. Then the bank wants two more days. But the IRS wants the money by Wednesday, apparently, because I am mailing it from Seattle to Cincinnati which I hope will take at least two days! I don’t want to bounce a check with the IRS Cincinnati office which is waiting for mine: “Oh when, when will Hugh Higgins send us his check so we don’t have to close the Cincinnati office!” So I got up early and went to the post office to mail my return and check; I do it the old-fashioned way. Then I was so relieved to have that done for another year that I went to the Lost Lake Tavern to celebrate.
Two circles next to each other O O. Those are the two circles on the two swinging doors just ahead of me as I sit at the bar, leading into another branch of the bar and the kitchen. They swing and I sit. O = illusion.
A Disney cartoon character is serving, walking in and out of the kitchen, looking less male than mousy, but he is a good worker.
On my phone I am reading a Sabian philosophy lesson on the Eleatic philosophers of ancient Greece, including Parmenides. All is illusion. Illusion is the name of the lesson, and of the game as I sit in the Lost Lake. Why EL-eatics and IL-lusion? I knew a wonderful New York astrologer, Ellie. I have never known an Illie. I study Christian Science, perhaps a version of Parmenides, in which “ill-ness is ill-usion.” I agree with that.
Will there be an opening to talk to people in this bar?
The music is harmless though uninteresting but that is good because it is not too loud and serves as neutral background.
People make definite, firm statements about illusive—-fleeting—-things. (Of course I am eavesdropping, as anybody would.) “I spent my allowance on . . .” I actually hear. “The money can be used for whatever you need to use it on.” Okay. “They spent their entire allowance on BNB rather than buying a house. No allowance left. They will have to rent.” “All of the stuff they need for her is in a storage unit with a monthly fee.” After BNB and storage fee, what? “What is she doing?” the young man to my right laments as he recites his woman friend’s poor decisions to his drinking buddy.
Marc Edmund Jones, author of the lesson on the Eleatics, Illusion, says that Illusion means that something better is always coming. One is glad of the illusion because it means you don’t have to stick with anything less than perfect. Ill-ness, begone! (Christian Science.) Ill-usion, you are nothing to me! But the Infinite is reliable (Parmenides). What else would be?
I wanted to find an opening for a brief chat with the woman to my left who is writing in a notebook, but she keeps writing and it would not be good to interrupt her flow of inspiration. It’s because of her writing that I am writing this. Copycat! (but I am not a cat). Neither is she; she looks somewhat like the Mona Lisa, darkly mysterious. She does not look at me.
Because she was writing, I wrote on the only paper I had, a large brown envelope the IRS used to send me documents. I wrote this whole essay on it (both sides) while sipping Royal Crown and water.
From the lamenting man on my right: “She didn’t text me, didn’t talk to me, didn’t tell me she landed.” She might have landed mask-less, for I found out later in the day that a fabulous heroic female judge decreed, this very day, masks unneeded on flights. We were jovially mask-less for sure in the Lost Lake.
I can only see the face of the man sitting across from me in the other branch of the bar when the swinging doors allow it. He gazes at me too, for a second.
When will the mysterious authoress take a break in her writing so I can speak to her?
The somewhat gay-sounding male (complaining about his woman friend’s delinquencies) had been talking with a somewhat straight-looking male who was pretty silent. They just walked out together. Illusion.
The only other woman, on my right, wears a baseball cap and seems tomboy-ish. A game is on the TV but she doesn’t watch it, fiddling with her phone. When I finally get to speak to the writing woman on my left, Baseball Cap Lady gets up and walks out of the bar. Illusion. Was she upset because I talked with the other woman? Had she set her cap for me?
When the “authoress” stopped writing for a decent interval I spoke to her and thanked her for inspiring me to write my own essay. She was receptive and appreciative. I said that I can write some things in bars I don’t write anywhere else. She understood. “Some kind of osmosis,” I remarked and she smiled and nodded. I leave her to her own process and get back to mine.
Is she paying her bill? Sorry to see her go. No, she’s getting another drink the bartender pours into her glass flamboyantly from way above. She chats with the bartender. We write together, apart. I glance to the right where there is a real fire in a fireplace. The mouse-like person emerges from the kitchen to serve another patron.
Now someone comes in to ask the bartender if he had left his credit card there, to be sure about that before he cancels it. The handsome bartender looks; no dice. Bummer. It’s hard to believe that losing a card is just an illusion. Friend, study Zeno’s paradoxes. It might make you feel better. The tortoise can, logically, never lose the race to the hare, so you can never lose your credit.
Now a truly beautiful cis-gender couple (did I really just use that horrid word?) are sitting by the fire. Another cis-gender couple are standing on my right deciding whether to stay. Welcome. They could even become someone’s parents, politically correct or not.
As I watch people walking in and out of the swinging doors I realize that not everybody’s feet are attractive. I’d say only about 1 in 5 people (of either sex) have attractive feet.
“Michelle, my Belle” comes on. A truly classic song. “I want you, I want you, I need you.” When the cis-gender couple came in to my right I deliberately refrained from looking at them so as not to scare them away by my prurient interest. It worked. They sat down.
Now, “Smoky Joe’s Cafe.” I’m glad people still listen to that, but this is a lackluster cover of the rousing original. Is it racist for white singers to “cover” a very black smoky song? Or is it racist for me to say that?
The writing lady on my left is getting up to leave. I want to say goodbye but feel a little shy. Fortunately she breaks the parting ice by wishing me a happy rest of the day. I tell her that because of her influence I have written an essay I may blog later. She smiles and is pleased, and tells me, yes, I should do that. Goodbye, sweet lady.
My Royal Crown is on its last legs and it’s time for me to leave the Lost Lake, until I get lost again.
Cosmic Piper
