Violated

Sputtering. This time they trashed the house looking for what they didn't take last time. Hell of a welcome home. Books everywhere, as though I might have hidden something behind them, but none of them stolen, near as I can tell. Everything else, small enough to carry quickly. Well, not everything, but all the things a redneck B&E crew would want: hunting knives, hand tools (my Estwing hammer!), new scabbarded Smith and Wesson hatchet, pocket watch, complete set of flashlights. I haven't looked too closely, but some other things too. Several missing objects where there is a clean spot amidst the dust but I can't remember what was there. All the places I've lived, always isolated, remote, never locked (does no good to lock a place when it's as removed as most of my dwellings have been) and I have never been robbed. Now twice in Ohio. I hate feeling this rage, just in from a long, necessary, painful trip, so relieved to achieve the ridge intact. Home again, having been too much with the world, wishing nothing more than to start a fire, eat some soup, catch up on mail, confronted thus. I can't allow myself to stay mad. Ordinarily I might, but too many things, mental notes, that I need to access right now, and I don't want them to come through that filter. Didn't even get to Tallahassee, which was my firm intent, because the situation with my parents is considerably more difficult than either my brother or my sister had indicated. End of life issues. What steps and in what order. I was thinking about it, the entire trip down, from the very beginning, when I woke, to leave on the 18th, premonitions. It was below freezing, still dark, several inches of snow, bad footing and I was wearing crampons, carrying my laundry basket (which I use as a suitcase) under one arm and sundry supplies in a canvas tote over the other. Walking carefully, as you might imagine, thinking about how difficult it is for my parents to even walk. I don't like driving in the dark, I used to love it, but now I don't see as well, usually avoid it, but I need to get an early start, because I missed a day with the stovepipe crisis, and I want to pick-up the girls at the airport. Fog, severe dense fog for three hundred miles, at the high gaps barely crawling, thinking about the riddle. What walks on what. Late to eat, too nervous driving slowly through the fog, finally need gas, just before the Virginia line, stop, get some food and drink from the cooler, and there's a State Trooper gassing up. I engage him in conversation, talking about road conditions. He's from Georgia, understands my love for the coastal marshes, warns me about some roadwork. Rotting Spartina, or whatever the southern variation, swamp grass and dead fish. From a billboard: WET IS DRY. The new black. I had forgotten cypress trees, the knees. Rank and salty. I might yet become a swamp-rat, I love that fecund isness. Also, had forgotten Spanish Moss, what it did to the landscape. A small business I passed, a pre-fab building, somewhere in South Carolina, "Hydro Management Nano-Technology" and I wondered about that. Made a note on the back of a gas receipt, thank god for pockets. Hit the floor in Florida eating. Eating a meal is a good venue for planning the next meal. The true southern home is driven by food and my mom is no exception, she's cooked a pot-roast, with potatoes and carrots. Dad cooks a pone of cornbread. They at least have it together enough to comment on what might be said. I've been away, cut me some lack. Your needs are less than my demands. Inter-personal demands. I get that. I can deal with whatever. Tell your children I love them. I need to be alone now.
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Logistics

Just lost a page, my back-up battery must be dead, fucking machinery, and the page was about why I hadn't left yet. I should be on the road, taking a shower in a motel in South Carolina or Georgia, but a catastrophic stove-pipe failure required my attention. Called B right away, I needed his help specifically, because he is the only person I know that knows more about stoves than me. There is a fundamental problem, I solved it, ten years ago, in a way that lasted ten years. Not bad, still, it fails now. The problem is that both of the rigid ends, the stove, and the through-the-ceiling kit, require male fittings. The through-the-ceiling thing should accept a female end, for the system to work, but it doesn't. We field modify the piece, make a note to come back with furnace cement. My timing is screwed, for spending some time in the marshes, maybe on the way back. Hard-pressed, now, to get to the airport on time. I hate schedules. They distort things. Talked with my brother in Florida and the back-up plan is in place. I don't know where I'll be tomorrow night. I have my kit together. I'd like to take a shower somewhere. I haven't taken a shower in a long time. I hope to be south of the weather. I don't trust myself, what I think I write. I mean nothing. Hey, I'm just along for the ride.
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Trip Prep

