Too Quiet

I'll work this out tomorrow, the logistics, I think I have enough whiskey and tobacco to see me through, I can always reread Proust. But this last snow is an affront, bad form, I'd already changed out of long-underwear into tee-shirts with a pocket. There's this one crazy guy in town, Richard, all he does is walk around. He must walk twenty miles a day. He's convinced that there are aliens among us. I enjoy the brief conversations I have with him, everything is called into question. Most of the crazy people I've known are savants, one way or another. This blanket of snow is unwelcome. Heavy, wet, soggy shit; I swear I could just about kill myself. Glenn mentioned Harvey, thirty years ago he blew out his brains. At first I thought, yeah, but his situation was different, then I realized we were all the same. Harvey used to come over to the first print-shop, sit in the window sill and recite Lorca in Spanish. The music in the language was everything to him. Finished rereading Jim Harrison's non-fiction, which led to reading some of the people he talked about, which led to rereading the Nick Adams stories (in the handy 'all in one book' edition), and that pretty well used up the day. A nice homemade chorizo omelet. A walk over to the first morel spot. Nothing yet. Back in my chair at Black Dell, I read myself for an hour before I remembered I was supposed to be editing. So I go back over a section and cut a few words out, alter some punctuation. TR called and he agreed to come out and hook up the old Mac from the museum, so I can get to work on the three books that have been cut out of the Ridge Post, and print a bunch of stuff for Chautuaqua. A lot to do. Glad I have all my time for it. From this new vantage it doesn't look quite so impossible. Just needs the right equipage. And TR to stop by once in a while to clean up any muddles. I'm an absolute dunce when it comes to computers. I love them, because they allow me to edit as I write, and not have to retype everything ten times (I am a slow and deranged two-finger typist), but I don't know how to use them. I'm better with stinky cheese, velcro closures, frozen zippers, or any number of difficult trimming problems. Render everything down. What you're left with, is the thing its self. I'm sure there's a name for it. Read more...

Cold Rain

Internalize the quality of attention. I didn't get to the percussion concert last night, nor the (official) opening at the museum today, as the rain had the driveway slick, but I'm not sure I would have gone anyway. I'm in a groove of reading for eight hours (split-shift), going for a walk, and writing for six hours. Jim Harrison, a gifted food writer himself, also thinks that John Thorne is the best, and has a wonderful essay wondering about where all the chicken thighs have gone. Russia, as it turns out. I had a package three in the fridge, from the sale bin, and I needed to use them. Skin them, put the skins in a skillet over low heat, to render and fry, then poke slivers of garlic into the thighs, set them to marinate in papaya nectar, and a dry, fruity zin. Turn my attention to the skins, pull them over to a hotter part of the stove, cook them nicely, and save the fat (I'll be frying eggs in it tomorrow); then make a fold-over sandwich with fried chicken skins and pesto mayo. This is only improved with a large slice of onion or some left-over fried potatoes, or both. I bake the thighs right in the marinade, in a slow oven for an hour, during which time I make a small pot of rice, and a vegetable dish I dearly love, Brussels Sprouts cooked as a kind of vegetable pasta. What the hundreds of pastas teach us is that hollows can contain a liquid or sauce, and if you trim the Brussels Sprouts carefully, the ones you had gotten in a sale bin, because Brussels Sprouts are always remaindered. I look up and it's snowing, the roof is still dripping, but outside, it's snowing hard. What you do is trim off the ends and sear everything in a walnut of butter, then break apart the halved sprouts with a wooden spoon, and you end up with all these half-moon containers with which to convey a rich butter sauce to your mouth. Damned good. I've developed a technique whereby I bone-out a chicken thigh, my favorite part, and roll it around a filling, a sort of taco, top it with grated cheese, and finish it in a hot oven. Sinful. I'll die with my snoot in a pile of butter. When I got up to pee ---the meal had made me comatose, and I couldn't see to read, so I had taken a nap--- the back porch was covered with two inches of new powder. I had to sweep a path down to solid ground. Even then I was unsure of my footing, so I was very careful, in my slippers, going out to paint my name in the snow. Being Tom is easy, you just assume the fall-back position, hunkered down in a tree-tip pit, sucking marrow from a bone. The wind kicks up. We don't actually have any control. You know that as a fact, when the wind howls through the trees, and you're reduced to just being another mammal, peeing to the leeward. Read more...

Sadistic Bastard

I have a friend who doesn't cook, actually I have a lot of friends who don't cook, but this particular friend, after I've described something good that I've cooked, always sends me an email that opens with those words. I always have to laugh. Pump myself up and become a sadistic bastard. The wind is screaming, and sheets of rain. Doesn't last long, but it takes out the power and the phone. Power is back on in an hour but it was well after daylight the next day before the phone crew got out to Mackletree. Got up again, in the middle of the night, to write for a couple of hours, mostly stared into the middle distance, then slept on the sofa until the sun got in my eyes. While the double espresso was dripping, I went upstairs and got the two volumes of Jim Harrison's essays. I remembered yesterday that I wanted to reread them. While I was up there I picked up the Thomas McGuane novel "Keep The Change". I keep Harrison and McGuane together on one of the new shelves upstairs because they're friends and drinking buddies. The yearling squirrels are out, and they're eating the proto-buds on poplar trees. I love watching them scamper on the branches, the way they defy gravity. I wonder about Poplar buds, could I eat them? Are they any good? How nutritious? Read more...

Clean Slate

My trips to the laundromat are almost always interesting. I was starved, I hadn't eaten breakfast, just got up, started a small fire, heated some water, shaved and washed my hair. Stripped out of all the clothes I was wearing and gathered everything together. Headed to town, I stopped at MacDonald's and got a couple of breakfast burritos, put my clothes in the wash cycle, went back out to the Jeep to eat, and I was just sitting there, with the door open, elbows on my knees, eating a burrito, reading a John Sandford novel, when a Latino male ran up to the vehicle and asked if I could take his wife (and him) to the hospital. Her water had broke and she was in labor. She was seriously in labor, and I did not want to deliver a baby on the side of the road, so I used his cell phone, I don't own one, to tell the hospital crew we were coming in. They were great, I heard the baby was delivered on the way to the delivery room. I went back and put my clothes in the dryer. Too much excitement. Read more...

Humic Musk

The snow mostly disappeared by noon, it was only 36 degrees, but the ground was already warmer from recent days. Driveway should be ok tomorrow and I might go do laundry, go the library, lay in some supplies. Zack, the percussionist for the Emily project, is playing in a percussion trio at the museum Friday night, we'll see. Read all morning, a history of salt (I have several), and several of the stories in Best Short Stories 1994, which I'd picked up at the Goodwill. Should be warm enough tomorrow to strip out of my long-underwear, toss it in the laundry pile, take a bath, and if I did the laundry, I'd be ready for the next round. After I got my hip warmed up, I went out for a walk. The driveway was muddy/frozen and rather slick, so I walked in the woods, out past the graveyard, on the ridge-line that parallels the river. Fairly clear terrain and a nice hike. I carried my smallest pack: a foam pad, to kneel on, a magnifying glass, a couple of Balance nutrition bars, and a small bottle of water. In one of those side-pockets I often keep a nip of decent whiskey. Just in case. I'd stopped at a convenient stump, to roll a smoke, sitting there, trying to make cold fingers work. The air thick with rotting mast, a breeze that promises more snow. Fortunately, I snap twigs as a matter of course, it's a system to find my way back home. I pretty much know the way, though I may be lost in the moment. I did get turned around once, following a flock of wild turkeys. Very cool and wary birds. They post guards and have an elaborate alarm system. When I first heard them, I did my best to become invisible; they were working up the hollow below me. They'd send out a couple of scouts, who, with a series of clucks, would indicate that the coast was clear. There were 17 or 18 of them, it's very difficult to count turkeys. I followed them for an hour or more, and I was, well and truly, lost. But I knew where the road was (Upper Twin) and I walked a spiral until I found one of my broken twigs. Then I was home free. Not exactly a bee-line, the only time I walk straight is when I'm carrying firewood, the rest of the time, I'm hunched over, following a tangent. Oak galls could be a food-source. I sliced several of them open and the liquid in them is very sweet. Oak Gall Jelly occurs to me, as something you might have with Antelope haunch. Read more...

