The remaining answer is that I have been visited by a ghost. In fact, when I discussed this with V. earlier, Denis, who was washing his boat down after a short sail, overheard us and came back with a story of his own: one night recently, his sailboat's diesel engine started on its own. The key was in the ignition, but someone turned it in the middle of the night. This made me feel better, because I had begun to be concerned about the small two-burner alcohol stove that I brought in from the van on Friday afternoon, before departing for Rhode Island with four passengers. Perhaps it is a genie, I mused. Perhaps it is a once-removed ghost, imported along with the Golden Mariner Marine Stove. But Denis' story makes it make more sense: the presence is here, in the harbor, in the water. People have been experiencing bhoot and djinn for centuries; there must be something to it. Flutist Andrew Bolotovsky put it well this morning at St. Mark's-in-the-Bowery, the vortex of weirdness and general East Villageness: we had a ghost in the loft—a Russian, with a shaved head and a leather trenchcoat. I saw him once, he appeared for about three feet and then disappeared. Another time, he poked me right in the ribs. I was lying in bed, and it wasn't a hard jab, but a kind of firm prodding. I figure the universe is something like ninety-seven percent dark matter, so he must just be a part of that—of course there is dark matter in my SoHo loft.

Though there is no wind and the water is smooth, mirror-like and calm, there are swells coming through and rocking the boat more than usual.

30 June 23:50

This morning I rode my bike carefree to the PATH train in my concert black, ringing my bell into the morning blue sky and singing, though missing D.

D.'s journey itself is unfathomable. The thought of having the experience of fixing a boat, wrestling with it over time and learning to drive it, then taking it up the Hudson, through the locks of the Erie Canal and across Lake Erie is just not something that I would ever think to lend myself to.