Almost done. I want to take a box of books and manuscripts into the vault at the museum. About 1500 manuscript pages on the corner of my desk and a box of books that are all worth $350 to $2,000. Nest egg. Go to the bank, books back to the library, liquor store for a plastic fifth of Canadian blend to drink in a motel room in Georgia, do my laundry. Looking at the weather map, I probably won't leave until Thursday, which is cutting it close, I like a day of slack, on these long-range spread sheets. But I phoned the itinerary ahead so my brother could get the girls if I was delayed. Back up plans. Good to cover your ass. Heat loss, you know, there, where but if, it was only your head, you'd have it covered. Linda made me a hat. It's a very, very good hat. (The two kids in the yard, that everything was easy, because of you.) Everything is easy. I lube the bearings in the microwave, lube a couple of keys, the way Kim had shone me. Shone? Is that a word? I'm on my best behavior here, what do you think about that? From my peanut-gallery seat, something is changed, not sure what it was. Something. Maybe it's just the way we talk, something simple, insurance values, something simple. As usual, I feel that I'm missing something. B on the ridge and over for a drink, we talked trails, cooking tips, Janitorial Assignations (which he crudely referred to as "closet fucks"), and how it was probably a good thing that I was getting away. He mentioned that I hadn't left the ridge is some time. It has been awhile. Forecasters missed this one, suddenly Winter Storm Warnings and I certainly can't leave right now. I started this last night but didn't Send, deleted most of it this morning while I watched it snow. Three inches and more coming, then switching over to ice, then rain. I think they thought this would slip to the north of us. The line is really only about twenty miles south, probably be ok by Thursday. Probably tomorrow, but I don't feel adventurous. I'm survival oriented right now and fear black ice. I'm not insured. So an extra day on the ridge and I split another rick of oak, debark it, so as not to introduce roaches, and stack it neatly inside. It's both cold and damp, the wood, and causes several things to happen almost immediately: sets up a current of cool air that swirls around my hips on its way to the floor, and instantly adds moisture to the air. Next year I'd like to rick maybe 10 ricks of green wood in the house, October, November, as a humidifier for the winter ahead. Heating with wood is a dry affair. Nothing prepares you for life, a certain set of physical requirements, you see, is necessary, be good to work on your problem-solving abilities; patterns, I was talking about this the other day, I think I remember (I have still haven't hooked up the new printer, I've been busy), recognition. Mid-afternoon and I'm reading some Guy Davenport essays, wonderful stuff, sublime writing, and I imagine a conceit, a piece of writing I might do, where there is no punctuation at all, no capitals, no breaks. I roll it around for several hours, looking for a port of entry. I look up several words, I make some notes. I'm off the record here, but maybe B was right, I need to get away. When I return Diana will be in Athens, and I assume we will meet. If I survive, I'll have some stories. I have my sights set on family right now, escaping my raging ego, getting out of my skin. Cool, a day like this, no one would threaten my redoubt. By dint of weather, truly alone. I'm careful. I don't have to move fast, there is no reason, tomorrow is as good as today. I sweep my access constantly. The first lesson you learn, at Janitor College: look for prints. I only missed the fox today because I was looking at the wrong moment. Her prints were clear, she's so clear that she out-foxes me. Outdone. And I hate to admit it. But that's the way the natural world is, always one step ahead. I could give you a thousand illustrations, but I don't have to, you know. What exists in nature is better than any reconstruction. I'd go out on a limb here, if we were testing loading or the ability to bare, and say that that post, under compression, will be just fine. I have this on good authority, I manage the incoming files, I see what's said, I listen, but I'm lousy when it comes to considering what's actually said. The number of times I don't have a clue. I respect you're keeping a certain distance. Me (other) working it out. Thanks a lot. Surely someone else could have done something. The maid or the butler, I assume there's help. I actually believe we're all alone, no fall-back, no back-up, just yourself, alone, when the dude with the sickle comes a calling, you're a piece of meat, less than nothing. Nothing less than the grace of god that I could post to you. They must be allowing some sickos to slip through the web, elsewise, why would we be here? I keep fairly close track, I know what's going on. Nothing flagged my attention.. What I thought I might have meant. The fog clears and I'm just trying to be transparent. I have no intention, I certainly don't want to be a senator, whatever you think I might want to be. It gets cloudy. I have no idea what's going on. I assume someone knows, I applaud their skills, anyone who can say anything , I'm completely in the dark. What's said. Fucking mystery.
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Sunrise

Just before sunrise, everything is horizontal. Bands of color: orange, yellow, blue, and dark ribbons of cloud. This is the world, not whatever fabrication. The thing itself. It's overpowering. A simple sunrise reduces me to tears. I need to hit the firewood pretty hard today, but I don't want to over-extend myself, I set modest goals. A bit sore from the trips into the woods yesterday, but it feels good, to be ahead, for when I return and it might well be very cold. The house is full of wood, starter sticks, kindling, oak splits. I'm up to speed on my list of things that must be done before I leave. Even repaired a bad place in the floor insulation. I felt cold air and knew something was wrong, found the problem and fixed it in spades, wedged in four inches of ethafoam. Immediate difference. I broke the day into discreet units, kindling, starter sticks, oak splits, got everything done despite what was probably a hangover. I don't know for sure because I don't keep track of failings. I do what I can. Early this morning I wrote a piece that I deleted. Too much repetition. What I think I say. So the sunrise caught me at my desk, back-spacing, until nothing remained. Then I suited up and split kindling. My elbows ache, but my legs are good, self-medication, I'm fine. When B was over last night, we talked about the ridge, what a gift we would find ourselves thus, grounded. Most of the starter sticks I cut by hand, a bow-saw, I'm careful about noise, I'd rather be slow than loud. It's a choice, whatever you decide, the way you precede. I merely notice, is that what you meant?

Tom

A single crow,
nothing unusual,
never mind.
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Whole Cloth

The last of the snow stuck to the layer of ice that covered everything. Cold enough that there is no fear of slipping, moccasins tack immediately to ice at 20 degrees. I remember once running the jetty at East Dennis, by dint of freezing I actually had grip on ice. Several of the local citizenry had gathered, to watch me fall, but I bounced like an antelope, reached the end, did a sweeping turn, and bounced home. I wouldn't repeat this, but I felt quite safe at the time. Must have been the drugs. I marvel that I'm not dead. Other people marvel too, it was supposed that I would be dead by now. A day like today. I suit up and walk out to the wood-shed, get the maul and wedge. I've ricked six doubles that need splitting. It's dead quiet in the woods, no bird-sound, nothing, just the quiet drip, where a shaft of sunlight hits, or the leaves rearranging themselves. Fuck me that the most interesting thing is always ephemeral. I see a heart check, insert the wedge, I've done this so many times. You'll never feel a thing. Sometimes I don't think you koow
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Crystal World

