Politics

Most of the opinions I hear are third hand. Even at the pub, where I, after all, reupholstered all of the seat cushions on a Sunday, when I could have been fishing, the scuttlebutt is mostly bullshit. Rodney came up again, and dropped a large dead oak, cut it into rounds. I'm pleased, in that it's a lot of wood, and he owes me another half-day, hauling and splitting, but I find myself almost resenting the intrusion. I've gotten to where I don't like to be interrupted. Even when it's in my own self-interest. I'll bite the bullet at least twice more, for Rodney to haul and split, and then for another afternoon with his buddy Danny to come up with his little tractor and clear the brush on the other side of the house. I'd then have a complete fire-break around the house, which I thought I'd never see. That'll be another $100, and I'm dipping into the reserve here, but it seems like money well spent. But then I want to be left alone, I don't want to be a member of the good-old-boys network, trading hunting stories, talking trash. I'd rather be alone, which is not the same as being lonely, at any given time I'm doing two or three different things and reading a couple of books. What I think of as being fully occupied. I don't want to discuss potholes or bodily dysfunctions, we have Congress for that, rewarding farmers for what they might have grown. This year, for instance, the family of Boone Coleman will be richly rewarded for a crop they don't produce. Soybeans drowned after planting. Not only that, but they're a lost cause, so they don't even have to farm them, they can re-pave a road or build a small bridge and make a fortune, and still be subsidized for producing a crop that doesn't exist. I hate that shit. And ethanol is a stupid program too. Rain wakes me. I'd fallen asleep on the sofa, reading an essay about cannibalism. Honestly, grumpy as I'm feeling, I should probably be reading a romance novel. I do actually pull out a "Jeeves" and turn on a light in the kitchen. Hash with an egg on top and a piece of toast with blackberry jam. The sound of rain calms me. I think I was upset because I was expecting a quiet day and ended up listening to a chainsaw for hours. Being an idiot, at which I'm accomplished, as it is the wood that I require being sawn. I just thought it was going to be done on Monday, I had imagined a Saturday hanging around in my bathrobe, reading, talking back at the radio, writing a paragraph, roasting some root vegetables; but Rodney had a free day and needed to make use of his time. It ended up being sprung on me with no warning, so I was off-balance all day. I couldn't think straight. Power out again, almost all night, and I read with the headlamp until it gave me a headache. Incredibly dark. Just before daylight the power comes on and, of course, I left some lights on, and my computer always says "Please Wait", so I got up and stayed up. More rain, so no possibility of interruption, don't need a fire, sit around in my bathrobe and read; try and figure out if I'd lost a couple of sentences or not. Amazing the house is still warm, I only had a small fire last night, to chase the chill. Fucking crows set up a din and I finally nuked a couple of mice for them. They can be so demanding.