Well Used

The floor finally caught up with us. A piece of baseboard needed to be scribed and the bottom needed to be rasped and planed to conform to some very uneven tile. Peter Monroe playing mostly harmonics, almost screaming. Blue Grass Music is an acquired taste. I convince myself I'm not completely crazy, wash some dishes, shave, dance around the kitchen. "Red and black leather is my favorite color scheme," Richard Thompson. He gave her his Vincent to ride. Red Molly. This is a great song, and I love the use of the mandolin. Captures that frenetic element of life. At some point I go back inside. I don't mean anything by that, I simply go through the door, but my panties are twisted, or something, and I stop, in a shadow, to make things right. That double-headed god, Janus be the death of me, I tried to act normal, but the cards were stacked against me. Listen. Is that hail on the brim of your hat? I'm just asking. It could be sleet, and how would you know the difference? "I've been to my doctor, I've been to my priest", nothing is working, I'd rather retire into the woodwork, the world is too much with me. At a certain level of water-flow there's a cascade of images. I could pretend they don't matter. Fact, in every rut, has a history. Gray-blue dawn, cold, but it's March and the average temperature should be rising. It's snowing, lightly; no wind, and the flakes are falling straight down. Red bird, a Cardinal, on the front deck, chipping at a wasp nest I knocked down a few days ago; two crows out over the outhouse. I told the Frontier Phone guy exactly where the tree had severed his line, this is like cutting eye teeth, he can't do anything, until he gets a call from dispatch. So I don't have a phone and he's sitting on his ass. John, himself, joined us at lunch, and he was in a bad temper, a fowl mood. Why is it a fowl mood, and is that even the correct word? Days that begin like this are always questionable. And we're sitting at the bar, watching soccer with no sound, actually there is a sound, Irish music played low, in the background, and he says he's not having a good day. D and I glance at each other and break into the chorus of a Greg Brown song: "I don't want to have a nice day..." which cracks a smile from John, and actually makes the day. Yesterday. Today, the snow is falling and it's very quiet, other than those raucous birds and a train over in Kentucky. Peaceful, but frot with concern. Is 'frot' a word? The snow is so beautiful. All dogs are wolves. What I mean is that if I fall out there, and break a leg, I'm probably dead. You could learn a lot from watching wolves.