Divided State

The mysteries of consciousness. A loud noise in the night, the bob-cat I'm pretty sure, a scream not unlike a mountain lion in Colorado. She sounds pissed off and I would not like to be the other party. No reason to get up or turn on a light. It's a sequence, a radio program: a coon and a bob-cat at the compost pile. Not my problem. Roll over and go back to sleep. I've grown to love working in the dead of night. It's so tranquil. With the window open, savoring the last of the Japanese scotch Glenn had brought, smoking some local tobacco, I feel content. This morning, after an early and hearty breakfast, I made a list of words that designated moving water, then, as well as I could (it would be nice to have a better connection), I track the words backward through time. For a long time I don't speak other than attempted pronunciation of an Anglo-Saxon word, and the occasional Welsh word, something in Manx. I'm actually comfortable in Gaelic because I published a book of translations, tracked down Gaelic copies of the originals and had the author read them to me. He was an odd duck, a linguist for the CIA. We cooked smelt together, several times, when everyone else had left the house. We'd catch them off the docks at Sesuit Harbor, on bread balls. To clean them, you cut off the head with scissors, then down to the vent, and flick the guts out with the back of an index finger, five seconds; then rolled in seasoned masa and fried in hot pork fat. With hush-puppies. Food for the gods. I love these, dipped in aioli, or any other sauce. I occasionally find them at Kroger, five pounds, cleaned and frozen, and they're good, though nothing like fresh. The French frog legs will come in soon, always a high-point of my year. Big winds, and the acorns are falling on the woodshed like gunshots. Yellow poplar leaves whipping across the ridge. Fall, for sure, and I've got to get some things done, rebuild the back threshold, a couple of days ordering the woodpile, a couple of extra trips into town for supplies. I need an extra battery for my headlamp. I can't find those utility candles anymore, five for a dollar, the market has changed. Jerome mentioned this, when he visited, and Glenn said that data, mega-data, was being filtered in different ways. As an exception to the rule (why that is would be interesting to study) and therefore of little interest, a mere mote. We're talking about selling tee-shirts here, or tennis shoes. I was reading about cricket bats, they're made from a willow (the Cricket-Bat Willow) which only grows in a certain area. I won't bore with details (though it seems all I do), but you should read about the Cricket-Bat Willow if you're interested in wood. The bat Don Bradman used, in his record 334 runs, was about used up. One at-bat. Amazing.