Uncertain Feeling

Rain all night, but I got back up when it had slacked off and wrote for a couple of hours. I'd heard the phrase 'objective truth' on the radio, and I was trying to wrap my head around that. It started raining quite hard again, so I shut everything down and sat in the dark, thinking about truth. Degrees of truth, exaggeration for effect, fiction, non-fiction. In my line of work, these things could be considerations, so I tease them out and examine the strands. Dreary morning, scudding clouds, slate gray backdrop; I just stayed in my bathrobe, and acted as though I were a character in a Pinter play. By the end of the day it was more like a Beckett play, and I have to say that if The Sanity Police had come by, they would have carted me off. One aspect of my privacy is that I can be a bit eccentric, and it can pay dividends; you show up at the back door, in your bathrobe, with a sawn-off shotgun, and people don't bother you much anymore. My walls are almost completely covered with push-pinned articles and post-cards, and some framed things, a few very nice pieces, a Klee etching of a line drawing portrait of Cocteau, the provenance is impeccable, the original label is attached. This could be faked, but I can't imagine why anyone would bother, it's only worth a few thousand dollars. Value is relative, and the sliding scale by which things are judged. And the judging goes on, we're always holding one thing up against another. A lone dog, maybe a coyote, calling in the night, and it wakes me from a shallow sleep; then I realize it's a coon dog, hot on trail. Get up and get a drink, roll a smoke, and turn on the back-porch light. I should catch this dog and call the owner. This happens about once a year and I get tipped pretty well, buy a wild-salmon fillet, and cook a serious meal. Crab-meat stuffed mushrooms and cream of asparagus soup, a rare fillet of salmon, with shallots and white wine. It's not even a big deal, that I can fabricate a great meal in the middle of the night. Mica, shale, it all breaks away, when you're reaching for purchase. I was reading about a female Sherpa that climbed Everest four times last year. I can't imagine what that have been like, I cover up my head, and kiss the rest good buy. The crow just waits for a mouse.