Fortunately, I got up to pee, 1:30 or so, power out so no back-up heat, rebuilt the fire in the cookstove, set up with it for 45 minutes, put on an oak knot. Back to bed, then up before seven, meaning to go to work, but still no power, and well below freezing, no sun at all behind heavy, solid cloud-cover. Phone out. Stoke the stove and fix a lumberjack breakfast, suit up, get outside. Everything covered with a thin rime of clear ice. Extraordinary scene. I stay out until my nose freezes. Deputy calls, means I have a phone again, wondering if I'm alright. Yes, I tell her, but don't want to leave the house without one of the three things happening: sunlight, temps above freezing, or power. She understands, after all, B is her father, they lived in un-insulated chicken coops. I make the 12 minute clam chowder for lunch and the clouds break, a little broken, so shafts of sunlight, and the landscape explodes in a million crystals. Go back out, 32 degrees (which will hold exactly, for four hours, why there? is it a natural resting place for temps?) but the ground gives off a little heat, and the shafts of sunlight, so there is slight melting, none on the north side of anything. I stay out, work on wood. Of the new fine chestnut oak I want to stack four ricks inside the house, to help with the heating cycle when I get back, I need to fill all the stations, full wood-box, hot sticks, bone dry red maple, some osage orange I rescued from the river. Barely get my tools put away and the overcast slams shut like a hanger door and it starts snowing, medium flakes, straight down. In the dual interest of needing something to read and putting away books, under "The Song Of The Dodo" was Umberto Eco's "Kant And The Platypus", which I decided to work on. I don't know to say it exactly. B and I are both rereading this book, it's in a rotation, actually, and we both leave our notes inside, so when you get it back, you have a meta-text and two texts. It's hard to put it to bed. Eco is brilliant. An elegant writer, he weaves his theme, much like (this is going to be an odd triplet) Levi-Strauss does in the "Mythologiques", and Proust. How far through they carry ideas. Usually I can't remember what we're talking about, much less projecting ahead. I did, in fact, fall on my ass, the back porch was black ice; I fell correctly and cushioned the blow with flex so I didn't break my collar-bone; got my crampons, got right back on that horse, yes, I can walk, yes, I am a ninny. Test the water first. It might be so hot it could require both hands, THEN look around. Always look first at where your feet will fall. Oh, I see where this is going, of course, it's a kind of braid, where you, as a reader, have to make a back-splice, and I just keep time. I'll flip the burden on you whenever I can. Shameless. Whenever it's become a management technique, I abandoned that approach. I've failed at more things than anyone I know. A master of failure. But I have to tell you, out there, with all the sparkles, I felt like I was king of the world.
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Ice Event

Missed a day of work, a first, but the forecast was for increasing weather, starting bad and getting worse, and I didn't want to get trapped away from my house. My door was frozen shut, the porch and deck covered in ice. Finally thaw the door open and get some wood, wearing crampons to get safely across the yard. Warms to maybe a degree above freezing, spitting tiny ball-bearings of ice, then snowflakes. Call the museum and the Deputy says to not attempt town, so I don't; slippers and mufti, sipping tea, rereading "Moby Dick". Perfect conditions for an ice storm, but it's supposed to clear after midnight. Best I write early and avoid the dreaded black-out. I start a list of things I need to do before heading off to see the girls and my parents, planning on leaving next Wednesday, the 17th, be back here late the night of the 30th, the longest I've ever been out of touch. Mom is preparing a list of meals she wants me to fix, and the girls also a list of favorites. Chief Cook and Bottlewash. Long range forecast is good for the trip down, the trip back is a turkey-shoot. People travel, it must be possible. Not just my daughters and my parents, but I'll see my brother and sister and their families too, probably have to do ribs for 20 while I'm there. Looking forward to seeing Kim and the brickwork, walking the beach north of St. Augustine looking for sharks teeth, visiting a museum, the used bookstores, replenishing my meager wardrobe from the best Goodwill Stores in the country. People go to Florida to die and I collect the denim shirts of the dead, I can't afford them otherwise. Probably go to a movie with the girls, I haven't seen a movie in six or seven years, and Samara will know one she wants me to see. Rhea will be shy and willowy, the whole reunion thing will be bittersweet, because some of us won't live for another, the odds stacked in favor of death. Going or coming, I intend to spend some time In the Marshes Of Glenn, I'll take route 17 either into or out of Jax, stop at a fish camp somewhere and eat a great meal of really fresh fish and hush-puppies, with cheese grits and white bread, walk one of the paths that always border the estuaries, that fishermen have made, to get to a spot where they can bank-fish with a cane pole, sitting on an over turned five-gallon bucket, spitting tobacco juice into the grass. These paths are standard, always there: you can depend that they lead to very nice places. Bank-fishermen have an interesting ethic, or the fish draw them interesting places, but I've never followed one of these trails that it didn't lead to a beautiful spot. Now that I mention it, though, trails generally lead to interesting spots. It's the nature of trails. In Colorado, on first entry into a new zone, I'd always follow deer trails. Mostly because they found the way, established a path, cut across the scree at just the right angle. They know more than me about this, I know when to follow a lead. Why I'm good to work with is that I'm always willing to admit that I'm wrong or that your idea is a better solution to the problem at hand, otherwise we do it the way I had planned, which might not be elegant, but at least solves the problem. I'm not above using roofing tar, the least elegant material known to man, the grace of an oyster, the consistency of sticky baby poop, and smells like your truck back-fired, burning out smell cells. Second time I go out to get wood, I've got the crampons on, and the aluminum broom stick I use for walking when the going gets tough, so I venture down a logging road, looking for nothing in particular. There is nothing. It's a perfectly gray winter landscape, spitting snow, not a sound but the soft mumble of the wind. It's beautiful, sublime even, the world I live in, right there in front of me. Sandal-slap to the back of the head, of course, what was I thinking. This is it, it doesn't get any better. So I'm sitting there, on my foam block, and I manage to roll a cigaret, and I'm thinking about that, how this is it, but what I was enjoying then was not any kind of large thought about the nature of reality or anything philosophical, but just that I was sitting on a foam block on a stump in the woods in spitting snow thinking about that. Got me laughing so hard I fell off my stump. Bad form but funny, I about peed my pants before I could peel through the layers and finally pee. Something about that whole dervish thing, spinning in the snow, made me question myself, spinning, but I just laughed, went home, made and drank a very good cream of asparagus soup, wrote you (the writing stands for me), and went to bed. Slept the sleep of the innocent (I'm projecting now) and woke to do it all again. Listen, I had this thought, maybe we could work together, failing that, we could sulk, make noises, maybe you would understand that I didn't mean anything, maybe not. You can call me at any place, either I can defend myself or not. I actually have an formula for this, I misplaced it but I'm sure I can find it.
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That Said