Extreme Event

Five o'clock in the afternoon, B had walked over, so that we could chat about his new/old house project, and the snow had slackened. He had driven out this morning, and back in this afternoon, and we were having a wee dram, to celebrate the fact that his new place was completely rewired, new breaker box, new wire, every switch and socket replaced, and that it had only taken two days and cost less than a thousand dollars. Clearly a sign that he was anointed, which I was telling him, when it started snowing like there was no tomorrow. First you couldn't see across the hollow, then you couldn't see the trees that are thirty feet away from the house. A complete white-out, B springs up, to run and get his vehicle to the bottom of the hill, and I retreat, to my chair, to watch out the window. It's 31 degrees, and the snow is wetter than this morning; it smears like icing on the northwest side of the trees. It doesn't last long, the event, maybe thirty minutes, but it's very intense. Like being strapped into an intricate leather device with some extremely flexible partner. Maybe not that, exactly, but something close. Another inch. Linda mentioned Shuffling Commas was a good title. Yesterday's post "The Wittgenstein Plumber" must have read well, I don't think I've ever before gotten five favorable reviews for a post. It took me all day to write. An eight hour paragraph, a day at the office, or, as my cousin Jackie would say, the next time I call rooster, you'll hook up the plow. She talks like that, the language predicated on colloquialisms, a patois based in the delta, almost unknowable in its complexity. I read the newest Ian Sinclair novel the other day, and some of his Scot's English feels the same way. I know the language, but I'm a little unsure exactly what's being said. There are days when almost everything sounds like a existential koan. Maybe it's just a product of spending a lot of time alone and not hearing other voices, but when the first voice I've heard in days asks, "Tom, are you ok?" I have to think about my response. It's a complex question, though it might not have meant to be, in which case it isn't, though it might still be to me, even though it was meant pro forma, it sounds like something quite profound. Several hours spent thinking about 'seeming' and 'being' . I took a nap in there somewhere, and when I woke up, kick-started the fire in the stove, fuck a bunch of cold, and went out with a broom to sweep a fucking path, goddamn snow anyway, a kind of mediation between me and the world. The path doesn't even go anywhere, just a feeble attempt to clean off the steps so I can go outside and pee. Read more...

The Wittgenstein Plumber

I was cashed in, listening to the radio, Muddy Waters, Mississippi John Hurt. Joel called, we had shared many a crawl space, and he was worried about me, this from a guy on dialysis three times a week, waiting for a kidney transplant. I'm ok, solvent and coherent. Assuming I'll lose power, I start a crock pot of grits before I go to bed. Little or no accumulation was the projection but I'm not surprised to see more than an inch, when I wake up to a leaden sky at dawn, and it's supposed to snow all day. No wind, so all the branches are coated. Hearty breakfast of cheese grits with an egg on top, a second cup of coffee, and I'm right back at my desk, wrangling commas. Looking up, the word serene comes to mind. Two Cardinals fly into the sumac right outside a window. A male and a female. They're quite beautiful in the black and white scene. Went out to sweep a path across the back porch and steps and the fox was at the compost heap. She looked up at me rather coyly (I thought) and seemed in no hurry to move. I get one of the small local apples I keep for her, and toss it underhand to a spot about eight feet in front of her. She doesn't flinch, then trots over, daintily lifting her feet out of the snow. A little high-step dance. She carries the apple over to the woodshed and plops down under the overhang, holds it with her front paws, clamped to the ground, and eats away, glancing up at me occasionally. After a few minutes I realize I'm standing there, it's snowing, and I'm in house-slippers, my bathrobe, a watch-cap, long underwear and two pair of socks, and I don't want to take a chill. Back inside I take a bar-stool over to the back door and watch her, with binoculars, for another twenty minutes. She eats the apple entirely, then does a kind of break-dance, to dust off the leaves and snow, then heads back to her den, which is somewhere near the graveyard. Darker gray settles in from the west and it starts snowing harder. No accumulation my ass. Now that I'm retired, it matters less, especially as I made the run into town yesterday. Plenty of everything for a few days. Thursday and Friday it's supposed to get into the fifties and even to sixty degrees, with rain. The makings for a great morel season; and I think, for a while, about expanding the closest (and best) patch. This is hit and miss, but it can be done. You let a couple of prime mushrooms go to spore, then rake off the over-burden to expose dirt in an adjacent area, and thump on the chosen parent, upwind, to release a few million spores, rake them in lightly, and wait a few years. Since I know morels like the area, I'm reasonably sure I can extend their range. My legacy, such as it is: ten thousand books, five thousand manuscript pages, and a patch of morels. Just enough light to cast a shadow, and the snow starts releasing from the branches. The sap is rising, and the sugars provide an anti-freeze, so any slight gust of wind provides tree-snow, another prismatic event, and, aging hippy that I am, I watch with baited breath. It's beautiful, the panoply of light and sound. You can actually hear the creak of branches springing back into position. On the ridge, almost nothing is straight, the wind bends everything, if you want something straight, you have to go down into the bottoms. Big flakes falling now. Soon we'll be covered. I'd better go, now it's looking like heavy snow, and I'm sure to lose power. A parting shot, across your bow, why were you doing what you were doing, shuffling commas? I don't have a specific answer. There's a solution, I'm sure, but I don't see it yet. I'll leave you with that, welcome to my world. Read more...

Until Smooth

There'll be a bone in there somewhere, gristle. I figure I'll probably choke to death, eating something I shouldn't be eating. Not a bad way to go. Run out of breath. Another beautiful day in paradise, much cooler than yesterday. A nice walk, along the old logging road, looking for first morels. Checked all the early spots, but nothing yet. They usually correspond with the first buds on the Poplar trees in the bottoms, which is just about to happen, so maybe next week. The end of morel season coincides with nearly stepping on a basking rattlesnake. I hunt morels in the morning, so the first rattlesnake won't have the body heat to strike. Since I'm on my own land, and no one else can collect mushrooms here, I often make a mental note to collect specific specimens the next day, or even the day after that. The morel chart I carry in my mind. I just got in some new grits from Logan Turnpike Mill, yellow corn, so I expect that the first morels will be simply cooked in butter, served on a pile of grits, with more butter and black pepper. The Barnhart Rule is that any mushrooms not consumed, in the single dish any given day, and it's best not to get into eating them two or three times a day, must be dried. And I applaud that. Nothing will be more welcome next winter, than a batch of reconstituted morels.TR was correct, snow in the forecast, so I zipped into town for supplies and right back out to the ridge. Read through a New Yorker, did some exercises for my hip, made some rice (basmati), so I could eat it with some left-overs tonight, and for breakfast tomorrow, with maple syrup and yogurt. Brought in the first load of stuff from the museum. The books are a problem. I needed another shelf somewhere. I had a couple of brackets, I collect them, and a plank that I think was the side rail for a bed; and I put up another shelf in what used to be the girl's room. It'll do, for now. I just want to get the books off the floor. Read more...

