Tonight, on the eve of what promises to be the incineration of the mid-Atlantic region by the Loving Hand of God in the form of a Deadly Heatwave, having earlier spent a couple utterly foolish hours with my cat, Widget, out on the lawn beyond the patio where I do my newly-limited form of gardening in the daytime, I realized there was a great deal of magic in this blighted corner of what once was suburbia and has now passed beyond what James Howard Kunstler, in his "The Geography of Nowhere" called "scary places" and has suddenly been transformed into some sort of oasis as in Harvey's "Perfume of the Desert" instead. Just like the magic that caused inner city Washington, D.C. to be transformed for me in the late 1940s and early 50s, something has descended upon this non-place between D.C. and, well, nowhere, into a secret garden. For me, anyway. I suspect some of the neighbors are so quiet because they are planning heinous crimes or perhaps suicide. I don't know.  So long as they don't get any on me I'm cool with it, and appreciate the peace and quiet which is broken only occasionally by the sirens of apparatus belonging to the volunteer fire department of which I am a life member, or the occasional Amtrak train, which I can  imagine to be a far more romantic B&O freight train instead and it is so.

 The Angel of Imagination has touched me more forcefully tonight than usual,  and that's saying something. Perhaps it's because I believed so fervently in the possibility of Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate, or maybe it's because in one short week I'll be going to see Robert Plant and Allison Krauss perform together, with evil genius T Bone Burnett taking a turn or two, and I will be taking with me my First Great Love, the girl who stole my heart 49 years ago and never really gave it back. How do things like that happen? I mean, after three marriages and three divorces (in my case anyway). The sky was filled with various sorts of lights tonight, the grass was soft, the D.C. humidity tolerable, and the cat talkative. Widget is not only my friend but also one of my chief advisors, not to mention she shares the rent. As long as she keeps coming up with the green I'm not asking any questions. Since I hauled her from her native Orange County to this god-forsaken swamp I figure the least I can do is not hassle her too much about how she makes her living. I've noticed, however, that there are no visible rodents of any sort anywhere near the building. Things  do all work together for good.

 When we were both fully drunk on the beauty of the night in this peculiar corner of the world we came inside and watched Walt Disney's "Enchanted" and I fell in love, once again, with Amy Adams and even Walt ("I'm not really dead, you know") Disney. That's on top of my recent obsession with Diana Krall (relax Elvis, it's only the voice I'm interested in).  I really do fall in love too easily. With everything. Like the black Altima I saw on the way down to Silver Spring, MD, earlier. My baby girl owns an Altima, but it's not black and sexy like that one was. I imagined a sleek and timeless blonde (female) was driving it. I imagine a lot of things. I imagined Obama could win this nomination. My imagination is powerful.

 Our collective imagination is beyond powerful. It moves the heavens and the earth. Or I can do it without the rest of you, if you don't like where I seem to be going at any given moment.

I suspect I might imagine away the peripheral neuropathy that has temporarily made it difficult to walk like a sober person, or play basketball or even work at my day job (an  ER tech needs to be on his -- or her -- feet a good eight to 12 hours at a clip and mine simply aren't cooperating at the moment); I imagined away heart disease not long ago,  and I've imagined a lot of other things into being -- but almost never without the consensus of others. Like this Obama thing, others get involved and reality is changed. This is how I know I'm not alone here in this awesome world, at this awesome time (as Casteneda once quoted don Juan). Besides, I've got this cat here with me. How could I ever feel alone?

Tomorrow I will walk into the heat and it can deal with me. I've been  worse places.