Buzzards

Lord, what an ugly bird. Two of them, eating a very smashed deer, but they're in the road. I stopped and put on old gloves, had just gotten up to him when a Park Ranger stopped, he grabbed the front legs and we dragged the carcass 20 feet off the road. The buzzards were waiting in a nearby tree. The Ranger, of course, knew who I was and where I lived, said he'd like to come up for a beer. I told him to bring them, that I was always home, more or less. Can't know too many Park Rangers. The quick trip to town, whiskey and groceries. Much cooler. I finally got the Mac hooked up and I'm working on the Janitor College manuscript. TR might come out Sunday and show me how to do a couple of things. I qualify for the heat assistance program, which means I'm poor, which in my case means that I'll get vouchers to exchange for cut, split, dry firewood. This could extend my life on the ridge. If I lay in a careful larder, wood to burn, a gallon of lamp oil, some candles, and a back-up battery for my LED headlamp, I'd only need to get to town once a month in winter, and that's always been easily possible. I can check out 25 books at the library, at a single swoop, and I do have a great library myself, so reading matter wouldn't be an issue. Seems like a done deal if my feet don't rot off; pissing my name in the snow. Too much with the world. I can't listen to the news anymore. I need retreat from all that. Robert Graves. Staring into the middle distance doesn't pay very well, but it doesn't cost a lot. I meant to go to town, have a beer at the pub, talk to another person, but I'd put a post-it note on Black Dell that Terry Gross was doing a memorial show I wanted to hear. Glad I stayed home. I actually cried. The greatest double bass player that ever was. His singing, closing out that interview, is one of the finest things I've ever heard. I thought about calling Glenn, to talk about connective tissue. Light rain is a lovely thing. It quiets everything, the bugs, the birds, all seek shelter. I can study a comma for an hour or watch a fly, trapped between the window and the screen. Not being a part of it is now my share of being a part of it. Defined by what we are not. It's not special, it's just a place, a gun-shot mobile home on the Navaho reservation or a sod house on the prairie, we have no control over where we're born, and it does, in fact, matter. Accent, for one thing, which becomes an identifying characteristic, and an atavistic yearning for mountains, or deserts, or the deep blue sea. Of course my phone is not working, which is probably a good thing, because I almost desperately wanted to talk with a friend. I found recourse in making a very good omelet. When all else fails, I generally start (over) by caramelizing an onion. That usually leads to something. Simple pleasures. Whittling an oak split down to nothing. The fact that the thousand year flood happens every couple of years doesn't seem to make much difference.