Ordered Time

It takes a while to get out of the habit of waking at three AM to stoke the stove. You need to stay up, long enough to damp the stove back down, so I often get a wee dram and roll a smoke, and I keep doing that, even when there isn't a fire. Read what I had written the night before, take out a comma or add one. This morning the wind was moaning in the trees and I couldn't concentrate, so I dragged out some family issues to consider. I've always kept to myself, not so much a lone wolf as a mangy feral dog, and generally people leave me alone: dress down is my advice. No one pays any attention to the janitor. "Deft, dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pin-ball." Another Tom. I had a can of premium crab meat that I had to break apart, and I stuffed four morels then ran them through the toaster oven to melt the cheese; these are so good I have to pinch myself to remember I'm poor. Actually, March, April, May, then again September, October, November, I save money, because I don't go to town and don't use any back-up heat or air-conditioning, so I can save for land taxes and vehicle insurance. This works for me, because I don't have any debt, also, I'm easily amused. I spent most of the day watching frog eggs, they move. Another Scandinavian TV show. I did take a break from watching the eggs to make a wonderful spread, something between a hash and a pate. I serve this on saltine crackers because they're neutral and cheap, but you could roll in up in Romaine leaves. I minced a shallot, browned it in butter, rough-minced half a pound of morels, added them and more butter (I use a lot of butter, this time of year) and sauteed everything for a while. It's great smeared on toast. With a coddled egg, egg yolk being the perfect sauce. and a couple of grinds of black pepper. In deep clover or high on the hog or something. Read Thoreau for several hours, and I'm almost halfway through, it might take me another year. After about volume four he stops sounding like an opinionated prick and gets into detail. There are pages cut out of the Journals, that became other books, when he went to Maine, when he went to Cape Cod, and I have to go back and read those books. I have a large collection of books about Cape Cod, history, geology, ship-building, feeding lobsters to pigs; I wrote a book about the place, it exists as a single manuscript copy, buried somewhere in the piles of paper. It's not very good. Lateral, and yet associative, I have to think about that. Usually I just roll up and go to sleep.