Town Trip

No hurry, sleep late, make a list, meet TR for lunch. Discuss opera and the body politic. The staff at the pub are happy to see me. The library, where I have the leisure to search the stacks for an hour; then load up some of my books and tools at the museum, stop by Kroger, and head back to the ridge. Stop off at B's new/old place, down on Upper Twin to drop off the tools that he needed, and my hawk and trowel, that I'll need when I go down to help with the plastering. Mark has graciously offered me my old Mac, from the museum, and TR is trying to ascertain if it will operate marginally better than my dying Black Dell. The chief advantage is that the working files for three books are on the Mac. I stopped in at Terry's new place today, under construction, to see where he wanted me to cook. He wasn't there, but I was able to look around. I liked what I saw. I could get into this, going into town, once a week, and cooking for ten or twelve people. He'd have to find me a place to sleep, I don't drink and drive; and if I'm cooking a brisket which might take 20 hours, I'm probably going to drink. Hot running water would be part of the deal. And someone else would have to do the dishes. Went down below the flood-wall, not being in any particular hurry, all the way over on the lower road, to the turn-around at that point of land, which I'm sure is named. Majestic places are always named, and where the Scioto comes into the Ohio is all of that. There's a huge debris field I can see, across the river, where a grove of maples has trapped wrack from the last flood. I have to get over there, and be the first person to poke about. Debris piles are a thing of wonder. Barbie heads and various balls, pieces of furniture, dock timbers, the crap that floats away. Usually covered with a weaving of sticks that have been abraded of their bark, and glisten like silver. I'm somewhat of a wrackologist. Half of my life spent on the terminal moraine, where shit collects, or was collected; I want to spend more time poking about. There are more than two ways of using a cane. Look it up, suck it up. Read more...

Lesson Learned

Waning moon rises above a cloud-bank. It's beautiful, yellow tonight, bright white last night. I think that the fact of the moon being above the cloud-bank means that whatever sleet and snow has moved on into the mountains of West Virginia. They can have it. The cooking gig would probably be once a week, and I have no idea what it would pay. I'm terrible at setting a price on my time. If I like what I'm doing, I've always been a cheap date; if I don't like what I'm doing I move on to the next thing. It's a flux, isn't it? the way we move through our lives. Hold that thought. Two coons on the compost heap, fighting for some rotten cabbage, I might as well put the compost out in dishes. I watched an emaciated yearling buck rooting for acorns, two crows fighting over a micro-waved mouse, and a bunch of other birds pecking at the sumac, which they only do this late in the feeding season. Sumac must not have any food value, but for three months of the year it's the only color around. The birds always get around to it in March. A little wind, but warm enough that I can sit out on the back porch with a drink and a smoke. I keep a coffee can full of sand just inside the door, as my outdoor ashtray. The moaning of the wind is a lovely thing, but sitting in the dark, alone, demands too much reflection, and I went back inside. Familiar smells ramp down my inward spiral, I turn on the radio and listen to music for thirty minutes while I make and eat a snack. Great snack, two big diagonal slices of the pollen pork in a pita with jalapeno mayo. Out in the world, this would be a very expensive sandwich. I can't even imagine. Later this month, when I add morels cooked in butter, and the sauce I make, cleaning up from that, you'd have to eat this with a knife and fork, bow to the east, or whatever, and thank your lucky stars. Read more...

Fennel Pollen

A friend that's eaten at my house sent me a small packet of wild fennel pollen. Incredibly expensive, I never would have ordered the stuff. I've known about it for years, read about it. I remember an essay by John Thorne, and root around until I find it (it's in Mouth Wide Open), reread it, and decide to follow Thorne's lead and use some on a pork tenderloin. It's amazingly aromatic, and despite the fact that anise is not one of my favorite flavors, I decide to use it two ways in the preparation: in the rub and in the chutney stuffing. Cut the ends off the tenderloin (I partially refreeze these tips, so I can slice them thinly, then fry them with some onion for an omelet) then butterfly it, stuff it with a mixture of red onion jam, mango chutney, with a dusting of the pollen, roll it up and tie it, then rub the outside with a mixture of chili powders, onion powder, garlic salt, instant espresso powder, and the pollen. Sear on the grill, then finish off direct heat for 30 minutes, spinning it around a few times. Let it rest for a few minutes. Served with rice, coleslaw, and a hunk of bread, this is one of the best things I've ever eaten. First day of Spring and we're supposed to have snow tomorrow morning, then warming into the fifties. Beginning to see some buds, such a brutal winter, but on the positive side, there should less bugs this summer; two mild winters and the ticks, especially, had gotten very bad. B came over in the late afternoon. My writing window faces the top part of the driveway, so I can see anyone or thing that approaches. I look out, into the middle distance, for hours every day, but I didn't exactly see him approaching (dressed in black and brown) as I saw the sheets of paper he was holding in his hand. My first thought was that these would be drafts of new poems. I love his poems, the ridge poems most of all. But it wasn't poems at all, it was sketches for the Keep Out sign that we were commissioning for the bottom of the driveway. It's going to be very cool sign. We'll have to put it pretty high, or it'll get stolen immediately. Read more...

Sleep Patterns

The wind is still roaring in the tree tops, but the power came back on and woke me. If it's dark, and I'm tired, I just sleep on the sofa for a few hours, and when something wakes me, it takes me a minute to get my act together. Silence wakes me as often as anything. When the wind has been blowing for 24 hours and suddenly stops, the negative sound is very loud. Then you have your packs of dogs. And since it's been such a brutal winter, none of the animals have much to eat, so there's an almost nightly bickering at the compost heap. It matters less to me now that I don't have to be somewhere at a particular time, and I've just been letting the cycles roll, without paying much attention. If the power comes back on that means I can write, and if the phone is working, that means I can send. Keep it simple. It's interesting that I already have several job offers and I'm not looking for a job. I need to write my way out of a corner, and that's going to take my best shot, for at least a year. I need to be outside, a few hours a day, hauling wood and maintaining the estate; I need to cook and eat, go to the library, stay reasonably presentable. I could work for someone, maybe a day or two a week, if they took me at face value. The new paradigm is that I don't have to justify anything, or myself. I have work to do, and it doesn't so much matter what anyone else thinks about it. I just went back and took out three commas, and I'm hyper-ventilating. Meaning is a matter of the moment. There's no escaping that. Harvey used to bullshit about it, before he took his life, and he came down hard on just doing whatever it was. And I've pretty much done that, though I might not have been completely honest. Life is tricky. Sometimes you lie. Even if everything is working, you might ply the truth, if there is such a thing, in a certain direction. To my great delight, I add a couple of commas, I'm almost back to zero. It's a game I play. Read more...

Backing Off

Powdered milk, soured with lime juice, makes an acceptable corn pone. The less you expect of things, the easier it is to get by. What brought that to mind, coming back in, yesterday, with a pretty good load of supplies, I had to stop on Mackletree for a convocation. This last late snow was havoc on the standing dead, the ground was rotten, the roots were rotten, and dead trees fall. The county has two crews clearing debris, country boys with big chainsaws, and a phone company truck was waiting to repair the line. I had to stop, because of the logs on the road, but one of the road crew indicated it would just be a few minutes, so I chatted with the phone guy, who said he'd have the line repaired in an hour or so. In real time, today, the first big, rolling, thunderous rain storm of the spring. I was supposed to meet TR for lunch, then get a load of my books and papers from the museum, but I'm not going anywhere now. Make a cup of tea and settle in with some escapist fiction: a Lee Child novel I'm pretty sure I've read before. The rain suddenly stops, and the power, which had been off, just as suddenly comes back on. These storms are almost always moving west to east, and my electricity comes from the west, so the power company would have had time to send a crew, to whatever sub-station, to reset whatever relay had tripped. There's yet another ugly mass of dark clouds coming in, I see them when I go out to pee, so I quickly make some toast and micro-wave some left-over fried rice, not because they're what I want, but because they're the first things I think about that I can do quickly. I know I'll lose power again. Write a few lines and SAVE, eat some warm food, and get back to my reading. When the electricity goes out again, there's light enough to read by. I have to say, I like not having an agenda, I do love reading. It's a transport, gets me out of myself, like watching a movie, or listening to The Passion of Saint Matthew, or Greg Brown, or any decent blues musician. No bird can look more ragged than a crow in a rainstorm. I nuke a couple of dead mice so the crows can more easily rip them apart. I have the thought that that's what I'm here for, to supply mice to crows. I have an offer, which I'll probably accept, to do some cooking; supplement my income and indulge a fantasy in a wave of the hand. Sure, I can do that, wait until you've tried my brisket. Read more...

