Clear Evidence

Apa, a Nepalese Sherpa, has climbed Everest 21 times. He commands a high price for his services, as he should, a guide without peer. He says the mountain is different now, more rock and less snow. There was an article today about the decrease in Arctic sea ice and another about an ice-berg as big as Rhode Island that broke off a shelf in Antarctica. For my part, we had the warmest winter and then the hottest summer in the record books. It's still manageable, a few degrees, but on down the pike, things are looking bad. I'm OK with the fact that I'm nearly used up. I hope I have the good sense to just wander off, and disappear at the end, not be a burden for anyone, the burial laws in Ohio are fairly lax. No mandatory embalming, and I could, actually, be buried in a Lazy-Boy box Booby would dig a hole for. Fit ends, or fitting ends, you know what I mean. Why was I even going there? I have some thoughts about my younger daughter, a Sherpa child if there ever was one, and then I fix a great dinner that features a faux veal cutlet that resembles a flying saucer with a sauce, that if God had ever had the time, he would have invented. I should fall weeping to the floor. Steadfast, I just eat, and praise the gods. I was reading another essay at the island, as is my want, Paul Klee, then fell into reflection about what means what. Spent most of the day reading David Crystal, "How Language Works", very good chapters on pidgin and creole languages and a great chapter on translation. I have another of the cutlets with polenta and a perfect fried egg. Late afternoon, I have to turn off the radio and kill the breaker for the fridge. I almost require silence for my reading self to communicate with my writing self. Rummaging for a garbage bag I ran across a nip bottle of Glendronach, single malt scotch, and have no idea where it came from. I know it was Glenn, of course, but I don't remember the circumstances, so I roll a smoke, and drink that. It's good, one of the brighter, not too peaty ones, though I like those too. A busy plate, starting, actually, last Saturday, because I needed to get a jump on things, and went in to paint; but tomorrow we start hanging, and this is the most exciting part, where the actual work goes on the actual walls. I love the fact that I do it, but I also love the fact that I'm good at it. Good, a comparative word. Did I really just spend all day reading about the difference between syntax and grammar? Just shoot me, if I ever walk on your property after midnight. There's a warrant somewhere.