Lost Lines

A glitch somewhere, I'm losing lines. I've lost 84 in the last couple of days and I don't understand where they've gone. I'm doing everything the same way. I hate losing lines, it's so hard building them. Cut wood, haul water. The books for today, off the shelves, are "A Pattern Language" (a now classic book which describes a new attitude toward architecture and planning, excellent), and the Dreyfuss "Symbol Sourcebook". The first because I'm still thinking about that last house; the second because I was looking for the symbol 'Nothing To Declare' which proved to be a no-brainer and not very satisfying. It's a green stop-sign shape, in green, with the words spelled out on a white arrow. The symbol for 'Obscure Species' is the same as the symbol for 'Incorrect Citation', a tre-foil with the bottom leg extended into a dagger. The meteorology symbols are wonderful, especially the clouds. The Caduceus (staff of Hermes) has two snakes; the Staff of Aesculapius has just one. Great book. 230 pages of symbols, 48 to the page, about covers the subject. "A Pattern Language" is dense and the type is too small, but with its companion volume "The Timeless Way Of Building", pretty much define my approach to building. I've built 24 houses and must have designed 12 of them, I don't have any pictures, I don't even remember where some of them are, couldn't find them on a bet. A couple have been moved, much simplified by my having built them on piers, which I tend toward in damp climates, to allow for air circulation. As I think about it, you enter most of the houses I've built from the rear, what I call the rear that other people often refer to as the front. I like driving in to the back of places, leaving the truck or car out of view from the front, which always looks out. Spied a nice standing dead oak that will nicely fill out my firewood pile, not far from the front of the house, slightly down-slope and I'll need to cut a path, but only 150 feet or so. I choose it because I'm sure I can drop it up-slope, saving a great deal of labor. I got down to it today with just a few scratches and a sacrificial sweatshirt; it's a nearly perfect tree for my needs, the bark is mostly off (brings bugs inside) and it's all sound heart. 23 million BTUs on the stump. Next weekend, weather permitting. Still a show to finish, and the largest fund-raiser of the year to prepare for, and four days to do it; will be a test, of sorts, I'm guessing. By Friday everyone will be in a full-bore panic. If the weather is dry, I might stay for part of it, most likely I'll come home so I can have a drink, and write. If I stayed, of course, I might bring someone home, and I'm not ruling that out. Twilight is the loneliest time of day. I'm sure Emily has something to say about that, the setting sun being the death of day. Repressed eroticism. We have to do something with that, that line where repression becomes a channeling of energy, a Tantric thing. Which, certainly, Emily achieves, but our hippy narrator might not. Just a thought. Not that a visit by a friend, or a really interesting person, could be perceived as an interruption, more grist for the meal, but I'm seldom interrupted, as if no one wants to live this way. One look at my hands is enough. You do, what? Lay bricks, harvest timber, build houses? I'd consider a double hand transplant. The first finger on my left hand, usually protected by the remnants of a glove, over the years, I've probably hit a hundred times with various hatchets, splitting kindling. Scar tissue is interesting, the folds and adjustments. Almost anything in nature bears the marks of passage. Sassafras saplings can contort into any configuration. Maybe we're all bent. The devil's in the details. I'm more than willing to listen.You and yours. I merely listen. Seven worlds collide. Five or Seven. Always an odd number. Nothing to declare. His body or his mind,. I trust your procession. Looking forward, sitting in the midday sun.