Watching a new waitress at the pub, something about the way she moves reminds me of someone, then I have it, Judy C. from the early Cape Cod theater days. A certain focus on the down-step. Dance falls into two camps, up and down. Ballet is up, tap is down, flamenco is down, Grateful Dead druggy space-dance is up. Walking falls the same way, up and down, with a sparsely populated middle: I've known several women and a couple of men who seemed to never actually touch the ground. The museum xmas party, lunch at a decent Italian restaurant, idle chat, silly jokes, almost fun in a mindless way, and the food was pretty good. Bev only ate half her Baked Spagetti and she didn't want the rest, I took it, to go, eating it as I write. Cheese enough to clog a whale's artery. Glenn got back about Pip, in "Moby Dick" and, in fact, he just disappears, perhaps molded into Ishmael. Like the way Slothrop disappears in "Gravity's Rainbow". Writing, and reading, dealing with words, an attempt at meaning. I was cleaning the basement classroom today, the hospital people had used the space as child-care facility, rearranged things, rolled out rugs, on which the rug-rats could play. Mindless work, so I was thinking about words, the question Glenn had asked, how we understand. I think I might understand some things fairly closely, so I'm privy to condensed information, I've learned the languages, and I think one thing that happens is we develop a patois with close friends. A frame of referent. Like I have with you, my readers. You come close to understanding what I'm saying. Close enough that we could agree on some things, disagree on others. Miraculous. A mystery. I blunder about, bumping into walls, and it seems you had been too, and know what I'm talking about. Half the time I don't know what I'm talking about, I invent things, create quilts of whole cloth. I don't think I'm crazy but it's a possibility. Even so, to get back to Pip, in his craziness, he becomes a sage, ironically, the force of reason. Glenn reread the final chapters, but I think I'll have to reread MD again this winter, how many times will that be? 6?, 7? The language explodes. All that repressed Puritan shit mingling with what language could do. Like dear sweet Emily. There's a dissertation. I have to admit, I left the museum early today, my intent was to hook up the new printer, but I didn't get around to it, I had to start writing, I had the title for tonight, a perfect Skip title, and I was off to the races. Fuck anything else. This, of course, led to earlier drinking, and I got confused. Also, I am muscle sore, smoke some medicine, and am even more confused. But I have to tell you, when I walked up tonight, I stopped and looked in the wood-shed, and I was proud that I had stayed the course. All that wood dry. Which proves what? That with a roof, you can stay ahead of the rain? Was that knowledge worth the sacrifice? I have muscles cramping from overuse, there's no question I did too much, I take some aspirin again, two days in a row, but in the low-grade pain there is a certain satisfaction. By dint of my physical exertion I stay warm enough to not die. Life on the ridge is existential, it just is. I'm not so much forming that as an argument as stating it as a matter of fact. If (when) I die on the driveway, carrying a pack with bananas and potatoes, and B finds my frozen body, puts me in the bed of his pick-up, and calls the authorities, I'm not making a case here, it would be perfectly natural. Make a few phone calls. That pretty much wraps it up. Those pesky ashes, spread them about, that's probably what he would have wanted. My hands are wasted, the finger cracks go almost to the bone, why would I live this way? I actually prefer it, no other answer is possible, you wouldn't be here if you didn't want to be. You walk up or drive up onto the ridge and it's magical, not that this is the top of the world, or that you're special, just that you're here, accepting what is, an apprentice, mopping floors, hauling wood. What I had imagined I might be saying? I leave meaning to someone else.
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Sisyphus Redux

