Heteroclite Structure

Cold rain, last leaves falling, snow forecast. Local radio station says more than 50 fender-benders in town, black ice, one accident involves 8 vehicles. Decide to not go to town, mix some frozen juice (the winter stash) as that was all I needed. Wash out some socks and undies in the sink, need the moisture of drying clothes, catch some rainwater for a bath, crank the cookstove. Finish reading the criticism I started yesterday. Maybe not that I disagree totally, just that the writing is so over-blown it's difficult to prize out what's meant. Two books (a couple of you asked) "Dissident Postmodernists: Barthelme, Coover, Pynchon" Paul Maltly, and "Middle Grounds, Studies in Contemporary American Fiction) Alan Wilde. Actually some of the ideas are good, maybe even correct, once you figure out what's being said. Must get the leaves out of the catchments before the culverts plug, should have done it yesterday but wasn't thinking, having too much fun splitting wood. Driveway is paved with sodden leaves. Pileated Woodpecker back yesterday, working the same trees as before, hopping up and down hickory bark, cocking his head from side to side, listening for critters. A walk during a lull in rain, part-way down the driveway, moving rocks out of the grader ditch, enabling the ritual of drainage. Hours later, cleaned up a bit and sipping half-shots of single malts Glenn left, considering the next thing. Need to do the back porch roof, clear brush, work on firewood. Late Fall Blues. Break out the little can, 130 grams, of Foie Gras de Canard (Glenn and Linda brought me from France), wonderful stuff, full-flavored and rich, I elect to only eat half, finish killing myself tomorrow. Then a couple of small open-face sandwiches, toasted brie with jalapeno peppers, and some olives. Early dinner. Conditions are right for an icy event, depending on how the temperature falls. I need to write and send early, bound to lose either the phone or the electricity. Life at the end of the line. Better to be off the grid than at the very edge of the grid. Need to look into a battery powered laptop, write by candle-light, print the missives very small and send them by pigeon. We could all have cotes and an alternative mail service, exchanging information under the radar. This rain is so directional only one side of the trees is wet. Failing light: black and gray, there is no color. Theory, and even meaning, fade to a point and disappear: if you fall now, you die, carry a walking stick and don't trust your balance. Seasons still surprise me, the way they change the order, first one thing then another, my reading shifts, one day I'm reading desert essays and the next I'm reading polar explorers. Clipped a nice path into where the next tree falls. Then the monster, the winter's wood, a huge oak that might be second growth, a cord of wood in the branches, all dead, stripped of bark, pure solid heart. The tree of your dreams and only fifty more feet of trail. I feel fine about this winter. If I don't make it I shouldn't have, always look to the gene-pool, what Darwin taught us. However flawed in the particular, works out in the long run, who survives. That's only a complete sentence if you say it a certain way, otherwise it means nothing, it's you and me and language, and these bird guys, chirping in, I don't know what to make of them. Went out to pee, the rain is turning to ice, I'd better go. Remember these things, remind me. Whatever I was talking about.

Tom

It's a love-hate thing, living on the edge, what we think we mean.