Austin

I had a dream that I was back on campus at Austin. This wasn't one of those old dreams in which I am essentially longing for another chance at my student days. I venture to say that that is completely washed out of my system. But I apparently had some kind of personal business there. I cannot recall what, but I definitely wasn't a student. And I was at a bus stop ready to come back home. While I am waiting for the bus, it occurs to me that this is my one good chance to get some "real chicken fried rice", at the very place that first got me hooked on the stuff. But I don't really have the time for it.

Later in the day, thinking about the dream, I wondered if that restaurant is still in business - thirty years later. I think of the kids who worked the family joint, not much younger than I was. I suppose the guy went to college himself, became a computer scientist or engineer. Maybe the girl now effectively runs the place. It might be interesting to see her at the cash register, a middle-age woman now. I probably wouldn't recognize her. Maybe she put on a little weight, though probably not as much as I have. Of course, I'd be practically the same as I was then, just as poor and unemployed, only much older and fatter, and minus a mother and a brother - and still eating alone.

Arendt and Auden

I met Auden late in his life and mine — at an age when the easy, knowledgeable intimacy of friendships formed in one’s youth can no longer be attained, because not enough life is left, or expected to be left, to share with another. Thus, we were very good friends but not intimate friends.

-- Hannah Arendt