Other components

Another component of my day off was encountering a young man on the sidewalk who told me the story of a girl who survived being attacked by soldiers who lay in wait for her when she went to draw water from a well and is now being helped by the organization he represented, which was CARE. It sounded like a good thing to give money to, and I told him so, but unfortunately I only could give about $5 cash and he was looking for $30 by credit card and could not accept cash. Another component was, I went to my stepfather's house to clear out some of my books and things, and then we watched the military channel. Him: Ranger School makes this stuff look like a piece of cake. Me: Do you know where that is? Him: Yeah, that's Parris Island. Me: Oh yeah...(I sang a few lyrics from "Goodnight Saigon" but he gave me a weird look and I don't think he recognized it.) Me: So, were you there? Him: These are Marines! Me: Well, I don't know these things. Him: Father and stepfather went to West Point and you don't know jack-diddle. (But saying it good-naturedly.) So how's the job search going? You have to be careful, you're losing your edge, and that's scary because you're a good employee! (Me: in thought only--well, look at this stuff we're watching, maybe I'm losing my edge because I didn't go to boot camp, and I should have signed up when they called me in college instead of giving them a haughty reply about how having parents in the military was enough. And, you just laughed when the women were doing the boot camp exercises because it looks cooler when men do them.) Another component, even though it happened much later, was I got an accidental but kind of fascinating (to me, anyway) voicemail recording of his book on tape. "Coy discovered... literary or life phases, call them what you will, are never neatly closed...ghosts...ships, sunken treasure...the sea is unchanging...despite all the lucidity...watching...the woman with the freckled skin affixing a balloon of Spanish gold to the wooden mast...he had gone to the window hoping for a breeze from the ocean...and was hunting her own white ghosts...he had never dreamed...until the last port, he remembered before falling asleep, we all live tangled in the line of a whale hook...there is a direction connection that comes between the voyage...and the expulsion...it was sunny...breakfast of hot bread, cocoa, coffee and orange juice...pigeons in the plaza...Coy was eating half a roll...staring...the belltower of a church--end of message." Don't know the book.