Frozen House

Woke up a little late, no time to start a fire, much less get the house warm, so I just throw on a coat over my writing/sleeping clothes, make a cup of coffee, and hit the road. Pegi and Trish were across the street, breaking down the wine-tasting. 200 wine glasses, serving trays and utensils, table-cloths, empty bottles; D and I sort things out in the kitchen, start the dishwasher, and haul garbage. All day cleaning. The library calls and they're holding a copy of Chuck Palahniuk's new book "Damned" for me. When I run over to get it I hear that there's been a horrific accident on Rt, 125, my primary route home, and that, coupled with the slight chance of snow, and a new Palahniuk to read, convinces me to stay in town. I intended to write, but the book is quite good, and I read it at a sitting. A study of hell and Satan, told from the point of view of a fat 13 year-old girl. "My mom and dad said you (Satan) and God were invented in the superstitious, backward pea brains of hillbilly preachers and Republican hypocrites." Slept like a rock, warm for the first time in several days, get up early, get a cup of coffee and drive below the floodwall. A string of barges pushing upstream, like an apparition through the fog. When Market Street Cafe opens I get another coffee and a scone, sit for the better part of an hour, bantering with customers (all of whom I seem to know) and the help, reading the newspaper. Small town. They won't let me pay for anything. At the museum I read an essay on Utrillo, his drunkenness, and his hundreds of paintings of churches, many of which he traded for a single glass of wine. There's a huge squirrel and a smallish town cat that live on the street (6th) out back and I've wondered about their winter living arrangements. Inter-species relationships are hell. They both live, live together, in an abandoned storefront a few doors down, I finally found their entrance. It doesn't seem large enough, but I've watched them both go in and out, several times now, and I know they can somehow fit through that hole, though it seems impossible. Ocesola squirming through the bars, you know that story, the way he escaped from the fort by starving himself to slip between the verticals. If you can get your head past, and you don't have any body fat, you can manipulate your hips. Cold, then colder. There's a dress code for freezing writers, involves many layers, and gloves that make it hard to actually write, but there are guidelines, a certain protocal. If one thing, then another. An algorhithm, right? punch in some numbers and get an answer. I never really find it that simple, whatever the guidelines say,: I start with a clear conscioiusness and end muddied in clay, and I'm always confused.