Hammered Again

Never ending saga. Six inches of new snow, but it's supposed to get back to 50 degrees tomorrow. Still, it is lovely, and I sit for several hours watching almost nothing happen, a few minor explosions. By mid-day a major melt. The driveway had absorbed a good bit of heat, and the snow was almost gone when I first walked over this morning, by late afternoon it seemed driveable. Sure enough B had driven up in his "Four-Runner" so I surely can get the Jeep out tomorrow. Go to the library. I need books and food. Cleaned up this afternoon, so I can go to town, maybe get a load of stuff from the museum, touch base with TR about my new computer. Too much work, I need to develop the skills to go through it more quickly, doing word-searches and such. But I'm so dialed into writing the next paragraph, spending all my time on it, that I let everything else slide. It certainly doesn't matter, in the ways of the world, what I let slide or don't. It's just a point of view, not me, necessarily, but someone who shared a perspective. Power went out, I tried to call the power company, but the phone was out. Read for a few very quiet hours (no refrigerator), and slept like a dead man in my mummy bag. Moved around a bit this morning and read for a while, letting my hip get warmed into the action; drank an extra cup of coffee then made myself presentable Off the ridge for the first time in eight days and I have quite the list of errands. The driveway is fantastic, hard, smoothed, and cambered. I actually stopped a couple of times (one doesn't usually stop, in a vehicle, on the driveway) when I noticed several places where leaves were clogging the grader ditch. Of course they collect there. Every law of physics has leaves clogging grader ditches, it's in the fine print. They need to be removed, which means raking them or carrying them across the driveway, then thrown or pushed over the slope there. They're heavy and wet or partially frozen, it's always something difficult. A great day in town, stopped at the bank, to make sure I was solvent, got out some cash, to buy food and whiskey, spent a solid hour in the library. Went to the pub for a pint and a bowl of soup. Simple pleasures. Read more...

Oblique

It's what you don't say, Neil had said to me. Which is, of course, the case. Not commenting is a way of drawing attention. I have eleven mice in the freezer, but the crows always show up in twos or threes, so I see a squabble in the future. Prime numbers are a pain in the ass when you're trying to divide things equally. Ugly outside, cold and gray, and as the top layer of leaves dry, they dance around like drunken birds: what I think of as disconcerting erratic movement. Did I mention that I hate the refrigerator? When I'm writing I usually kill the breaker, which requires that I have a permanent posted note reminding me to flip the breaker back on. There's also a permanent posted note (I like the sound of that) that tells me to look at the other notes, that I keep on the table next to the stuff I have to put in my pockets before I leave the house. The various lists and reminders. Fucking leaves, man, they're driving me crazy, I just want it to be dark again, when all I have to do is listen. I inadvertently killed a young raccoon. There was an argument going on at the compost heap and I was tired of their blather, so I went out with my sling-shot and shot in that direction. There was a mad rush through the mast, and then it got very quiet. Too quiet. I went back inside for a flashlight. Sure enough, I'd actually killed a young coon with a ball-bearing to the skull. Must be one shot in several hundred million, and I vow to buy a lottery ticket, but a dead coon is a dead coon. Skin it out, take the loin and hams, and soak them in a brine. Someplace between sleet and hail. There's nothing to be gained by crying uncle. Dredge then brown the pieces of meat. Braise them with some root vegetables. Thicken the gravy and serve on egg noodles. I took a nap and woke, a couple of hours later, to absolute silence. Several inches of new snow and it was still snowing hard. Well and truly trapped. I should have taken the Jeep down when TR called yesterday, but I elected to just let the cards fall, I didn't feel like putting on my boots; my hip felt fine, but I didn't feel like taking a hike. I'll get out on Tuesday, maybe, eight days on the ridge, and I'll still have nine dollars in my wallet. A critical element of my new economy is that if you don't leave the ridge, you don't spend any money. The silence is total, three or four inches of new snow. I'm sitting in a daze, staring into the middle distance, when I hear a train in Kentucky, across the river, and it reminds me that there is a world, out there, beyond my immediate concern. The WORLD, writ in caps; but that I didn't necessarily have to pay attention. I could duck back under the covers and pretend I was still asleep, or I could get up and stoke the fire. All I ask is full attention to the moment, it doesn't seem like that much. Read more...

Starting Over

It will have taken effort to get there (future pluperfect?). Anthony, after one walk in, said he understood the difficulties more particularly. It's one thing to read about it, but it's quite another to actually hike the driveway when it's covered in snow. Spring wind blew hard all day and TR called, to tell me there was more snow on the way; B came over, in the glooming, to ask after my state of mind. I wrote for several hours, fixed a very nice omelet with cheese (a double cheddar) and some watercress I found in one of the bottoms. Curled up in my down bag and slept for a few hours; got up to pee and start a small fire; a waning moon, almost full, through stick trees. Not a bad place to be. The wind is still a roar, like a train in the distance, but I can hold it at bay, make a piece of toast and have a cup of tea, settle whatever anxiety. What I'm giving up is any control over anything. I'd rather not. TR was correct, clouds cover the moon, and rain changing over to snow. Read more...

Survival Economy

I figure that if I have two cords of wood in the shed, and another two cords ready to go in there, that I'm pretty well set. Even a brutal winter like this, I've only burned maybe three cords, and one of those, I've picked up as pre-cuts on the side of the road. Blowing snow, it's awful outside, I have to duck back inside and pee in one of those large coffee containers. Temperatures dropped forty degrees in four hours. A good test of the systems. My digital clock tells me that the power has been back on for four hours but I don't have a clue what time it is. For that matter, I'm not sure what day it is. When the power went off I just wrapped up in a blanket on the sofa and went to sleep. When I woke up later, to the sound of the refrigerator and the radio, I lit the fire I had laid earlier. The house was very cold, but I drew up a chair close to the stove, and read an article on early migrations of Paleolithic cultures, made a cup of tea and a piece of toast, my hip hurts less when I think of other things. Clovis points correspond to European work of the same period. Draw whatever conclusions. I can't do it anymore, but I used to hang by my feet and focus lights precisely; now I have trouble standing on a stool to get a book off one of the top shelves. My sense of balance is not what it used to be. An inch of new snow, the transparent variety that indicates it melted and refroze in falling. Beautiful in the sunlight, but fast disappearing. My friend Anthony, the king of the wood-fired kiln, was in touch, and might make it out to the ridge this afternoon. Hike in for a few hours of conversation. I'm sure I'll remember how to talk, it's one of the things I used to be considered very good at, but now I go for days without speaking to another person. I mumble to myself, and read back over a line to find the continuity, but I don't have a conversation. Anthony and I pick right back up where we had left off, months ago. Common ground. I offered to give him an acre of land, and access to the woodlot, so he could build an Anagama kiln; I wouldn't mind helping with that. After he leaves, I finally pull on some boots and walk over to the top of the driveway. It's solid, and I should be able to haul a load of my books from the museum on Saturday. Just what I need is two more boxes of books, but it's not to be helped. Shovel out the past, as Frost said, it is a bucket of ashes, no wait, it wasn't Frost, it was Sandburg, Four Playthings, when I first read that poem, I remember never having been moved so much by language. That the outside could affect me so strongly, where I lived, deep within myself. Read more...

