Flat Surfaces

A crude sense of order, essentially piles of books. This works fine, if you can remember the color of the dust jacket and the relative size. As an indication, I worked on that last paragraph for 12 hours. I spent some time outside, some time doing other things, cooking, eating, but it's not an exaggeration to say that from three this morning until three in the afternoon I was writing and tweaking a 500 word block of text. 42 lines in 10 point Arial, the lines wrapping as the program sees fit, is what I think of a standard block of text. I'm usually short, but occasionally go longer, so it averages out, more or less. I strive for 42 lines because it is a magic number, look to the history of books. All I did this weekend was write, I had designs on other things, but never got around to them. To build a house, you actually only spend 12 hours pounding nails; writing is like that. A few words at a time, building a story from the dust-bin, what you glean from the trash. I never thought of myself as a Russian novelist, but Neal is coming for a long weekend, called to verify that I was up to speed, and mentioned that the whole story was becoming complex, not unlike a Russian novel. A few million words of text, it's not that big a deal, like writing a couple of letters a night for twenty years. First thing you know it's a million words. Actually only a hundred or so words used many times, and the occasional ringer. But you see what I'm saying, the way the napp builds a force that can't be denied. They divert the Mississippi, through the various floodways, creating a lake that is square miles in area. We should talk about silt here, what is deposited. And pretend nothing has happened. Dirk blew the Lakers away, in four straight. It's that time of year. I never can follow the puck. Who blocked what with their body. I swear that was a foul. Too many steps or whatever. What used to be called traveling. No way I'd get between you and the basket. Knew something was wrong, screwed up again. I worked on yesterday's post most of the day, got the files confused and sent an early beginning. I'm always finding ways to lose pages. I did keep a hard copy. Outer edges define. Knew I'd worked hard on that paragraph, but when it bounced back to me, with a message on top, I understood what had happened. I hate retyping, but I like the piece, so I'm going to use it today, you'd never know if I didn't tell you. Reading Glass, "On Talking to Oneself" and considering the particular form my version of that takes. I'm always docenting, asking questions, offering answers, adding recently referenced information. I docent you through the graveyard, through the frogs in my puddle. Walking up the driveway I talk the theory of ditches. Looking for mushrooms, I consider the act of seeing. When I stumble on a hole in my knowledge, I make a note, look it up later, add it to the ramble. A fluid saunter. Extemporaneous. Explaining how to cook a meal on the woodstove, no recipe is ever very precise. One of these and one of those, chopped not too finely; start cooking over here, where it's much hotter, then move the skillet over there, away from the direct heat. Insert a brief history of cast iron cookware. Lament the cost of shallots. Remember another meal, cooked as a seduction in Utah. Probably mention ankles, I love them so. All the time adding things, stirring. And I stir oddly, so Alicia says; with my feet planted, and my stirring arm rigid, swaying my entire upper body. A habit I developed making risotto. I docent roadkill , too. Depending on my mood, this ranges from antic to deadly serious. If it's something I want to skin-out and keep, it gets technical, with mention of musk glands and why I always carry a drop-point knife. If it's just something dead, that I want to haul off the road, I tend toward the crass and callous, an off-color joke or a pun. The best writers I know all stop to haul dead animals off the road, I think it has to do with allowing dignity. Ten years, or so, ago, I was driving from Ohio to Colorado, to see the girls. Driving that big old GMC truck at the time, king-cab, and the bed filled with oddments, my toolkit of the time. Winter, cold, so smell wasn't a problem, as I harvested roadkill coons along the way, their coloring differed, and I wondered about that, and I was keeping them, in the bed of the truck, for study later. Each one had a label, twist-tied to the ankle, that identified the state of its demise. I'd stopped in Kansas, to look at that great spread of unplowed prairie. At that point I had 12 or 14 frozen coons in the back of the truck, some of them very large (I was only keeping perfect specimens, the rest I just opened up and hauled over to the shoulder) and I was the only vehicle pulled over, in the blowing snow, the only person, right then, looking at tall-grass, and a park ranger pulled in beside me. She was attractive, in that fit, outdoor way. And it was not an easy question to answer, and there really wasn't a short version. I asked her if there was a place we could get coffee, she lived nearby and we went to her place. Coffee led to going to the store and me cooking dinner. I'm the victim here, you realize. I'll probably do the dishes before I leave, tomorrow. We talked all night about form and color, she was several darker than me. I explained to her that I had access to an animal burying ground, on the back edge of a remote mesa, a veritable midden of dead sheep. They die so easily, and disposal is a problem. I knew I could dump the coon bodies there, and the hawks and ravens would clean up the mess. What happens is I start adding lines and changing punctuation. What I wanted to do was skin them out, check the thickness of fur, the color, before I drew any conclusion. She seemed to understand that. She had a tattoo, I remember that. Outer edges define, suddenly, you see something, a fractal image. You're frying an egg, and suddenly the edge is the entire known universe. I don't really have a problem with that. I have a small cast iron skillet I use for nothing other than frying eggs. I'm used to frying them perfectly. This skillet and I have an agreement: if I can open the egg, she can cook it. The way I feel about Linda, she's probably my best reader, my misguided self, the various obsessions, just talking, you know, to myself.