Over four miles walking in the woods, exactly half of them, the up-hill half, carrying a forty pound chunk of wood, 30 trips, 250 yards, 4.26 miles, 30 times forty pounds is 1,200 lbs and that feels about right. Nine until four-thirty, then clean-up and eat, finally get a drink at 6:15. Every four or five trips I'd stop for water or a cigaret, but minimum break time, because I wanted to get as much wood as possible under the shed before tomorrow's rain. Sixteen double stove-logs, split, forty feet of tree, tapering from 14 inches to 9 inches. Left six ricked in the woods because I ran out of time. Early this morning, first thing, frost crystals in the air, like being in a paperweight or a Hiroshige print. I was asked a couple of questions over the weekend, actually, probably on Friday, that concerned the way the ego, the self, actually interpreted language, and there was a lively exchange. This was misread badly, by another reader, thinking I was talking about something else. Kim and Glenn both had interesting things to say. Hope to god I get my new printer Monday because I'm losing track of what I'm saying. It's more important than I thought, to reread last night before I write tonight. There are threads, and I lose track. Warming but still an inch of snow on the ground except in the narrow confines of the path I'd cut. It becomes a darker trail, completely carpeted in leaves, layers and layers of leaves; there are branches and clipped stems, so when you're actually moving you have to look down, so as not to fall, but you can stop whenever you want, look up, look around. -What's the haps, dude?- Has it changed in the last twelve minutes? I'm just passing through, again. Repetitive Motion Syndrome. A new reader, from Idaho, asked me what I was doing, and I blithely replied I was merely responding to things that happened. Then realized how true that was, that that was what I did. Merely responded. Maybe that's what makes it intelligible, that it's based on truth, just before it becomes a fiction. B said to me recently, when he was cooking under my supervision (a joke), that he knew the character B was not him, Brian, because he knew he had never said those things. Fuck him, as far as I'm concerned, with his young bride, in the shower, at sunset, the Hot Tub, whatever. I try to not get involved. I live alone and write, the rest of the time I read or haul wood, I don't like being taken to task. There's a Buddhist sect, the Aum Shrinrikyo cult, where mopping and sweeping were important. After that we lose track of clean floors, until the 1960's, when we started taking drugs and looking closely. Maybe I just like to suffer, but this was a wonderful day. The sheer amount of wood, the way my muscles ache. Progress, what you thought you meant. Diced fucking tomatoes. Kingdoms have been lost for less. I'm a simple guy, I don't demand much, a warm place to sleep, I'd like to eat and go to bed. Write, have a couple of drinks, how could I possibly be viewed as a threat? I don't do anything other than feed ducks, my slate is clean. I scrape cheap dressing from the floor, and make some projections. If I were you, I'd trust the janitor, like back when moppers and sweepers were important, Seneca, or even before that. I merely report what I think I see. Phone line down again, so you get a double. Where was that thought going? Right. Something Theroux said, a monastic discipline, one of the zen cults, where you would learn to do something, a specific task, and as soon as you got good at it, you'd give it up and learn something else. I'd rather know how to do something well, but I do so many things, I think I short-change myself. I had several other individual posts to make tonight, but this was stored in Mail Waiting To Be Sent and I had no choice, or, rather made this choice, because I don't have a printer (tomorrow) and I don't remember what I wrote. B's Sarah (with an H) sent a very interesting book, "Loneliness As A Way Of Life" (have to wonder what people think of me, the books they sent is an indicator); Kim: I can't wait to see the brickwork, we'll probably be there the 22nd, noon, and just stay that night, leave the next morning, so maybe you could take half-a-day off?; Steph, the Carhartt jacket is the best jacket/coat I've ever had, thanks again; and to Thoreau (there must be a site I could send it to) for writing that wonderful line: "Much is published, but little printed."(.)(?)(!). Another triplet I could write a page about. Add to the note to Kim, that we see commas in the same way. We're both non-standard punctuators by choice, we both think punctuation should enhance clarity. Look at the punctuation in an early edition of Trollop or even Melville. Had to call Glenn, to talk about Pip, in "Moby Dick", couldn't remember what happened to him, get out the Modern Library edition, with the lovely Rockwell Kent illustrations, and bookmark the pertinent chapters. I'm not sure I'm lonely, I have to think about this for a while, I'm alone, certainly, but lonely implies a loss, missing something. That said. Sure, occasionally, I'd rather be rubbing someone's foot, but I'm rarely lonely, I'm probably not a good sample, tainted, or otherwise, from disease. We've all met people like me, dismiss them and go to Disney World. You can't change anyone's opinion, wasted breath, all that you can do, is do what you can do. Sing. Play a love song and listen closely to yourself, singing. The greatest mystery, it seems to me, is that we keep trying to understand. I don't know what anything means, the more I know, the less I know, but I still listen. I draw conclusions as if they were facts, and I am sickly human. Could you take off your sock? Could I take it off? I like your foot, the whiteness of the whale. That's not clear, but you know what I mean, everything is a metaphor for something else.
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Pattern Recognition

Everyday things. The way you carry on. Couldn't help but think of Sisyphus today, carrying wood uphill, then walking back down unburdened. It's a complex story. He was a son of Aeolus, husband of Merope (the daughter of Atlas), father of Glaucus (father of Bellerphon), ravished Anticlea, who bore Odysses. Usually credited to Laertes, but he was just the usual cuckold. Violated Tyro, daughter of his brother, who killed all the kids he fathered on her. Had to roll that stone forever, but Homer calls him "the craftiest of men" because he got to walk down unburdened. I got up to pee and couldn't get back to sleep, muscle sore, take a couple of aspirin and get another drink. It's already today and I wasn't done with yesterday. Go out and get the maul and file the edge, it's very dull and doesn't function properly. Bad form. Nagging at me, all day, what Glenn meant. How do we talk? How do we express ourselves? Since I'm alone mostly, I tend to think about things, and this is an interesting thing to think about, language is so fluid. In these postings, for instance, I can say almost anything, and you'll know what I mean, or, at least, what I'm talking about. It's strange, really, that you'd know. I could explain it in terms of data base, but really it's a more musical thing. Change ringing. Later today I'd like to make twenty or thirty trips, carrying wood out, whistling off-key; but right now, I'm sitting in my chair, trying to make meaning. And you understand that. What I'm doing. I can tell by the sound that I need to stoke the stove. Great chance to consider the false dawn and switch to coffee. My soreness now is nothing compared to my soreness later. I do this because it allows me to be in the natural world. It's a gift, really, because I can't accept any alternative: I'd rather be sore and alive. Addressing the issue of falling, I'll probably fall several times later today, you can't make thirty trips without falling, simple statistics, usually my falls are funny, I position myself and enjoy the tumble. A routine. I laugh, you laugh, I'm not damaged. We carry on.

