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Strange trip. Oddly peaceful. Alone in a new rental car, plenty of time to think, AC, NPR, back roads, many stops to pull dead animals off the tarmac; stopping at roadside stands for fresh fruit, chatting up the locals, slipping into my southern dialect. Hand-painted signs are a feature of blue highways. "Need Sod?" "Live Bait" "Divorce Parties: 14 Naked Ladies" "Lost Skunk, Reward" and I wonder about that last, if you saw a skunk what were the chances it would be the correct skunk? Loess of the melt-water, hard-scrabble farms, lives of sacrifice. Nothing is inevitable but some things seem pretty certain, you get out if you can, otherwise you stay, bitter, probably, and leaning toward violence. On the way down I stop for lunch at a Mom and Dad place, homemade pie it says on the sign and it certainly is, peach, blackberry, and a lemon chiffon that could start a war, and there's a mild altercation going on when I arrive, two good old boys arguing the ownership of a pig. I buy a round of pie and coffees so I can listen to the dispute. I understand the language, which is helpful, but the argument is bullshit. One of the guys, Orvis, had a sow that birthed one more piglet than she had teats, so he gave the runt to a 4H kid and she raised it into a monster ribbon winner, the ribbon winner went for hundreds of dollars at the fair and the breeder thought he should be in for a share. Nonsense. Mary had raised the pig, she was entitled to the profit. I waded into the conversation, which I almost never do, bought another round, set them straight. I should not be set loose on the world, we view things so differently. I use a lot of water, in motel rooms, hot, from the tap, keeping track, always, I'm compulsive about that, the free flow of information. I merely cooked. I didn't know what anyone was up to. I fixed dinner, sometimes in the middle of the day. I cooked and read, almost a vacation, except for the serious conversations. I don't sleep well, the guest bed in my parent's house is awful, so I move to the sofa. On the way down I stopped at a Motel 6 in Columbia, SC, dined at a BBQ joint that is a converted gas station, great slaw, decent pulled pork, excellent sauce. A stretch of Interstate over to the coast, then Route 17, Sunday, a week ago, down to Jax, stopping often at estuaries, to sample the fried fish, Coosawatchie, Ojeegee, Jerico. Settlements time has forgotten, a few dirty flat-bottom skiffs and the smell of rotting crabs, nice people, simple needs and roughened hands. Arrive, inventory the larder, go to Publix to resupply. Put on a pot of butter beans, fry okra, grill a London Broil. And so it goes, for a week, cooking and talking; Mom is up for several hours a day and we watch reruns of NCIS, plan the next meal, talk end-of-life issues. I cook several meat-loaves for the freezer. They nap a lot and I read on the back screened porch overlooking the lake, where the algae blooms and the occasional perch strikes at a bug on the lily pads, dappling the smooth surface. We're on the flight path for NAS Jax and a carrier arrives from the Persian Gulf. When a Aircraft Carrier makes port they fly all the fighters off the deck and it's quite the show; and every hour, on the hour, a C130 takes off, a load of supplies to Germany for transfer to the wars. I can't wait to get home, where I can't hear what's going on in the world. On the way back I rent a room in Norton, Virginia, shower twice, flip through the channels and watch an old James Bond movie, Sean Connery beating ass, three o'clock in the morning, the middle of nowhere. The American dream. Dense fog in the mountains and I am careful, defensive, avoid anything and everything confrontational, return the rental, undented, retrieve my truck, achieve the ridge. Both the power and my phone are dead, requires a trip back to town for ice, for a drink, and a phone call to the rural electric. Seems I took a lightening strike while I was gone and nothing works. What's new? Can't Send, need another modem (number five for this computer) and my printer (almost new) is dead. Freezer full of food must be tossed, random breakers are tripped, but at least I wasn't robbed again. Picked up some Mace in Florida, and another shotgun. Installed the new modem and my power is back on, but I can't remember a damn thing, a story without semantic content. A second-rate mind. What is it Whitehead said, "There is no idea in all science that can't be grasped by the persistent application of a second-rate mind" something like that. One of those drug ads on TV "I'm still not where I want to be with my symptoms" and I wonder what that means. Life becomes a Beckett play, nothing is inevitable, a mantra I intone, the increments you have to deal with. Back at the museum there is an almost panic about the film premier, the arrangement of tables and chairs, whether or not the correct projector is available, I stay calm and mop the mess from a pottery demo, keep the floor clean and wash your hands before you eat. Panic is from Pan, a dervish mode I avoid whenever possible. There is no arrangement of tables and chairs that I can't set up in an hour, talk to me when you know exactly how many people are going to be there, don't worry until there's something to worry about. The fucking talent is always a problem: Judy Collins required her dressing room floor be covered with freshly laundered towels. Talent is always weird. Wearing the same socks through a hitting streak, crossing yourself before you go on stage, sniffing rotting apples, whatever, I'm not one to laugh, I have my habits, my routines. I understand eccentricities, as they seem to be the basis of my life. Not through design, I never would have imagined that I would live as I do, Sara said something germane, recently, that I seemed to have a system and it seemed to work. I do, it does, but it's an amalgam, not a pure thing, merely the surface; what you see is not necessarily what is. Nutrias have infiltrated the lake behind my parent's house, they've eaten everything, but on the surface the lake looks the same. A book I should write, "Lakes I Have Known", I make a note, but I won't follow up, spend 30 minutes in the ether and come back to firewood. Got a great load of red maple slaps at the wood dump, pre-cuts, I actually chuckle out loud, in some ways, I think, this is too good to be true.

This one is for Linda,
I considered who
I might be writing for.