Walking the same road, kicking up stones; I had a dream that I saw you; I hope it goes on and on: 7.25

I�ve always thought that if I ever had occasion to write an advice column, it would be titled Miss Interpretation. GET IT? Lately, I feel, in a painfully exquisite kind of way, supremely well qualified to adopt this nom de plume. I don�t get it. Any of it, apparently. It�s becoming awkwardly obvious. My (perhaps already questionable) ability to read people, situations, you name it, appears to be rapidly diminishing, retreating further and further in my little rear view mirror and smudging out as mere mirages of solid certainty I passed long ago. Shimmering illusions turned out by distance and the revolving friction of wheels turning relentlessly ahead. Always ahead. Forward. When instead, I�m sorry to say, I�d really rather be moving in reverse. Because I think I used to be a lot happier?

So anyway. I�ve been reading a lot of Proust. Yeah, let�s blame most of this melancholic crap on him. And yes, I am your most pretentious friend this summer. I mean, you can read Proust but I don�t think you�re supposed to talk about it. It�s not bad though. And since I�m stumped by any and all human interaction these days, it�s really been the kind of mindless break I need. Because make no mistake, Proust has that intellectual cachet and all, but reading him is the equivalent of having the tv on in the background while you putter around doing other stuff. It�s mental surfing.

I coast along, reading oh-I-don�t-know a four-page ode to asparagus only sort of half attending to it, and then bam! In next two pages, he launches into some woefully melodic little side note about enjoying fleeting summer afternoons or the way you feel when you�re in a random conversation and you�re able to insert some banal reference about someone you�re totally crushing on (not the literal French translation) and how thrilling the simple act of being able to mention that person is, which is how you actually realize you are totally crushing�and so on. And then, I�m tuned in. Until that train of thought breaks and I�m just out there paddling along again, basically bobbing along through his babbling about the smell of grass or the light at exactly 3 p.m. in winter or some long winded reminiscence about his mother�s favorite parasol, waiting for the next crest of interest that�ll appear after few more pages fold past. Surf�s up, Marcel. It�s been quite the summer so far.

Here�s my fave Proust quote to date: �May you always see a blue sky overhead, my friend, and then, even when the time comes, as it has come for me now, when the woods are all black, when night is fast falling, you will be able to console yourself, as I do, by looking up at the sky.� It makes me think of this painting by C.D. Freidrich.