Tom

Making sense is the most difficult of all, I'm not sure how we do it.
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Severe Clear

We should have to pay extra for days like this. Wrote early last night, stoked the stove, went to bed early after drinking a big glass of water, my alarm clock; had to get to and pee at one-thirty, stayed up an hour reading Theroux, "Ghost Train...", re-stoked the stove, and the house was lovely this morning warm by my standards. A firewood day, light cloud cover that blows away and a severe clear. 16 degrees when I get up the second time, just enough light to see without any lights, stoke the stove, fix a huge breakfast, sausage, potatoes, eggs, toast, 16 oz. of egg-nog that I salvaged from the museum, about to go out of date. I'm sure I've told you the story of the 147 quarts of egg-nog salvaged from a dumpster in Missip: when it was gone, the pigs went on a hunger strike for almost a whole day. Funny story, I embellish it now. Mostly what we remember is fiction. I'll get back to this. Glenn asked me a question and I want to talk about it, seemed particularly germane. BUT, such a day in the woods. I love the winter woods, the bugs and snakes are gone; I study the tracks in the snow, I haul wood, I hum Bach. B came over and he felled the smaller tree, which was actually pretty large, we'd been looking at it from 100 feet away. Probably take me thirty trips to haul it out. B cut it in doubles, but I'll have to split the bottom 6 or 8 because they'll be too heavy. Then, because he still had gas in the chainsaw, and he likes to use it up, he felled Big Bertha, a monster indeed, shook the earth when she fell, a minor earthquake. I'm interested in her branches because they're all heart and bone-dry. That sounds like a metaphor but isn't. The cult of wood heating. I love branches, two, three, four inches in diameter, they burn so hot. The perfect fire for biscuits, is dry red maple branches. Glenn had asked (I love when I can do this, drop it right in) -How is it that we can talk this language- and I know he means in a larger sense. I know some things about it but it's largely subjective. I made a note today about how at some point that object became my subject. I'm not sure what I meant. I know it was because of Glenn's question. Meaning accumulates, the second time I refer to something, you know what I'm talking about, because I mentioned it before. Now the ducks are a fact of life, what I feed them. I can't help it, what I get interested in, I just try and stay open. Meaning unveils like intention, never look too far ahead, the future is a cess-pool. What Glenn was asking was how do we understand. A simple enough question. With a complex answer. I've thought about this a lot, walking through the woods. I have no answers, zero, not a thing, so why would someone ask me what I thought about something? Talk about the bottom of the pecking order, I mop for a living. But I did come up with a theory, about, you know, what it all meant, given my input: I'd say it's pretty well fucked for the next twenty of thirty years. A huge amount of debt, amortized on the future. Taxes have to be increased, there's no way to pay for this. Trillions of dollars. I'm just a janitor, but it looks to me like there are problems ahead.
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Cold, Snow

Fingertips are cracking, that painful winter experience, has me typing with the wrong fingers. Very cold morning and I can't get the house warm, so I finally suit up and go out to collect sticks. Dry snow that brushes right off, starts as very small wafers that you can barely see, but grows more substantial as the day wears. Lingers longer than forecast and starts accumulating. I take my truck down to the bottom of the hill, lovely walk back up, two Pileated Woodpeckers, and fox tracks in the snow, my sweetie, back for her apples. I'd put out some of the horrid Thai food from the hospital party, but I don't want to offend her. If the snow stops B will drop the large, dead, chestnut oak tomorrow, a cord of wood in the branches, a cord of wood in the trunk, take days to haul out, excellent winter work. Mid-afternoon I make a venison, macaroni, onion, tomato dish that I can eat for several meals, carbo loading for the fifty trips into and out of the woods. I love these days of hauling wood, being in the forest, stopping to notice things. The natural world is such a wonder. B is working on some new trails and I'm anxious to walk them with him. One of the trips out today, I went into an area I'd never been in before, a small glade, young poplar and a few small oaks, and there were a couple of the standing dead dogwood from the severe kill-off ten years ago, still rock hard, and branchless, straight as arrows, I used my technique of standing on the root-ball (dead and rotten) and snapping the small trees off at the ground line. I had two of them, maybe 15 feet long, tapering from four inches to kindling. I shouldered one on each side, butt facing home, headed back; I'm maybe a quarter-mile away from the house, and I'm slogging through the snow, against the wind, with two sticks on my shoulders, and I find that I'm humming the Goldberg Variations. I only do Bach when I'm centered, it's only fair. I leaned my sticks against a tree, dusted off a stump, sat down and rolled a cigaret. It's these moments I choose to remember. I'm never more so alive than in those moments when I'm barely surviving. It's not really even close, I know how to dress, I understand survival, the worst I could be is uncomfortable, and I'm used to that. Fuck a bunch of weather. I pull out the long-underwear and the fingerless gloves. I can deal with this, as long as I don't fall. Glenn has been coaching me. I work on my balance, so that I won't. Then sit on a stump and hum Bach. Not that there is a reason, but that my life has brought me to this place. I'm comfortable enough, layered against the elements, I could probably sleep here, wrapped in the space blanket I keep in my pack, against whatever nature could throw; I could never hit a major league curve, but I could always foul them away, wait for a fast ball down the middle. I'm hell on fast balls down the middle. You probably don't want to argue with me unless you really know what you're talking about. I'm a site-specific guy, I choose my venues carefully, I've done my homework, don't fuck with me unless you have something to say. Any apology is probably sarcastic, any ad hominem arguments you'd make would be specious, I know what I mean, when ego expands beyond its bounds it's bullshit. Take a walk in the woods, listen to natural sounds, there's a difference, mostly we sing off-key.
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Yes But

