October 22, Mama's birthday

There's a girl in the library right nearby that is so much like me. It's like I just saw myself perfectly, like I looked back into time and saw what I really was like several years ago.
"Hey, that's fruits basket," she said a little too loudly. "Oh, I've been looking for that but I can't find it in Hastings. Yeah, it's about..." Every tone of voice and thing she says and even the volume at which she speaks, I know. I know what she's thinking.
Isn't that weird? I'd like to meet her, but I never will. This moment will pass like every other one, and no one but me (and now, you) will know that it ever existed; that my perspective got one bit bigger just now.

"Mind if I go for a little bike ride?" I said last night. It's good to notify the other of your plans (if there's just two of you) so that all goes smoothly.
"No," Ephraim said.
In a few minutes I was on Cheyenne Ave, smiling as I lifted my hands from the grips and wove no-handed between potholes and cracks in the pavement. I like the way, in the evening these days, the air's just breezy enough to keep the sweat cool on your arms. About Frank Phillips and Dewey, after I crossed the latter, I was surprised to come across a large crowd of people going the opposite direction and apparently all together. It has occurred to me that they had something to do with the show, Dracula, that's going to begin showing tonight. This seems more probably now the more that I think about the attitudes of each of them, and the fact that a couple were in costume. I'd like to see it--I want to get involved, too. As passionately as I have ever wished to pursue the most desirable of my many interests.
Anyway I slowed way down, even half-walking my bike, to avoid bumping into them (for they were slow to get out of the way, if they did so at all). After they passed, I saw that all down the street  on either side there were small, sweetly-lit shops, with people going calmly in or out. I know, my dear people who read this, that it is not Christmas time yet--but it had the most charming Christmas-y feeling.
I continually find myself actually shocked that no one else stops and stares like I do. Don't they see the ugly puddle in the alley between brick buildings? Do they notice how easy it would be to climb up and sit on that roof over there and look at the dark sky and the bright windows of the building that looms into it. The monuments of man's glory, mirroring God's--we copy him and call it ours, but it's still worship, if tainted. Or just the striking difference between the windows, covered with painted advertisements, and the neat, cool interior of the restaurant.
There's beauty, poetry, and a story everywhere you look... and I feel like everyone is closing their eyes.

Happy birthday to the Mama of the Goodenough Family, the founder of this illustrious blog! If it wasna for you, dear, I wouldna be here.
You have done an important thing for me--been a Mama, right when I needed one. You know what I'm talking about, I won't elaborate.
In your honor, I will be posting a story about a Mama on my blog when I finish Ghost Assassin.

The End