Technical Problems

Black Dell seems to be losing it. She refuses to send some posts. No pattern I can discern, and not to be paranoid, I find it bothersome that my hardware is editing me. If it was the software, I have friends that could fix the problem. The hardware is more problematic, where I live is an issue, no cell phone reception, no possibility of cable, and it would be difficult (but not impossible) to get a cable guy up the hill, so I'm still on a dial-up modem. Sara has a device that seems to be able to pick up even a very small signal and amplify it, and through some company seems to get service everywhere. I'm sure it's expensive though, and the first of next month I go on my highly restrictive budget. In relation to which, I was thinking about building a leeching pit for acorns right in the bed of my tiny stream. Build it out of food-grade plastic and allow the water to flow through. The Balanocultures of California, did this. After the acorns are shelled and dried, they don't spoil. You can leave them buried in the ground for years. Mixed fifty-fifty with good whole grain corm meal, this might well become a diet staple; it already has, for me, but I need a larger stash of acorns. This cornmeal, from Logan Turnpike MIll, is the best I've ever had, and their grits are transcendent. It's interesting to think about how moonshine was just the easiest way to transport corn. Finally, mid-afternoon, I put on some wash water, so I could clear the dishpan of dishes and throw out the wash water; my gray-water drain is probably working now, but I like using a dishpan, because it keeps me in touch with my water use. Chop wood, carry water. B came over and had a drink, we talked about managing time and body. He's in amazing shape, and agrees to cut a couple of trees for me, which will have me splitting and hauling for a couple of weeks. Next year will be the test for me. My saving grace here, is that I've always lived close to the bone. I assume it can be done. Read more...

Big Winds

Damned wind is blowing a full gale. The stick trees swaying through thirty degrees of arc, with dead branches falling everywhere. Dangerous woods to be in today, so I holed up and read; some essays (A Sense Of Place) and some John Thorne. I love Thorne's writing, my current favorite writer about food. Try any of his collected essays. I finally turn on the computer, when the wind abates a bit, and look through a few things. I need the new computer and TR for a couple of days. I don't look forward to changing my format. The ten or more years I've been writing this way, completely incorrect in every particular, is the way I work That book, which would be about the process, would be called Mail Waiting To Be Sent, but I'll need to edit that book in a different format. I'm both intimidated and challenged by that prospect. I have to go, it's howling. Read more...

Sidetracked

Last week, Barb, former owner of the pub, was at the store, and asked me what was up. I told her my body was wearing out (she's had a hip replaced) and she knew just what I meant. She has some remodeling at her place she wants to talk with me about. Work I could do at my own pace. For now I just want to take time off, think about things, be quiet, read, take walks, listen to the blues. I'm often the most fully engaged when I seem completely disconnected. I was listening closely to Anthony, observing his body language, thinking about how oblique that stage or screen we assume as reality, in the moment, really is. Ephemeral. Jesus, I was vacuuming some cob-webs recently, it had to be done, there was a fire danger, and I had the thought that major cob-webs could serve as a method of factoring time. That if we went deep enough into the caves, into the nooks and crannies, where the cob-webs were thick and undisturbed, we might piece together a time line, a history. A record trapped in a filigree. Something about that interests me, that we could be dated by crap that accumulated in the corner. I think it's probably Friday, not that it matters, but I had decided, days ago, that I'd go down and get the mail on Friday or Saturday, maybe go into town, pick up a few things, just because I could. I'm operating here as a free agent, worth almost nothing on the open market. Read more...

Bedside Table

Just because the same five or six books have stood at my bedside table for the best part of a year doesn't mean I'm not going to read them. If I got a cold or the flu, I'd read through them in a couple of days, nursing along, with a cup of tea and a shot of Irish. I keep books at hand, on a need to read basis, it's a habit. You never know when you're going to get caught in the elevator. Anymore, I always use the stairs, but I carry a book, in my back pocket, in case I, you know, get caught in traffic. I always have something to read, and I always have a scrap of paper, and I always have a pen that was working this morning. So I can factor time. I'm not sure how important it is, but I do it, as a matter of course. A side-wheeler runs aground, two crows fight over a micro-waved mouse, I can only quote Mark Twain. Shit, I forget the quote, something about how meaning was construed. Rainy morning, fifty degrees by ten o'clock, then the weather starts deteriorating quickly. A change over to little ice pellets, nasty wind. The desolation isn't too bad, in a harsh way. I left the Jeep at the house. B brought me a back-up bottle of whiskey, I have plenty of everything else, and if I get snowed in, so be it. This is part of the paradigm shift, that if I get stuck, it would be on the ridge. I'll probably lose electricity, so I'm saving after every sentence. I'll be drifting between the past and present, which is what I do anyway. Top up the oil lamps and get out a few candles, put a little LED flashlight by the phone. A man only needs one suit, but he needs two sets of long underwear. That was gratuitous and I apologize. I better go, it's a full gale. Read more...

The Bright Side

Got up late after spending half the night considering commas. Heated water and shaved, washed my hair, sponged off. The house was warm enough that I just built a short hot fire, red maple and poplar, and let it go out as soon as my water was heated. Lovely calm day when I walked out, and, sure enough, the driveway is capable of being driven, so I scooted into town, had a beer at the pub, and did the Kroger resupply. Juice, cream, coffee, butter, more eggs, a couple of frozen meals, for when I don't feel like cooking, and some things to cook, a pork tenderloin, some baby Yukon Gold potatoes, a bag of salad; also some treats: vegetable chips, a bar of chocolate, an avocado. Sixty degrees today, but I'll probably take the Jeep down tomorrow, as rain then snow then 15 degrees on Wednesday, so the frogs are well and truly screwed. Walking out, this morning, I had to watch where I stepped, because there were depleted frogs everywhere. You don't want to step on a frog. I bought a small corned beef in one of those vacuum packs, and I'll have a couple of meals with cabbage, potatoes and carrots, but what I'm looking forward to is hash, on toast, with an egg on top. I'll make hash out of anything, but corned beef hash is king of the road. True to my new routine, I slept for a couple of hours, then got back up at midnight and worked over several paragraphs for a few hours. The wind picked up, out of the Northwest, a low moaning in the trees, and it seemed righteous that the house would vibrate at a very low frequency. I can feel it. It shakes your bones. Bach transcribed to the double-bass. At some point I went out to pee, and the Lord gave me the leeward (whoever, whatever your construct, it's nice when there's an abatement in the wind) and I managed to pee without getting too much on me. Here's an interesting thing. My hip was hurting all day, and I wasn't in a good mood, but every time I got involved with a word or a mark of punctuation, the pain went away. I'm sure that means something. Scudding clouds in the morning, then blue skies. Supposed to get to sixty again today, then drop, straight through, down to ten degrees tomorrow night, then rebound to fifty by the weekend. Went outside to gather kindling and check on the frogs. Birdsong draws me into the woods and I find a stump to sit on for half-an-hour. It's extremely pleasant, sun on my face, a light breeze, shirtsleeves. After the rain, and the next two-day cold snap, should be the beginning of morel season. One of the local hunters (I'd found and returned one of his valuable coon dogs) had told me that there was an excellent patch of early morels north of my graveyard, and I walk over there, to scout out the terrain. A young Sassafras tree catches my eye. It must have been weighted over in an ice-storm, the top got caught by some green-briar and it's become an almost perfect arch. The body of it is between four and five inches in diameter. I don't have a need for it right now, but I draw a little map so I can find it again. I could do a very nice installation of curved sticks. In my ever helpful way, I'd probably call it "Some Curved Sticks". On any given five acre ridgetop there are a lot of curved sticks. Young, fast-growing trees, are subject to getting caught up in things. Getting back on Ridge Time, I realize, when I stare at a bent tree for thirty minutes; and getting back home, which could have meant a ten minute walk, took an hour, because I kept getting sidetracked. Those lovely tiny flowers. That miniature iris, that is one of the most beautiful plants in the world, is actually called Miniature Iris, when it could have easily been called "Mary's Passion" or some such. Plenty of leftovers to make a fried rice, so I cook up a package of generic Saffron Rice (which I only buy on sale and usually have about ten around). They now have a two-tiered display case, in Kroger, where they unload items that are discontinued. I've found some interesting things there, canned squid, strange chutneys, bizarre soups; and it's one of those places where you mumble with complete strangers about what the hell you might do with an ingredient you've never seen before. There's a four-foot section at the end of the meat case, and one three-foot cabinet in the frozen food aisle, that are the same, discontinued items. I love them. Sweetbreads or kidneys, often lamb, frog legs, tripe; and it's always very cheap because they want to get rid of it. I'm their guy. I make a tripe fried rice to die for. Read more...

