Something has infected one of my eyes. It is now spongy, swollen crimson shade that does not suggest robust good health. It itches at night, waking me up with grotesque and feverish visions of excising it with a grapefruit spoon. Tomorrow I suppose I will have to locate a doctor to wave a sassafras sprig at me and compel me to drink some foul concoction of fish viscera and pulverized yucca root.

The eye really isn't operating at peak efficiency, since its internal gunk-production glands are operating in high gear, but my vision doesn't seem to be affected, which quiets most of my concern. I saw loads of conjunctivitis and other ocular ailments when I lived in Senegal, messy infections that tend to put this annoyance in perspective.

I place the blame squarely on Pharmacy Bar, where Susan and I went Friday night. Probably the damn bathroom doorknob. It's so elementary-school.

We met Inga and Grover at the bar to celebrate Susan's birthday, and Richard joined us some time later. Inga, being the only person present who has successfully sold her soul to the corporate economy for large sums of money, was buying. I weakly protested her generosity, then settled in to drink heavily off it.

Pharmacy Bar, unlike most of the trendoid bars off 18th Street, doesn't fill quickly, even on a weekend night. Couples in their grooviest threads stroll by and peer up into its bluish, ill-lit windows, then move on to swanker spots. I watch the processional with the distinctly snotty airs of a local watching tourists tromp through the backyard. All affiliation is relative. The fact that most of these people are from no further away than Georgetown or - gasp - Northern Virginia is of little consequence to me. They are outsiders. This is my territory, and so I mock whomever I please among the passersby.

The next morning I am punished for it: my mean-spirited eye pains me. The thing which by its seeing is invisible to my own perceptions becomes, unexpectedly, visible to my senses.

Last night I dreamed I was back in school, and the students were told to design the new "Peacock" mascot for the school. I drew a bird that proudly displayed, instead of the customary rack of plumage, a splendid array of several cat-o'-nine-tails and tumescent penises. I spent considerable time on it, adding ample detail to the unmistakable forms of the sadomasochistic devices and phallic decorations.

Before I went to sleep, I was idly considering how interesting it would be to model nude for some art class. I really wonder why I've never done it before.

When I was an art student, I took several classes where I drew and painted from live models, and I photographed a couple other folks for arsty purposes as well. It was always interesting, in so far as the human body's endless variations and quirks are limitlessly fascinating. One model, who posed for a drawing class, was riveting. Her attractiveness and confidence made her nudity somewhat embarrassingly titillating for me, but I kept myself together and held on to my charcoal. This model had a vivid scar on one breast, apparently from some recent surgery. What so astonished me is that many of the people in the class simply didn't draw the scar. Disturbed by that pale pucker of skin, they simply purged it from their vision of her.

This model had the disconcerting habit of strolling around the room while on breaks, still naked, looking at everyone's drawings. She didn't pull on a robe and duck out for a smoke like the other models I knew. She would just walk up behind you in all her lovely nudity and look over your shoulder at your rendition of her. Sometimes she would join in our critiques of various works at the end of class. I admired this model fiercely. She was aces in my book. If I thought I would be half the model she was, I'd do it tomorrow. I seems like it would be great fun.

But in the dream, I chickened out. Before the principal could call on me to share my fetishistic interpretation of our beloved peacock mascot, I slipped out of the auditorium and ran for it.