Fact Check

Praeteritas Turas Fecundant ---the past fertilizes the future--- motto for Marshyhope State University College in John Barth's Letters. Took me a good while to track that down. Looking up shit in several Latin dictionaries and it came to me that it was Barth, then remembered the book. Read around in him for a few hours. That great opening line from The End Of The Road: "In a sense, I am Jacob Horner." Then got out the huge Raven Map, Landforms And Drainages Of The United States and spent an hour with the magnifying glass, found Mackletree and maybe my hollow. Amazing map. Incredible detail. Answered email questions, the modern equivalent of writing letters. The form has morphed, most emails are like postcards -wish you were here- but I get asked a lot of questions from people I don't know -what did you mean by...- or -were you referring to...-, sometimes I answer, sometimes I don't. Sometimes it's the wrong question and I ask them the correct one. I like the edge I walk with my readers. Neil got up early, specifically to check his email and there were two postings from me, the Maxwell story. He didn't say much but I think he liked them. Fleshing out that Janitor College stuff, it's hard to remember what never happened, but then gets easier when you remember it's fiction. We don't have a problem with that. B is not Brian. D is not Darren. Sometimes, maybe. The edges are fuzzy. You know, when I talk about the frogs or the crows or the Pileated woodpeckers that I'm shooting straight; with the fox it gets a little more complex; the whole janitor thing is under review. Always a mistake, I make certain assumptions, I do this in a cyclical way that even I can see, and then respond incorrectly to a situation. Like I wasn't paying attention or something. I wasn't. As soon as you take something for granted, it isn't. Relationships are difficult. Being in the moment requires a brutal self-centeredness. Nothing else matters. Tough on other. I've thought about this a lot, I'm so much better alone. I don't lose my temper, I don't eat babies. We wouldn't have a lot of art if creature comforts were the most important thing in the world. I assume you'll make sense of me. I'm comforted in the fact that you are there. Like a net, you know, I'm afraid of heights now, there'd have to be a net. Someone would have to teach me how to fall. I fall like an idiot, it's the only way I know. Failing miserably. Ends the conversation and I can go to bed. Pretty sure nothing was settled. I listened to myself closely. Just a murmmer, nothing serious, what you thought your heart could do. I over-tip and walk away, my solution. I don't want to argue.