What makes it all so terribly plausible (exodus) is that I have not paid my rent here at the Palace; I have the 271.00 dollars on hand, and have not spent it, waiting for further signs and portents. I have also, rather unexpectedly (due to Friday's defection), adequate luggage (his--mine by default) to carry my few belongings. I don't know what you call the thing, but you see it in airports--I call it an Airport Baggage Tote (deftly introducing my favourite neologism); it being a 15-gallon canvas-with-zipperpockets container on hinder-wheels, with a retractable handle for pulling; in which 'twill be no problem to stow my Great Italian Dictionary, or even my beloved coffee machine, the parting from which I had mourned. And so, whichever way I go, north or south, I go entire.

Meanwhile, Gerald, with his barely chemically controlled schizophrenia, has been my island of sanity and serenity. Yesterday afternoon when I stopped by, he had just finished a spectacular big acrylic painting, and was feeling pretty up, so we smoked pot, drank tea, and listened to readings from the major Upanishads, while we cracked jokes and exchanged gossip. Then Gerald put on some Zen flute music, and I lay back on the divan, and he put on his tall, pointed hat with the moon and stars on it and smoothed and harmonized my aura for me. Very soothing. Then we went into the next room and admired his painting together, turning it around and seeing new things in it from different perspectives. The two titles I suggested for two different perspectives were "Princess Brenda dispensing Manna" and "Aunt Sophie's Ragtime." He liked both of them.

Saw Friday at the New Hope Urban Ranch this afternoon, told him that it was fine he had eighty dollars of mine, that I am taking his wheeled luggage, and clapping him on the shoulder, I said, "Good-bye, old friend. I'm going to miss you." Then I walked away quickly lest he see the tears in my eyes.