Laundromat

The winter laundry done. Some Spanish sardines at Big Lots. A lightly overcast day, but I can see the sun behind and I figure I can get in and out before the next round of rain. I'd taken Guy Birchard's new book of poetry, Hecatombs, with me, to read at the laundromat, but I got involved in helping a nurse fold a mountain of bed sheets. She worked at a hospice and their dryer was on the blink. We talked about caring for dying people. There were a lot of sheets (eight dryer loads) and folding ate up the entire time waiting for my wash to dry. Didn't need money, so I didn't even stop at the bank, mailed off a phone bill, stopped at Kroger, for a few extra things, an artichoke, which I was craving, and another jar of this blue cheese dressing, to which I seem to be addicted. No other stops, except for potato logs at the Quick-Stop, and when I get home I put the artichoke on to steam, spoon out some dressing into a small bowl. I can eat this, the artichoke and the potato logs with one hand, except for when I have to hold the heart to scrape the choke with the edge of a spoon. Not caring whether either is hot or cold, I take a long time to eat, reading Birchard. A very long time, because it's a wonderful book and I keep rereading parts. I've spent my life among poets, which is time well spent, when you consider the alternatives. A world of language is my preferred playing field. My cricket pitch. Warm outside, 50 degrees, and I was sitting on a stump, playing with a stick. I'd cleared a small patch of leaves, so I could draw in the dirt, and I was designing a hurricane-proof cabin. A course of speculation that allows thousands of variations: materials, attachments, form, site-specific considerations, drainage. Within this line of reasoning, a few things stick out. Design criteria, the wind for instance, let's say 200 mph, and rain, let's say an inch an hour, for twenty-four hours. You must control the high ground, rule number one, and drainage (a nod to Glenn) is a priority. I'd read for years that cow-dung was a good water-proofing, so I constructed a small test wall, flattened cans nailed to a frame of shipping pallets, collected a few buckets of manure. Plastered my test wall with shit, let it dry, and put it out in the weather. We'll see. Bovine shit is mostly fiber. In clay or cement, reinforcement plays a large part, but chemical things are happening that I don't understand. The ridge is sensitive to winter winds, so aerodynamics comes into play, ground movement (the projected failure of the Mosel Dam), an adequate foundation and attachment to the foundation become issues. I built a place in Colorado, an expensive house, on exposed bedrock, I rented a powerful, loud compressor and rock drill, and welded the house frame directly to the rock. I'm a big fan of exposed brackets and bolts. Yet another thing I love about working with natural materials is that they can dictate terms. A branch becomes a railing, or a small tree becomes a post in a house. My job is to not exert control, beyond whatever is code, and just allow things to happen. I can do a few things, twiddle my thumbs, misinterpret almost anything, shit on my ankles when I'm squatting in the woods, it's no great talent, but I can visualize how pieces might fit together. Rain again, staccato beat, I need some sleep.