Walking About

A different walk than being in the woods, over to Market Street, then down below the floodwall. The Ohio in spate, both the terraces flooded. The debris field is expansive. I'll need a day off, next week, to scout the areas I know where eddies are created when the water is this high. It's in the backwaters, where crap accumulates, that I find the most interesting stuff. Several years since the water was this high and that means new and engaging items from upstream. I can skirt, on foot, the barricades the road crew uses to block access. Sit on a concrete railing and roll a smoke. A small flask, less than half-a-pint, of Irish in my coat pocket, working up to Paddy's Day. A nip and a smoke, watching the river roil. Sitting on my foam pad glassing the water with a cheap little telescope, watching for balls. More than you can imagine. In any given five-minute period I'm watching at least ten. Studying the way they float on the currents. A lot of balls. A purple one I covet. And there are dozens of balls, already, amid the litter. I don't harvest a single one. I need to talk with Anthony about doing an installation with just twenty ounce pop bottles and balls. "Debris Piles" we could call it, super-glued in place, site specifically. A rubber and plastic show. The signage would be on metal fence posts, anchored in a paint can of concrete. I want to build a kind of ziggurat from pop bottles, with the balls I see a pyramid. Just thinking out loud, but alternating layers of balls and bottles might lead somewhere. Ideas are cheap, assembling is a chore, do you really want to do anything? I have lots of ideas every day, I have to be more careful about what I chose to actually do, otherwise I end up with a woodshed full of bottles and balls, and then the usual disposal problem. Nine ways from Sunday. Like the man said, there ain't really any guarantees. Go ahead and collect the balls, deal with disposal later. This idea, for instance, has a kind of terminal mass, a point at which it would become real. I don't know where that point is, I just muddle along, but when Brennschluss is achieved, everything is history. When we have enough numbers to calculate. Or whatever arcane system you use to determine where you are. For decades I've only used the rising sun for both direction and time. I know where I am, but is it morning or night? I write beyond my abilities often enough that I have to think about that, how could you, or not do that. What you said, what you thought you meant. I'd rather be in Richmond, or Charlottesville, anyplace Jefferson had designed something. Curious, looking around, I notice you haven't done much since I'd been away. Does that mean you don't care or was there just a logistical problem? I'm open to any explanation. Having studied this at length, I'd say sweep, then mop.I need a new ringer, is that in the budget? I hate having rusting bits of metal staining my floor. My concerns. Fucking glitter, man, it is the shades of hell, all sparkle and no meaning. Been there, done that, and it's not worth the bother, I'd rather solve a word puzzle at home, and I don't like word puzzles, I'd rather just drink a beer and eat a piece of pizza. I don't carry an axe and wouldn't use it anyway. Whatever you do is fine. I just write, as a habit.