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.