Still Vague

Why we do the things we do. I don't know. Surely I could have found a better line of work, something that involved a thermostat and a flush toilet, but it's getting cold again, and the little pellets of ice are hammering on the roof. This is what I have, what my classmates, back when, voted most likely to succeed, a disheveled dude rendering cracklings on a wood-stove. It's actually a considered position, better than the alternative. Finally lost power for a few hours, so I curled up and went back to sleep, I was up most of the night moving commas. Started a fire about three this morning (two days without a fire in February) and pulled a chair up to the stove to read for a while. Had one of those moments when you see yourself from the outside. I had to laugh. It's three in the morning, and here's this guy, seated on a small rocking chair, bathrobe over overalls over long underwear over a cashmere sweater, Linda-knit hat, fingerless wool gloves, hunched over a tobacco pouch rolling a cigaret with fingers that aren't working properly. Lap-robe, two pair of socks and house slippers that have been repaired with duct tape. I look like an idiot. It's not so much a disguise as it is the actual state of just muddling through the winter. My current whiskey glass, which I think is a holder for a votive candle, on the very off corner of the stove, to heat the whiskey just a bit, sometimes I add a small pat of butter. Just the ticking of the stove, and the ticking of the house. Close to perfect. Close enough, in fact, I don't desire anything else. Further good news is that I can get out to the post office tomorrow or the next day and mail my bills for the month, and I don't actually need anything else, though I might stop at the pub for a beer. Maybe stop at the Italian place for a slice of feta/olive pizza to take home. Studying the Raven map of landforms in the USA, a tremendous map, and with a magnifying glass you can see that Low Gap Hollow is the watershed, west, to Ohio Brush Creek, and south, to Upper Twin Creek. Turkey Creek starts a few hundred yards away and goes north to the lake. I don't have a wall large enough for this map, so I keep it rolled in a corner, lay it out on the floor, with rock weights, when I need to look for something. I spend a fair amount of time trying to specifically locate where something happened. How geography shaped events. Just an interest of mine. So I study maps, and other graphic displays of information; signs that are grammatically incorrect, skirts that are too short, labels that promise more than they can deliver. There are odd prime numbers, all of them odd, increasingly wide-spaced, that seem to go to infinity. I can't wrap my head around that, so I kick up the fire and make a pone of crackling bread. It's self-indulgence. Two poached eggs on a toasted wedge of cornbread. Actually, I think these are cuddled eggs, steamed in a double-boiler I picked up at the Goodwill, perfect eggs, and perfect with the cornbread.