Mule History

I'm sure there is/are several histories of the mule in America, but I don't have one, and I was thinking about mules today (Emily's mom was riding a mule on Mackletree, when I came in on Friday), for no good reason. The mare/jack cross is the most common, if a male jack-ass smells a female, of any species, they'll fuck the door off the barn. The other cross, both of them sterile hybrids, a stallion with a jinny, is much harder to arrange. I tried for years in Mississippi and failed completely. I have a somewhat vested interest in mules generally, because my maternal grandfather and namesake was a very successful mule-trader in a fairly rough region on the border between Tennessee and Mississippi. He'd make the trek over to Arkansas or Missouri every year, and bring back a dozen young, completely green mules. He had a corral and holding pens, and he broke them to the plow, or traded them green. He was a shrewd businessman, and a dealer in mules just before the tractor revolution. After WWII, when Ford, and everyone else, started producing cheap, durable, mechanical mules, the landscape changed. I've plowed with a mule, many times, and I have to say, if you have a mule that's plowed a particular piece of bottom for twenty years (mules live a long time) then it pretty much knows what it's doing, all you have to do is hang on to the traces. Tomorrow I need to collect kindling. It's been dry for several days and any small branch held up off the ground will be brittle, I break them across my knee, and need to fill a thirty-five gallon trash can. It's supposed to get cold again. I yelled at the frogs, but they were deep into their orgy and I merely walked away. Yes, yes, I know, but sometimes it's better to just walk away. Paradigms differ, depending on where you fall in the food chain. No where more apparent than three guys sitting on a dry patch of curb in the middle of melting snow piles, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and talking about opera. Focus on the details. Read more...

Parsing Time

The measure of it escapes me, but there seems to be a cycle to the round of noises. No rain or snow (the first Sunday without either in several months), so I pull on boots, grab my mop handle, and walk over to the head of the driveway, and, yes, I should be able to drive in tomorrow. The ridge is stark and barren. The first green will appear in the median, near the top of the hill, where the sun strikes for a few hours in the afternoon. Mullein, and those miniature white flowers I've never properly identified. I have an agenda, though I'm usually without as plan: I need to shave, wash my hair, soak my feet in Epsom salts, and trim my toenails, a spring ritual. Enough blue sky to tease out a few shadows. Brown as a primary color. Morel season will be upon us in a few weeks and I go out with the yard rake and clear the leaf-litter from several patches where the first ones always appear. It was that little 'on toast' run that spurred my actions; morels in a butter sauce, on toast, is one of my favorite meals; and if I clear away the leaf-litter, I can see them more clearly. I need to devise a way to harvest acorns more efficiently. If I only had a still. The janitor becomes the Wizard Of Oz, brewing pure corn liquor in the basement. I can't sustain this, it isn't sustainable, you run out of steam, but the vision itself is nice, the way it floats above the fray. Read more...

Driveway Report

B came over, to say he'd gotten his truck up and his other vehicle down (a "Four-Runner") and he was sure I'd be able to get in with the Jeep on Monday. Good news indeed, as I'm out of all liquids. I'm using a powdered creamer, for God's sake, drinking melted snow. B agreed drinking melted snow was fine, as long as you filtered it through a clean tee-shirt. Those little black particles are bothersome. And there's a metallic quality to it. Still, I stay healthy, except for the splayed hip and a foot that is constantly out of line. It's amazing I walk in and out, old and used up as I am, but it still mediates between the outside world and the inside world, and I don't mind stopping six or eight times to look around, I'd rather see what was offered, than to never see; consider the event horizon. I have to go sleep. Warm enough that I kicked off my blanket, then woke up a few hours later cold. The whole sleep thing is seriously out of whack, but it doesn't much matter. For years I wrote facing a wall, now I write in what is essentially a cupola, windows all the way around, and I'm constantly distracted, but at the same time, integrated into the natural world. B came over because he had heard the frogs, knew I would have heard them, and wanted to share that seasonality. That winter had broken. We'll have more snow, more cold weather, but the frogs had spoken at last. I wish I had cooked some grits last night. This new little crock-pot, designed for making hot dips for tail-gating, is perfect for grits. Got it at Kroger for $10. Whole grain grits with some acorn meal, is a solid basis for a diet. Cat-tail shoots will be starting soon, and various other greens. Food is the least of my worries. Access, state of mind, whether or not I need a particular comma, are much more pressing issues. I brought in a loaf of bread yesterday and I felt like a king. Beans on toast, apples on toast, a de-boned chicken thigh in cream sauce on toast. On a roll. A loaf of bread provides me with eight or ten meals. I can't keep chickens, though I'd like to have my own eggs, but there are too many predators, and it would be a losing battle, so I buy local eggs. Still, averaged over the month, I eat for less than three dollars a day, whiskey and tobacco is another issue. I need a grant for whiskey and tobacco. Read more...

Layman's Terms

Ringing in my ears. Wakes me. I didn't have a fire tonight, first time since forever. And this new schedule is interesting, where I crash early, because of the walk in, then get up at two or three in the morning and write for another couple of hours. Or sit and think. Get a wee dram and roll a smoke. Layers of responsibility had been building up, and I wanted no part of them, wanted shed of any situation where someone could point a finger at me. I have a plan for tomorrow, bacon, potatoes, eggs and toast; then I'll take a walk in the woods, find something that interests me, if not, I'll invent a narrative. Muddy mess outside, but I pull on a sacrificial layer and walk out to the little graveyard. It's the season when the leaves have collected and rotted in the slight depressions, so most of the graves are shallow black pools. I think of this as The Annual Grave Count, and I've never gotten the same number twice. Today I counted 23, more than half of them quite small. I sat out there, on my graveyard watching stump. When Scott graded out the frog ponds on my driveway he dug a ditch, with the corner of the dozer blade that runs to lower ground to the north. The result is a new catchment for run-off and melt that isn't in the middle of my access. Familiar noise drew me over there. Sure enough, the first annual frog orgy. Most of these eggs will die, frozen, but it's sign of the season. I squat and stay very still until I become invisible and watch them for an hour. Froggy porn. Finally go back inside and have a second round of breakfast. I'd cooked enough bacon and potatoes to do it all again. I'd made a lovely red-onion jam, with jalapeno and serrano peppers, thickened with wild blackberry syrup. This was so good, I used a last piece of buttered toast to clean out the skillet. I have so many cast-iron skillets, there are five on or around the stove right now, and a dozen more in circulation. I almost never wash these, but wipe them out and use Kosher salt to scrape off any little bits that didn't de-glace, then oil them again. I had so many bottles of hot sauce in my office, that some off them hadn't been used, maybe ever, and the chili oils had risen to the top. I used a syringe to siphon off the clear oil, and used it to re-season the six inch skillet (I have five of them) that I use only for frying eggs. When I fry an egg, in that well seasoned skillet, I use a pat of butter or a scant teaspoon of bacon fat in winter, or a goodly dribble of vegetable or nut oil in summer, and fry the egg until the white sets, then add a few drops of vermouth and put on a lid until the yolk skins over. I do love the perfect egg. The crows again, we always get to this point, where they expect the micro-waved mouse with a dash of horseradish sauce, and I can play along, because it's funny; then they finally drive me crazy with their idiotic noise and I run them off in a fit of anger. My thresh-hold level for sounds that have become uncomfortable to me, is sunk to record levels. Though I see how we might use it to our advantage in an opera. Read more...

