Notional Entity

Out before the rain this morning, but that got me to town early, and that allowed a trip below the flood wall, it's always a treat to rummage through debris the river has carried down. To wit: a second Barbie Ball, and a small load of firewood. D and I get our Saturday breakfast wraps at Market Street. These are as big as your forearm and serve for two meals. While he does corrections for the flyer I go do a load of laundry, help a hapless mother fold some sheets. Her two kids were out of control, and I felt sorry she hadn't corrected their behavior earlier in their lives. They were bad kids, and I'm seeing more of this, very young people out of line. Bad form. I finally had to hold the little boy by the shoulder and tell him it wasn't ok for him to punch me in the thigh. Maybe it's because I'm just a farm boy, and I've never been so bored by life, that I turned to a life of sheer meanness as a way to pass the time. Sara calls, I answer the phone, so we chat before I hand the phone over to D. I love talking with Sara, an affinity, we're always on the same page. The wind is up, heavy squalls moving through, I may have to duck. Up tails all. They're forecasting maybe two inches of rain an hour, flash flooding. Thank god I live atop a ridge. At least I won't be washed away. The wind picks up, blowing a gale, I have to go. All I could carry tonight, is a storm stay-sail, just enough canvas to carry the wind. To give me way. Try to write but the storms are too intense and I have to shut down. Then, today, the same, line after line of thunderstorms, lightning, heavy rain. Intense weather. I've not known rain this severe since my bottom acres flooded in Missip and I had to rescue drowning pigs. Supposed to rain all night, and there will be flooding tomorrow, but my truck is at the bottom of the hill and I don't have to go out. I'll be able to get out fine on Tuesday, because the drainage here is so fast. This is not like southern Illinois where the slope might be a couple of feet per mile, these hollows are sluices that drain at frightening rates; mobile homes are carried away, tractors and trucks become rocks. I'm saving text quite often, bound to lose power, it's raining sheets, the only thing I can hear is rain, thunder and lightning all around. A dangerous cold weather event, you have time to do things, they happen slow, you get the candles and oil-lamps out, you make a pot of soup, layer up, get out some blankets; but this intense rain and lightning event is fast, it sweeps across, leaving you shocked. One lightning strike, and enormous clap of thunder, this morning, was right on top of me, the house shook and the windows banged in their casings. The power was out, I was on the sofa, stretched out, reading escapist fiction, and the blast nearly knocked me to the floor. I love it. The raw power of a natural event at this scale. My boat, this house, is way over-built, I could float downstream if I needed to, they could pluck me from the Mississippi with a couple of straps and one of those big helicopters. I wouldn't answer their questions. As a janitor, I can do that, deny any knowledge of anything. You led. I merely followed. The Twinkie Defense. Writing is one thing, reading, another. So much rain, I'm sure the world is flooded. I've given up on the idea of being correct, I just want to keep my head above water. No choice, another line of squalls, I have to shut down, tell Laura I loved her.