16 July 1997 - Portland, Oregon

The New Crystal Cafe

I woke up in a coma at the beginning of a movie—missed the first scene, but I believe that's all—which I later came to find was the movie Three Lives and Only One Death, a title that means —what the hell?—probably out of whack in translation. A Raul Ruiz film, the first of his I've ever seen, even though he's made like a hundred, it explained to me possibly what happened to me recently. Time has passed, and you turn up somewhere else. It doesn't explain it, actually, but it acknowledges it, and that is helpful, to know that you're not alone. I've come to realize that staying in one place and in one time takes constant, heavy maintenance. You virtually have to remind yourself who you are each day, and this gets worse and worse as you get older. You start to spend all your time reviewing aspects of the past you want to remember. If you don't, you forget—and it gets worse—you have to spend entire days just remembering who you are and where you are and what the date is.

1 June 1997, Salem, Oregon

It’s now the next morning and I’m at Denny’s for my free breakfast—which comes with the room at the Best Western. It’s a piddly-small eggs and hashbrowns, but I’m not too hungry, and it’s free! Denny’s is its usual busy self. A good counter to sit at. I don’t feel as weird today. I saw on the news that there were tornados in our area—Portland, Vancouver—which is really rare—so perhaps it’s partly the weather that’s making me feel strange. We’ll see.