Not Yet

I can't speak to that. Not yet, I will, we can be sure, but I need to let things settle. Fines are where you find them. Daylight, fuck, the day has caught up with me, I'd better go, sleep a few hours, this new found liberty is exhilarating. Went into town to get what I thought was my last check, but it seems I get paid for one more week; paid my bills, went to the pub for lunch and a beer. Everyone wanted to buy me a beer. The staff at the pub all wanted me to work St. Patrick's day. Nobody is looking forward to it, 30 kegs of beer, people five deep at the bar, and you couldn't pay me to be around such a crowd. Picked up a few supplies, drove home, and walked in through terrible mud. B at the top of the hill and we sat for a few minutes, on the print shop porch, and talked about books and projects. We both figure that if we don't get anymore rain, that we should be able to drive in on Monday or Tuesday. I seriously need to do laundry, as I have dirty clothes (in plastic bags) at the museum, in my Jeep, and at home. The publicity flyers for the Chautauqua gig arrived today, and there I am. I have time now to prepare for that. As soon as I can get TR out here I can start editing in earnest. Exciting times. He's downloading me into his new Apple, I told him to free-range for material for the opera, and he commented, a bit in awe, when he bought me lunch last Wednesday, that there was a lot of material. It's a huge file, three or four thousand pages. And I have a stash, another thousand or two pages at the museum and I find myself curious to see what I was writing about twelve years ago. I needed this shot, to focus my attention. B said he saw it coming because I wasn't writing, though a large part of that was power or phone outage, it was still true; I had stopped being fully engaged. I'd rather struggle and put some things on the line than not be fully engaged in the moment. Read more...

Grace, What

Passes. I spent several hours tracking down a non-existent quote, I look forward to spending many days doing that. What might have happened. A certain number of dried salted cod in exchange for a bath. Reading about Viking longboats, essentially just a flexible skin, ship-lap, with enough frame to support the super-structure. If they hadn't recovered a couple, from the cold mud, one would hardly believe they were constructed that way. They moved more like a dolphin than a fixed-hull craft. I was marveling at the engineering, when that pack of feral dogs exploded into my back yard. Mostly Black Lab crosses, with a brindle leader that looks about half Pit Bull. I run them off pretty quickly with my sling-shot, but it bothers me, thinking about meeting them on the driveway (I don't usually walk the driveway with a loaded sling-shot), and I vow to carry a can of Mace in my jacket pocket in the future. After that rudeness, knowing I'll never get back to sleep, I make a cup of tea and roll a smoke. I'm anxious, anymore, and I never used to be; and I'm becoming more isolationist: my idea of a vacation is staying home for a few days. I think Pegi said that first, but I subscribe to the same magazine. I just want peace and quiet. This isolated hollow is enough for me, the entire mystery, wrapped in a ground-fog. I don't want any complication and I'm really tired of cleaning up after other people. That would be the third book in the trilogy: The Janitor Retires. Or Anabasis,, or My Life In A Tree Tip Pit, or any of an infinite number of possible titles. I feel like I'm back in the game, and the cool thing, is that now, every shot counts. A single word, fired across the bow. Read more...

The Right Thing

When's the last time you threw a pot, sketched out a painting? Time is short. And I couldn't agree more with TR, who actually swooned when we were talking about Messian, Quartet For The End O Time. We both love it. Opera, of course. Why didn't I think of that sooner? Listen to Robert Cray at midnight. Set out some buckets to harvest roof-melt. Read some essays from a pile of London Reviews B had brought over. The woodshed is almost empty, so I can finally get organized and start stacking the wood for next year, thinning out the trees close to the house. Just after dawn, second-guessing my every recent decision, I'd gone over to the back door, to put on rubber boots for a venture outside, to write my name in the snow, and I could see two young deer, yearlings, rooting around, looking for anything green. Went and got a stool, so I could sit and watch them; peed in my piss-pot, so I didn't have go out and disturb them. They're so dainty, so alert, they remind me of young dancers. They poke around the leeward side of trees, the windward side is still drifted in snow, and they perk an ear or flick a tail at every sound. The first birds are out, pecking at the sumac heads, as they've already exploited every other source of food. No demands on my time, so I make a large breakfast, potatoes, bacon, eggs, toast, and read about the history of eating utensils. Studying tracks and traces is a passion of mine, so in the afternoon I shoulder a small pack and head off down the logging road. Melting snow distorts everything, but you can still get the general idea. Blood is always an indicator, you know something happened. Also when tracks disappear without a trace. When a shrew's tracks disappear, without a trace, I always suspect an owl. A Snowy Owl can pluck a shrew from the snow as if it had never existed. The shrew would argue otherwise. A metaphor for anything hot and steamy, gutted in the cold night air. I don't have a handle on this, then ground stirs under my feet, and I shake in my boots. Two crows return for their mice. They don't have any expectation except that they got a mouse here, yesterday or the day before, and they might as well check back, to see if there was another one. I have mice lined up in the freezer like Mayan sacrificial slaves. An Olson line: "I set out now, in my boat upon the sea." It might not be the correct move, but it is a move, nonetheless, and I'm damned tired of marching in place. Back-paddling a canoe, to stay on a standing wave. Better to just get on down the river. Read more...

Freeze, Thaw

See-Saw, zero to forty in a couple of days, and now for another iteration of mud. The walk out wasn't bad, I just went in to turn over my keys and everything is amicable. I can still work on the Carter Collection, docent college art history students; and Mark said it was ok for me to leave my various books and papers until I could drive them into my house. I have a couple of thousand manuscript pages and a couple of dozen books in the vault, some tools in the basement, some clothes (denim shirts and a sports coat) in a closet, and some pictures on the cork board in what is now my old office. TR bought me a parting lunch at the pub, and I stopped at Kroger on the way home. I knew the snow on the driveway would be rotten when I came home, so I bought just a few things. TR agreed to come out and set me up with a Lenovo lap-top (his recommendation, they are, he said, almost indestructible), a new printer, and a system whereby I can operate, as soon as the driveway refreezes. It's going to be tight, financially, but I had to do this now, while I still had the energy to finish some of my own projects. I seem to be working on three books at the same time, and consulting with TR about the opera we want to do. The opera is gaining footage. I'll work on the libretto with him, he'll compose and I'll direct. We seem to have people, singers and musicians, that want to work on the project. Despite myself, always crying that I'll never do another combined art project, that I just want to be left alone, I like it while I'm in it, and I very much like working with TR. Revive the Floating Opera, take it up and down the river. It's beautiful, but slick as goose-shit getting back up the hill. When you have to pay attention to every god-damned step, walking is not a simple joy. Incredibly stark. All the ice is off the trees and the under-story. It's just black and white. Desolate, and so darkly beautiful. I listen to her, every night, calling from the coral reefs. I'd really rather be dead that hear her cries. Read more...

Moving On

Charlotte is unhappy with me, and I've worked with too many female bosses to think that can end well. If I stayed we'd end up sparring and I don't feel like sparring anymore. Besides, she's correct, I'm a terrible employee. Not quite as bad as Joel, but a close second; I never told my employer, at the first staff meeting, that they couldn't find their way out of a wet shoe. Joel set the bench mark. I don't even attempt to fail unless the standards are pretty high. Otherwise it's easier to just not say anything. Say your significant other said something about something that was going on in your life, looked them in the eye, first time in weeks, and she said she thought you were getting weak. Just what you want you hear; what you are reduced to is a gridlock. Blackbirds singing in the dead of night. Read more...

Nowhere

Not getting anywhere from here for at least another day. Fortunately B had brought over those books, and I turned to Richard Powers' new Orfeo which is a great read. Beautiful writing. I figure I can dig out tomorrow. The visual thing that was happening all day, were little explosions as the ice snapped off branches. On a bright sunny day, it was a succession of prismatic events. I kept catching them out of the corner of my eye. The couple of times I went out to pee, I could hear them too, a little crystalline jingle that's quite pleasant. I have a dry spot, on the edge of the back porch, and I have my Ethafoam pad; and I like to sit out there with a drink and a smoke, and watch the sunset. It's a different show every night. I've always watched the sun set, built a bleacher on Martha's Vineyard, a bench at the farm in Mississippi, a stump in Colorado, that was hollowed out by rot, that I had 'fixed' with multiple coats of two-part epoxy, that rested near the center of a ring of stones that had once held down the edges of a tee-pee, and the stump was only near the center, because I still used their fire-pit; in Ohio, I just sit on the back stoop and watch the birds. I had so many mice in the freezer that I started feeding the crows almost every day. Which has turned out to not be a good thing. They're just too loud. When I go outside, to dump the dishpan or the piss-pot, they're always there, asking for a mouse that I've micro-waved for thirty seconds. They seem to love the horseradish sauce, and I can't figure out what that means. Discerning crows, for god's sake. I wanted to work another year at the museum, but I can't do it, too many other projects, and the stars don't align. I have too much stuff, we all have too much stuff, the solution is a bonfire, but everyone hates to burn their past. Read more...