The day after major parties is always interesting. To her credit, Pegi helped me go through the trash, sorting out wine bottles and aluminum cans. People just don't understand about overloading trash cans. I'm sure that at their homes they wouldn't think of putting 100 lbs of bottles and left-over food in one can. At the museum they do it every time. Pegi suggested I just hide the two large units, take them out of play, on the other hand I don't mind going through garbage, recycling a few things, stashing food for the ducks. Today I gave them a batch of what I call Pot-Stickers, egg-roll dough crimped around some unidentifiable stuffing and fried. Ducks don't have brakes when it comes to eating and these things were too large for a single bite, but ducks think in terms of single bites, and one of the mallard males almost died trying to get a whole one down. The other ducks were solicitous, but they're not equipped to be of much help. Cold has descended and I have to leave work an hour early to get a fire going before dark. I might invest in this new generation of quartz/copper electric heater, guaranteed to not start a fire (doesn't get hot enough) but still heats 1000 sq. ft. for pennies a day, maybe a dollar, but so what, I have to leave a heater on at the house while I'm in Florida. I'd gladly pay a buck a day for three months of the year to be ten degrees warmer. I had always imagined I would just stay home in the winter, read, write, keep the stove stoked, a simple life, chopping wood, hauling water. And I still aspire to that goal, but I need to work a few more years, settle a little debt, finish the house, get a year ahead on firewood. Full Janitor Mode today, when I got there the table and chair rental people were chomping at the bit, then the garbage, then Jennifer and her helpers were back, to undecorate and box stuff up. The culprit this time, and there's always a culprit, was the particular chocolate frosting on one of the cakes. Overnight it had become a kind of mortar, I spent an hour with my pocketknife, digging it out of grout joints. Then I swept, adding fake snow to the short list of things that shouldn't be allowed in the museum, glitter, grapes, cranberries, then I mopped. Full tilt all day, stop for five minutes and visit with the Deputy or Pegi, talking about nascent issues of influence, the price of tea in China. Listen, I don't do conflict anymore, I just wash my hands, and say whatever I imagine someone else wants to hear. I don't care what they think. I just observe. I know I'm deeply flawed, if you don't know that about yourself, it's your problem. I wash my linen in public because it keeps me straight. At the laundromat everyone is equal. A reader of mine went over the line, I've thought about this a lot, in the near future, she was out of bounds. Anything critical I say is considered, you can't imagine I make this shit up, but I was called to task, and I wondered what I had said, remember, I don't have a printer, I have no record. I'm trying to remember. Right, I criticized something. I'm sure it needed criticizing. Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on. I'm enjoying the sun in Belize, it's lovely here, it's perfect almost all the time. Don't imagine we could exchange barbs, you'd be dead, bled out in a heart-beat. No one wants to see that side of me, I can stop people dead in their tracks and make them weep. It's a gift, you don't want to call it into play. I can be ugly, knee you in the nuts when you're looking the other way, kick you in the head when you're down. Don't get me started. It's a simple challenge, you and the gauntlet. I know you, and I know the gauntlet. They'll ask some questions, I'll give some answers, nothing will be advanced. Blame it on the writer. Actually we all heard you, talking in your outside voice, taking credit. A matter of course. What you thought you were saying. I just mention it. Those really were my words.
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Nothing Matters

I would call your attention to Harvey's last book, before he offed himself. "Mississippi Haiku", he left the manuscript with me then killed himself. I'm just a janitor, but I recognize greatness. Read more...

Ignoratio Elenchi

Legal term, irrelevant information, a lot of it flying around today. Museum as zoo, prepping for the hospital party. Should have kept track but I'll bet I performed 142 specific tasks. The road goes on forever (and the party, of course, never ends) and tomorrow, in my official capacity, I'll clean up after. I liked that second posting last night. A great response from Glenn that should be posted. Several recent responses that should be posted. An interesting email from someone I don't know in Arizona who wondered if I was real. I told him yes and no, in equal measure. That writing very late at night thing is also good for keeping the stove going, wonderful warm house this morning, added a couple of quick hot sticks (dogwood) and cooked the last of the wild boar sausage, a couple of fried eggs and toast. Bring on those hospital people. The usual great walk down the driveway, but when I get to the truck, some asshole deer-hunter has parked in the driveway and I can't get out. I finally find him, they're tracking a gut-shot deer, and I don't want to offend a red-neck with a shotgun, so I help them track the deer and drag it out. Leave them with an admonition to drag it away from my driveway if the gall bladder is ruptured and they can't salvage the meat. I'm rarely late, usually early, and the chores had accumulated when I finally got to work. Endless deliveries and the decorating crew. They went with spandex table and chair covers which cover the legs completely. It's either modern or post-modern, actually looks kind of Deco to me. A foot square mirror on every table-top, with a glass jar of colored xmas balls. It looks nice, heaven forbid I should criticize anything. Actually, all day, I'm thinking about how throwing this kind of party is an installation. I joke with Jennifer about it, and she sees it the same way. The day goes well, in spite of several flares. I was off my feed this morning, something I'll talk about later, but settled into a rhythm of doing one thing after another. The show must go on. I have a particular insight into this, but we don't need to go there. I have a temper, you don't want to rouse a sleeping bear, I gave up several careers to not lose my temper. I don't like my angry self, way too sharp with language and intonation, I can blow up small buildings for Christ's sake, it's an Anglo-Saxon curse, it has a name, I can't remember it, but you really don't want to get me mad. I'm relentless and I hold people responsible for their actions. I would argue that's not a bad thing. No matter how good you are, there's always someone better. Wake up, this is the real world, where we have parties for doctors and the food costs four thousand dollars. Stop. Enough. I yield to anyone's greater knowledge. All I saw was a woodpecker, hammering on a tree. Make what you will.
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Much Later

