Asakiyume mita

A car, marigold-orange, with a black stripe on the hood, coming up the hill. It was low and sleek. "Must be some kind of fancy-pants car," I thought. "I wonder what it is."

As it came closer, I saw that it had "MUSTANG" written on its windshield in huge letters. So that's what it was. Thank you, car, for answering my question. If all cars would label themselves that way, it would be much easier for car-blind people like me to identify them.

A shadow of a bird, passing over me. I looked up but couldn't see anything. Then a couple of moments later, a crow. Its shadow was so far ahead of it! It landed in a tree and cawed. Good morning to you too, crow.

Another runner, an old man in bright green and blue, who runs like he's about to collapse but who manages great distances. I waved, he said "Good morning! How are you?" "Pretty good," I said. "How about you?" "I'll be good soon," he said, smiling.

You know how dreams can be hard to recall? You can think you have them--you can still be reverberating with them--but then when you try to go through, piece by piece, they melt away? Well, I had thoughts over the last few days of things I wanted to share, and they've gone the way of dreams.

Like, one was cars with names that are also . . . . What. Oh, I remember: math terms. Nissan Numerator (also Nissan Denominator). Toyota Sine, Cosine, and Tangent. Ford Asymptote.

There were other things to share, maybe about apple blossoms? Or books? Or fan art for Ancillary Mercy (like this or this of Sphene)? But they have vanished from my mind like morning mist on a sunny day.

So here's something I thought, though. When people tell me about their conflicts with others, or when I think over my own, I'm always imagining tweaks in the scripts of the players to arrive at happier conclusions. Sometimes even in an actual conversation, I'll find myself saying, "Say XX, and then I can say YY." But of course people prefer to come up with their own lines, thank you very much! With novels, yes: I get to decide all the lines. But real life is that extra bit muddy and unpredictable. And then I thought, well, and even novels benefit from unpredictability--not so much that the story seems random, but enough that it's breathtaking. At least in places.

My generous brother offered me his old car, which would allow us to retire our gently rusting-to-pieces van. His car is much newer and has a ridiculously low number of miles on it. All that's necessary is to register it at the Registry of Motor Vehicles. Except . . .

( the course of motor vehicle registration never did run smooth )

Taking the learner's permit test