Bit and pieces from a mind with a small carrying capacity.

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Travis, the Ph.D. in Chemistry candidate, also Karen and Jeff’s youngest and my now-long ago early morning Channel1 summer companion, has a new MacBook Pro with built-in video camera. One of those intel chip powered Macs. His snapped individually framed photos are of near camera quality. Far superior to my mother’s iSight camera. Maybe it’s the overhead lighting?

His life through the lens of his computer.

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I’m the happy beneficiary of so many creative peoples’ emails. Here’s a line from one of Adam’s: “Somehow we got from a hill a mole was thinking about making to a mythical mountain of inferred threat …”

One more

“…conversation derailed by the biological imperative.”

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Last night Karen (aka BirdBrain) invited us to see her Botswana photos displayed on their plasma screen TV. Jaw-dropping animal close-ups including a full-bellied lounging leopard eyeing the remains of his impala carcass hung like fresh laundry in a nearby tree. I hope she’ll post photos on the blog.

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Jennifer. I talked to a fellow blog reader and we have conflicting opinions about your “dammit” comment. I need you to elucidate.

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Matthew was duly impressed with George Mason. His uncle Paul picked him up at the airport and even accompanied him on the two and a half hour campus tour – lagging behind, not always attentive, filling in his Sudoku squares. After the tour, Paul and my sister Joan took him out to a local Thai restaurant. This was the first time they’d seen one another in years, and Matt’s first visit to Joan’s condo.

Joan’s impression: “He has a good heart. That’s what comes across. So much left unsaid.”

Paul’s impression: “I’m pretty sure Peter is the father.”

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I have this recurring dream (I’ve mentioned it before) where I’m in a city, usually where I was raised in Ohio, trying to find my way .. home? I can’t because I don’t really know where I’m going, though I try awfully hard to get there. Last night I had that dream with a twist, I knew where I wanted to go and I brought my good friend Bob along. I’ve known Bob for twenty-eight years. With Mary, his wife, and later pesky godson, Charlie, we’ve spent decades of Thanksgivings together, and nearly as many summer vacations in their rented houses on the Vineyard.

So there is all that familiarity, nonetheless, I still have this pedestal thing for Bob that I have for no one else. Even religious figures. It’s not something I feel I have to wash out of my psyche, it just is and that is that. Therefore, I attach special significance to dreams where I haul my friend Bob along.

We were sitting in a bus together waiting for Diane to swap seats with me. This was her bus trip to somewhere, not mine, but she never got on, and the bus left with me in her place. I didn’t know where we were going; I wasn’t suppose to be on the bus. I thought, I have to get off before we go too far and I never get back, so Bob and I hop off in the middle of nowhere. Dumb idea. Then, we’re in an unfamiliar city looking for a bus station (might have been smart to stay on the vehicle whose home is bus stations). The rest of the interminable dream, which continues through multiple wake-ups, is my leading Bob around the city in search of a bus station. Frequently we’ll come to some detour where he won’t be able to follow me because of our size differences. I’ll slid down an awning, for instance, while he has to walk around the block. Mostly, we’re going where I think we should go, as I’ve assumed some level of confidence that I can get up to the bus station. Except I have no idea. We hop over fences, tumble down hills, we enter the front of restaurants and exit the rear, we achieve panoramic views from hill tops, but we still can’t find the bus station. When I finally wake myself out of the dream, I breathe one of those sighs of relief.

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After I felt my lump, I called my psychiatrist friend Steven because I knew he would reassure me, but he’d also tell me to have the thing examined. I’m not sure I could have called my doctor without someone of authority telling me to , even though I knew I’d obsess about it. I hate that much, to be wrong.

Thursday, I’d finished working on his computer when he arrived home. It was my first chance to thank him, and as usual, I choose a confusing backhanded way.

Me: “Steven, thanks for the lipoma advice.”

Steven: “I thought it was nothing.”

Me: “What does it mean that it’s smooth? That reassured my internist. Is cancer ragged?”

Steven: “Depends on the kind of cancer. But your growth is encapsulated.”

Me: “Steven, how come you let me traipse off to the doctors for nothing?”

Steven: “You mean I should have diagnosed you over the phone and left it at that?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Steven: “And been responsible for a dead friend? There are better things than that.”

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We saw Orpheus X at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge today. Debbie said “That was different.” Matt replied, “What would you expect from my parents?”