Bilateral Symmetry

Everywhere in nature and in the hand of man. Symmetry, Herbert used to say, was the last refuge of the simple minded. I spent some time today folding leaves in half, gathered some acorns, fed an old pizza to some ducks. Checked in with D at the museum and ran some errands, lunch with D at the pub, I had a beer, since I wasn't working, and joked with the staff. Replace some light bulbs, several of any given type, and we use a great many types, tend to blow out around the same time. They really do, often, last for 3,000 hours. They must figure the filament size very closely. I watched over D's shoulder as he finished designing the six cards and envelope for the fund-raiser mailing. Looks cool, a little shocking, I think it's perfect. Sara came in, and when they started on the final set of changes, I left. Early enough to stop at the library, liquor store and Kroger. Not much more you need. I went below the floodwall, to hunker down and watch the flow of current. It's one of those things I can watch for a long time. Relaxing. Various pieces of shit floating by. The back-flow, in small sample, viewed up close, I never looked this close to shore, is amazing. I don't understand the physics of it, don't even know what questions to ask. But it's cool, like the northern lights, something you might see. Angels lay him away, six feet under the clay. Stagger Lee. That old story. Went to the devil. Delia, done and gone. All I've got and gone. Six white horses, two by two. Some bright morning. The sun will shine on my back door some day. The blues come and get me. My back door some day. A midnight rider. Crash pad on their bay, burn your candle down. A pick-up on the dark side of town. More than this, tell me one thing. Wayfaring stranger. Where do you want to be? Just asking. Fine with me, early morning hours, maybe because I took a lot of acid in the sixties and seventies, I actually enjoy the confusion. I sleep different places around the house, so that when I awaken I'm not exactly sure where I am. As Harvey said, trust in doubt. Consider it a training regimen for dealing with things as they are. Awoke in what I think of as the girl's bedroom, my daughters, when they were here for the summer. Their things are still scattered about, I seldom even go into that room, I can vaguely smell them when I do, or smell something that is not me. A sharp pang of remembrance. I breakfast on refried cheese grits with two fried eggs and toast. Don't try this at home unless you truly understand cast iron skillets. I have a dozen or more, one of them I only use to fry eggs, another, that I use for polenta-like substances, is so well seasoned (forty years) that I could fry pine sap in it and it wouldn't stick. I was going to put another comma in there, but I knew Sara would say something. What I mean, or meant, was that refrying cheese grits is tricky. They don't want to consolidate. I make a kind of patty and roll it in corn meal. The eggs on top, the yolks a sauce to die for. I'm still recovering from breakfast when there's a knock on the door, B with books he thought I'd enjoy, and he's never been wrong in the past, we're deep into a conversation about writing, and there's another knock at the door. Andrew out hiking with his son Henry. A symposium. We talk about the history of Scioto county while Henry plays a Smurf game on his father's phone. I can't keep up, I try, but I'm ancient history. B leaves and Drew goes outside to pee and I ask Henry what else is on his phone. There's something called "The Oregon Trail" and I ask him to call that up, fingers tapping at a screen. A version of history. Everything is a version, when you think about what you think. We codify the past in a mold and consider it to be the real deal. In short, it ain't. What happens is a far cry from what you think happened. But we believe whatever we believe. I don't have a problem with rolling in the aisles, but I wonder what it means. Could I be identified by my use of the pluperfect? Have we gone that far? No projections, asshole, move along. Like that, curt, and to the point.