I'm in my former apartment, which has been converted to a retail space and music studio- there's REM practicing- and there's Eric!
Eric is in loose, patchy jeans and looks poor and disheveled and soft. I feel I get special attention from him, that he's very fond of me and interested to meet me again. Maybe his interest is even romantic or sexual. Nothing could possibly make me happier.
Eric has brought with him, somehow, some really beautiful and distinct, dynamic, art works. Why "somehow?" Because the art works are like blimps, or soft-skinned robots- cars, children, women, all sensual and lovable, that suddenly appear, moving through the air ! The artist has a hispanic surname and is unknown except for maybe within some circle of people in Chicago which includes Eric. They seem to me highly beautiful and valuable.
I ask what Eric's doing here in New York. He says he's going to SVA, doing a computer/art program. I no longer live in New York, just visiting, and feel a loss about the timing, and about what it shows about our lack of importance in each other's decisions. There's another piercing thing contributing to my feeling of loss: the special feeling I had from him at the beginning has vanished, and been replaced by sort of friendly indifference.
[In waking life I'm reading Anna Kareni na, and have recently gone through Kitty's same feeling of emotional betrayal, at the blank expression on the face of the man she loves, during a dance at a ball.]
