Almost too many years ago now to talk about I was something of a runner. At the age of 12, living in London, I would fairly frequently rise at some unreasonable hour and do a lap around Hyde Park or a quick loop around Harrod's, and at the age of 13, living in rural Indiana, I would rise at some even more unreasonable hour and take in one of the big squares the gravel road system offers in that part of the world, all the while thinking, as I loped along, about London and worlds left behind (I don't exagerate much when I say "all the while" -- I had quite a bit of nostalgia going). Well, running, or jogging, I suppose, ended for me a long time ago, but I still very much remember the particular feeling of guilt that would knock me around on those days when I couldn't, for whatever reason, get a run in. I've had reason to think about that feeling, and even to experience little touches of it, since I've started this thing (Heart Hammer), which seems, even this early in the proceedings, to need attention quite frequently and doesn't get quite as much as it needs.

Last night, for example, I was all set to do a little something on a dream I'd had involving The New School, two former students who left Naropa and went to New York and now looked (in the dream) like something out of the late, psychedelic Beatles, and the pesky assistants in The Castle by Kafka, but then it just didn't happen.