Laundromat

I was Saturday staff, and that was fine, did some shopping, went to the laundromat, read at the museum, had a pint and a very good tomato bisque at the pub. The only other person doing laundry was a young Mexican mother, and her three year old daughter was bored and borderline out of control. I put down my book and pushed laundry carts with the kid. She had a great time. The wheel was a great invention. Later, I thought I must have appeared non-threatening, and I took that as a good sign. Sweet little girl whose name I never did really catch, or the mom's name either. The mom was so thrilled to not have to entertain the kid, so she could actually fold the husband's clothes; he's a mechanic, works at Knittle's shop, where I've recently had both a brake job and a water pump replaced; that she bought me a bottle of water. Somehow everything seems connected. And odd. An artist came in today, to pick up some things, and I was mopping up a recent spill. I look at the floor more than anyone else, I study the floor, and I was mopping a section where someone had spilled coke; and there was that recent cookbook, and the windshield thing, thinking about watching movies again (so time consuming) and that Bach patter of rain on the roof. (I wrote that line for Michael.) Send me your name and I'll send a prayer flag. Kidding, but I'm facile now, in ways I've never been, I can bend notes. Fucking retuning: in the sixth suite, he changes the tuning, the top or bottom, no one really does this, they mostly play it in another key. Phone out again last light, so I couldn't SEND. My utilities are a joke. Sometimes I think my lifestyle is a joke. Slept late, almost 8 o'clock, finished reading some essays on language. Fixed a large brunch of hash brown potatoes, with eggs and sausage, drank one too many cups of coffee. Mom calls, and she wants me to move off the ridge, into less demanding digs. I think about that all day; something we might think of as 'comfort level', how I feel about the natural world, what I'm willing to sacrifice, the way I'm willing to live. Spent the rest of the day reading "No Way Down", Bowley, a decent book about the 2008 failure on K2. 11 dead. Where the fixed ropes under the serac were ripped out by repeated ice falls. What do you do when the rest of the way down is impossible? Sing songs and grab an umbrella.