Probabilistic Viability

The element of chance. Two solid days of heavy reading, species diversity, extinction; and I've saved a fiction for tonight, to lighten up a bit. A walk in the hot afternoon, to stretch my cramps, and I'm struck, again, with the enormity of what I don't know. The stir-fry with hot Italian sausage is excellent, caramelized onions and peppers, and a side of black rice (because I'd never had any, and it was, well, black), with some very good tomatoes. This recipe, one large onion, one large red pepper, a one cup rice dish, makes several servings, one of which I trade to Cory for a free lunch at the pub. The meal costs me $6, plus another fifty cents in condiments. My usual lunch at the pub is $8 with the tip, and I get three meals off my dinner and a free lunch that pays for the whole thing. Cory has already said that he'd like to buy into my next pate. My pate futures. I bought a small pate recently, from Wisconsin, pork and pork liver, six ounces for six bucks, discounted, and it was pretty good; hell, I like a thick liverwurst sandwich with a slice of raw onion, and this was way better than that. I stopped at the museum, to see the new shows, and they're quite impressive, the craft museum show is excellent, though there is too much fabric art that isn't particularly special, machine stitched, photographic images, Shaker patterns. The Art quilt, like the Art book, leaves me wanting. I'll gladly read a poem twenty times if it's good, and I do read recreationally, but I can't listen to most of the crap I hear around me. The great thing is that I don't have to. I get back to the ridge, feigning bad hips or broken toes and lock myself inside. Read some reviews, posit some arguments, sometimes I stop at the lake and watch the geese; sometimes, if it's starting to blow, I make a dash for home, and curl up with a cup of tea. Rain before dawn, a cool breeze, and I get up to write. I was remembering my last visit with Dad. The hospice nurse was from Wyoming and Dad was telling her about trout fishing with me high in the Rockies. Her family hunted elk, going on horseback into the high country; and we traded stories while Mom and Dad napped. We talked about campfire cooking. She also had an extensive collection of cast iron cookware, also carried bacon fat in a baby-food jar (because they reseal and don't leak), and also preferred fishing above the beaver ponds. Common ground. A shared love for Cut-Throat trout and elk liver. I stopped down at B's, to see his new workbench and the nearly complete A-frame outhouse with clapboard siding and a foundation that allows digging-out from an access panel. It occurs to me that the two of us have built more outhouses than any sampling of two people almost anywhere. I did once win a specious award for an outhouse on the Vineyard, and I've written several articles for magazines that never actually saw the light of day (Outhouse Monthly, A Quiet Place). I wrote a nice piece about the seasonal orientation of outhouses and how that might affect mental health. Another piece about building a rammed-earth outhouse that could be heated with a candle; another where a writer, dying of colon cancer, spent most of his time staring out at a kettle-pond. The market for literature about shit is limited. I ran a completely unscientific survey, and no one knew shit about shit. I'm taking a three-gallon shower on the deck, sun-heated water in a plastic bag with a nozzle, the back door open, the Allman Brothers blasting "Sweet Melissa", and the phone rings. I let it ring, and rinse off, take my time trying to get dry, settle under a ceiling fan in cotton boxers and a sleeveless-tee. It feels so good to be clean, in clean clothes, I'm practically euphoric, get a drink, roll a smoke, and the phone rings again. I debate whether or not to answer. I'm pretty sure it's my past, catching up with me, and sure enough it's a girl-friend from high school, wondering if I was that same person. No, I said, I'm not that person; we chatted for a while, it was her dime, and realized how different we'd become. I no longer cared for her world, and she didn't understand mine, she seems to think we should stay in touch, and I try to explain that would be a fiction.