Serene

Very beautiful and quiet, six inches of new snow on a bed of ice. Miraculously, my electricity and phone are already restored, though I'll probably lose one or both again, before this is over. It's a class two snow emergency here, some of neighboring counties are class three, which means nobody on the roads. Class two means only if you have to be out. Everything is canceled. A real tipping point, as I feel ready to be shed of the outside world. All I want to do is read and write, anything else is too much of a bother. Politics and personalities. That track I saw in the snow? It's from when a grouse stirs, to shake the snow off its wings. I have the makings for a simple lamb stew. Bone out a remaindered leg of lamb, cut it into chunks, brown them in olive oil, add some turnips, carrots and potatoes, some chicken stock, some herbs. Any stew, with rye bread and butter, is a nod in the right direction. When the sun breaks through, every ice-encased branch becomes a prism, I have to put on a sword-fishing hat (long brim) and sun glasses. B walked over, with a couple of books, and we chatted for a few minutes. Better than anyone, he understands my position. I'd rather be trapped on the ridge, than trapped in town. Out here, the red crest of a Pileated Woodpecker is an actual event, all the birds are pecking at the Sumac heads. Late winter and there isn't a lot to eat. The birds are all puffed out against the cold. Two more nights of bitter temps, then it's supposed to get above freezing. With this wet snow, the driveway will be a mess. There are a couple of leaf clogs and the next time I walk down, I need to take a rake. The grader ditch has carved its path. The upper culvert, which carries most of the water, has created a canyon, where it forms the headwaters of Upper Twin Creek. Watching it happen. Giddy with anticipation. Home Ground. I'm ready to just back off, I've disappointed enough people for one lifetime. I can pick my time, go to town once a week for supplies, the library, the laundromat. TR will have to come out, get me connected and get me a printer. I spent a good part of today reading in "The Janitor College" material, and it's genuinely funny. A couple of times I inadvertently spit, and did I mention I mutter constantly now? That slow decline. I just want to be left alone, for the most part. I love it when B comes over or TR braves the hill, Linda calls, or one of my daughters, but most of the time I prefer to spend alone, 95 percent, 98 percent of the of what passes. Factoring time. Read more...

Ice Storm

Thirty-two degrees and the rain freezes on every branch. The roads are already deadly, hell, even the back porch is deadly and I'm glad I brought all the wood inside. A good fire, and If I turn my chair sideways, enough light to read. Just a matter of time before all the systems close down. Entropy. I have to put on crampons to go outside and pee. Warmer moist air above but freezing temps at ground level, so that what falls as rain turns solid when it comes in contact with anything. I actually watch raindrops turn to pellets as they strike the leaf-litter. The myriad branches are a filigree of lace. It's beautiful. The world encased. The field mice have made a last run for the house and my various traps are all working at capacity. On cue, two crows perch a dead poplar near the outhouse, they thank me with a mumbled squawk for their frozen treat. Heaven forbid something should happen to me, and someone would finally look in the freezer and find my bags of mice. I'm ready to retire to the ridge, make it official, I'm tired of expectations. I have three or four writing projects that I want to juggle, and I want to reread Proust in that new translation. Then I want to reread George V. Higgins and Cormac McCarthy in chronological order. I was editing myself, earlier today, and had to laugh, what I say in the name of truth. What might have happened becomes fate. A Black Hole is still a hole, not unlike a tree-tip pit, or any other natural phenomenon. Chalk it up to indifference. I'd rather not be answerable. Sleet now, changing to snow. It sounds like nothing I've ever heard before. I'd better go. A brief statement. The weather is a commentary. Zero again, no problem, I have a pile of logs, but this has been an extreme winter, and I want it to be over. Fucking sick of zero and the attendant damages. Say what you will. The next time I go out to pee, there's four inches of new snow on top of an inch of ice pellets. It's very difficult to gain any footing. I'd rather walk in the shadow of death. Hey, hey, just kidding. What were we talking about? Read more...

Who Knows

Look at the words. Wittgenstein was correct. Language is a tricky game. Words carry weight, and don't get me started on the spaces. How we parse. Feels good, to have used my body today. I made a huge dinner of potatoes, bacon, eggs, and toast; read a couple of things, finished a post. I'll be cut off, probably for a few days, the conditions are perfect for a massive ice storm; and the infra-structure, out here in the county, leaves a lot to be desired. The last couple of miles, coming in on Mackletree, are a joke. Chip and seal pavement over a dirt bed. It's completely ripped apart. Like driving through a field of boulders. I'm fine, my infra-structure. Five in the morning, it starts to rain and the temperature is falling, I'll be able to watch most of this next weather event in daylight. It usually happens at night and you wake up surprised. The Jeep is at the bottom of the hill. I have plenty of food, whiskey, and tobacco. I have a lot to think about, and several unread books. See you on the other side. Has a odd ring to it. The other side. Assumes you'll survive. My fall-back position is that I build an igloo, and heat with a seal-oil lamp. I'd better go. Read more...

Driving Home

The low spots on Mackletree, where it's always in shade, are to be driven very carefully. I halve my speed and double the time of my commute. Listen: walking in today, watching my footing, wary of every distraction; I just wanted to get home, build a fire, put some soup on to heat. I was thinking about this winter, how hard it had been, and where I stood, in relation to that. This is a far reach for someone half my age. But I finally decided to just string along. See where the next foot fell. Cleaning day at the museum, for Mark's lecture this evening (I have to miss it, as close to zero temps tonight and I had to get a fire started before dark) and the opening on Sunday. Mark and Charlotte doing the last art delivery tomorrow, and I was told I didn't have to work Saturday, which is good, because I need to haul wood in preparation for the next below zero blast hitting here Monday. I hope I can get to the opening, but it's no big deal if I have to miss it. The walk in was lovely. I stopped eight times, every fifty paces (I count subconsciously), at all the places I usually stop, coming in this afternoon. The wet-weather springs, the framed views across the hollow, how the culverts were draining; usually I stop another time or two because something catches my attention. I'm easily distracted, a red bug or a hardy plant trapped in ice. Carrying a goodly pack tonight, and I just wanted to lay my burden down. I could have driven in, but I didn't know that, so I walked, and I was struck, again, by the wind, on top of the ridge. Running bare-poled. A gold coin nailed to the mast. Got stuck in town yesterday, waiting for Ray, the elevator guru. He had returned my call, and asked if I could stay late and that he might be able to get over from Cincy. At six-thirty he called again and said he couldn't make it and it was too late to get home before dark. I had thought about sitting out the coming ice-storm in town, but decided to brave the dark and cold, go home and hunker down where I'm most comfortable. I cleaned out the refrigerators (Charlotte had told me to, though I didn't know it was part of my job description), took the box of discarded foodstuffs to the dumpster, stopped and topped up the Jeep with gas, and headed for the ridge. I used to like driving at night, now I hate it, but I got home safely. A wise decision, as walking in cleared my head. The house was cold, but I started a fire, ate sushi, had a drink, and my world view was soon ameliorated with creature comforts. Layered up this morning, hauled dry wood to the shed, cut it to length, and brought it all inside. Supposed to be two nights of zero temps. I set out two flashlights, that I can find in the dark; filled the oil lamps and got out some candles, because I know I'll lose electricity. I did very well today, for an old guy with a bad hip. Confronted thus. Carried water, and chopped wood. Read more...