Listen: Why do you delay? You don’t have to answer that question because I know why and I can pity you, not from a superior vantage point, but from true empathy, as someone who has quite literally been there before. But it’s time to act. You have to break the loop. Something has been blocking you … us. The message contained in the constant flight forward and the Spanish Leap is an Escape Plan — maybe it isn’t the best one, but it’s all we have at the moment.

#BIMv5

We went across the street to the Café Berlin. The matron’s sour aspect hadn’t improved since yesterday. She placed our coffee cups on the table with a side order of contempt. And not only that, an envelope. She said something in Catalan that I didn’t understand so Leonora responded on my behalf.

— She said that a man in a dark suit wearing sunglasses had asked her to give this envelope to the long-haired American.

— Is that what I am? I said. “The long-haired American”?

#BIMv5

The title for my current work-in-progress is Best Imitation of Myself. It’s set in Barcelona and in 2015. The narrator is participating in an Amplified Literature Festival called Metatropolis 2015. He writes haiku and takes Sebaldian peregrinations on which he encounters a mysterious woman (Leonora), a plot to murder someone, and his own double. I don’t think I’m giving anything away. If you’re interested, excerpts will be tagged w/ #BIMv5. 3/3

#LuminousDiary