Go Figure

Dripping rain all night and all day. Got up before dawn to pee and stayed awake, reading the end of a John Sanford novel. Very quiet and quite dark with the overcast. When it finally gets light I fill my large kettle with water, clean a couple of buckets, and put them out to collect water. Heat water and do some dishes, then heat some more water for a sponge bath, wash my hair, wash a few things by hand. It's interesting walking in the woods when there's a new deep layer of leaves, you can't see a damned thing underfoot. One uses a high-step in this terrain. If you keep a regular pace, you can step in the same places, which requires much less effort, in snow for instance. I think about dying alone. If you live alone then you can imagine dying alone and what a mess that could be. I just spent six days without much contact, Samara called, but she wouldn't be concerned that I didn't answer the phone, D called, but he wouldn't worry if I didn't answer, fact is I often disconnect the phone and flip the breaker for the fridge. In fact, I'm disconnected more than any one I know, not to prove a point, I don't have a point. I could die and it might be several weeks before anyone would notice. In one sense relationships are a way of obeying burial protocols. Grave goods can vary from a gold coffin to a handful of flowers. In a codicil to my will, I specify that I not be embalmed, that there be no coffin, and that my ashes be collected in a coffee can. It should be the cheapest, or you give your body to crows, which would also be fine, or let them dissect your body in a classroom.

In the cold fall rain
everything leads toward death,
nothing if not clear.

For reasons that escape me now, I was thinking about cannibalism, reading about the ratio of hominid remains in South African caves, the dramatic increase in brain size, the use of tools and fire. I had bought some very cheap reduced-in-price eye of round steaks. This is an awful cut of meat, but I had the new mallet from Kim and I beat them to hell and back, rolled them around an onion, kale, and veal force-meat stuffing and braised them in red wine with a splash of balsamic. I had this with black rice, which I'm not sure is actually rice, but was pretty good. Beef tacos served on a bed of grain, or the vegetarian version which is mushrooms in cattail cakes with a highly spiced salsa. Being a contentious objector most of my life, I don't buy that whole doing what you're told to do argument. It never made sense.