Dangling Chads

The Republicans should have won the election, they threw so much money at it. Emily Elizabeth, 1830 -1886, little note of the Civil War, she could have met Whitman, or Wyatt Earp for that matter. Always surprises me that my Dad was five years old when Wyatt died, honorary sheriff of San Francisco. Facts jam me up more than fiction. 93% of the universe is unknown. Great conversation with my older daughter (the comparative case is much more common in Latin, I like the way it carries information) and she's now searching for what I need, electronically, to simplify and guarantee my writing self. It'd be nice to be able to write from the field. Yesterday is a blur, I wrote all day, moved words around and deleted commas, then supped on fresh pasta with Newman's sauce and a couple of pieces of Texas Toast (which I always keep in the freezer, in my drive to gain weight) to pre-clean my plate. Listening to a dude today, talking about food waste, and, on average, it falls at about 40%. I try and keep it around .05%. I eat stuff I shouldn't, just to see if I can digest it. Acorn meal makes you fart, but that's not a problem if you live alone, and it really is high in protein. We used to have the enzyme that would allow us to eat grass, the good old days, when we could just graze, but now we require wheat or soy or diary or the eggs of the unborn, to see us through the night. Don't get me started, I eat dead animals I pull off the road, people leave dead animals in my mail box. Such is fame. The nose knows if something is too ripe, except for certain cheeses I avoid things that stink. It's breaking day. I have to watch this, ribbons of light, as Emily said. And a snake in the grass. Landscape and narrative. This time of year I walk the old logging roads with work gloves and a pair of clippers, to clear blackberry canes and bull-vine from what will be my winter paths. Spent most of the day reading essays by Barry Lopez, made a small pot of black bean soup, and ate the second half of an enormous baked potato. A lovely sunset, shot through with oranges and purples. Outside, for a last view of the deepening colors, I'm surprised by a huge gibbous moon. Beautiful and silent in the hard bright stillness. I keep glancing at it, out the patio doors to the left of where I write. Three-quarters full, and so bright I can see the other quarter as shadow. It's stunning. Earlier, I was wishing for something to watch, a sporting event or a movie, something to get me out of myself, but I got myself a drink, rolled a smoke, and watched the moon. There's a low light cloud cover, it doesn't even begin to diminish the bounced photons, but they form a halo, that goes mahogany at the edge, that I've never seen before. 90 minutes of rapt attention, but I'm probably not the target audience, a very slow movie about lunar effects has zero appeal, for any movie that does anything other than just be watched. I don't know, I have a degree in mopping, it usually serves me pretty well. I'm not intimidated by projectile vomiting or explosive diarrhea, but I have a problem finding the pulse of this culture I'm only a part of it by reflection, I look fairly normal, I wear jeans and denim shirts, I shield my eyes when I'm photographed in public, how insensitive, I could be wanted in other states, and wear a cap most of the time, to, you know, disguise my identity.