I'm not sure what to think. Are we all so insecure? I was raised in a cardboard box on the side of the road, the scars you see are nothing compared to the actual scars, which are much deeper. I can barely walk, stumble often, and if I fall, no one would find me for days, just another statistic. I'm a janitor, I don't require much attention -oh him, he was a nice enough guy- and I certainly don't want to make any waves. I prefer the lake to be calm. Better, perhaps, that I should be out of the mix, not a factor. In all honesty I'd rather not be a part of anything, just live alone and watch natural things closely, the crows complaining, the squirrels confused, the way the lake freezes. I don't have a cross to bare, don't believe in anything other than rain and snow. So I'm confused when I'm confronted with my failings. I might be faulted for being egocentric, certainly I think about my condition, but I mean no harm. I'm just trying to make sense of the mess I find myself in. If I offend you, it's only a by-product. My goal is merely to approach reality. I meant what I said, about circling an imagined center. Get a good fire going in the stove and keep from dying. I don't understand how anyone can live with someone else, other people suck. If we were honest, we'd always be alone, no one could possibly meet our expectations. Don't get me started. Other people. I'm always disappointed. So transparent in their failures, what they fail to bring to the table. I'm sorry, was I talking out loud? You can't trust me, you realize that by now. I lie. B said something about that, how he wasn't actually the character, he was a fiction, he didn't actually say those things. I withheld judgement. I'm not sure. I thought he did. Maybe my memory is clouded. After all, who am I? Can of worms. WHAT happens is always subject to review. Glenn would call out his object here, as subject, point to it, make a point, and I'd agree, what is is, that thing you're pointing at. It might be a table, it might be a chair, lord knows I wouldn't care to draw a distinction. What we think we see. I rest my case. The nature of reality is soft, not hard and fast, take care, the crows are not really talking. I'm all in.
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Winter Daze

They've drawn down the level in Roosevelt Lake, lower than I've ever seen it, and the mud banks are ugly, the ducks confused. Maybe they intend to scrape the swimming area and replace sand, maybe there's a crack in the dam, maybe the Army Corp of Engineers, in their infinite wisdom, have plans against a swollen Mississippi. Maybe they know something we don't. Cold last night and I couldn't get a good fire banked, so it was even colder this morning and I stayed in bed late, with the covers over my head (so I missed first light, my usual alarm clock) and didn't have time to build a good fire again. Compounded error. Finally just braved the cold and shaved, grabbed a coffee and left for work. The lake stopped me dead. Probably because it's drained down and not as deep, but forever what reason, it was iced over. I had to stop and play, poke it with a stick, throw rocks. A Park Ranger stopped in the parking lot, watching me, I thought I might get busted for throwing rocks. I'd found that if I threw a high fly with a palm-sized rock it would break through the ice with a satisfying sound and a nice little geyser. Amusing myself. I sometimes feel that I'm circling around an imagined center point, poking at the boundaries, testing viscosity. Partly just engaging the natural world, but also scratching for a meaning that might be plausible to me. I'm a simple empirical person: I need to poke things. I was always that kid that put his tongue on a frozen flag-pole, but smart enough to spray it first with WD-40, which worked, as far as the sticking (I made several dollars) but was awful because WD-40 is transdermal and smells like garlic. If you ate a head of garlic every day for a week, the way your body would smell, out-gassing, was what my tongue tasted like for a week. I'm a student of labels, collect really strange ones, and the yearly Hospital party is at the museum tomorrow night. Jennifer is the coordinator, and I've worked with her before, she's easy to work with, and she's been preparing for this party for months. A lot of the stuff she and helpers bring in is in the original packing, but some things, odd lots, needed a box, so there were some odd boxes, and it's a hospital. The last time this happened to me, I actually took delivery of some body parts, so I'm careful what I sign for. And there was a box, completely full of blue xmas balls to fill a vase as a table decoration (the shit I have to put up with) and in bold sans-serif, a fucking label that said EMPTY EVACUATED CONTAINER. I want this box, I'm pretty sure I can steal it and substitute another. There aren't many things I covet. It takes me hours to figure out what it means, just what it says. Then I feel like an idiot. That I didn't see it immediately. Closed circles develop a common language. You need words for things. Naming. I always look to the trades or to sports, where a header might be two different things; meaning floats, there has to be a context or there is no referent. This printer problem, the Deputy finally addressed directly, ordered me a new printer, I'm paying, just that she did it, falls back into this whole family thing. For two weeks I've not read myself before I've written. I hadn't realized how important that was. You know, the ongoing story, what I thought I was saying.
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Lingering Coldness

Left on my winter schedule, an hour early, try and get a good fire going before dark. The house, inside was 50 degrees, and I can deal with that, dress warmly to write at the other end of the room from where the cookstove cranks. I need a small quiet fan, D said the built-in fans on their fireplace do an amazing job of circulating the warm air. Freezing my ass off, actually; as expected never got above freezing at the house, and I thought about the trip to Florida, meet my girls and see my parents, and when I get back, the inside temp will probably be 36-38 degrees. Which is fine, you're not going to freeze to death, but it will take 48 hours to reheat the interior mass of the house, the ten thousand books, the posts and beams, the massive staircase, the two-inch thick stone countertops. It's a heat-sink. It's like a phase-change salt, that stores heat, then releases it. I know this house well, I've watched it, studied the idiosyncratic self, know how badly I leak heat. Truth be known, I'm a sieve. 27 windows is probably too many in a house of 1300 feet, but a house in the woods is essentially an observation post and you need to be able to see out all sides, on both levels. I'm actually missing one window, that I didn't think about, I thought about all the rest of them, I can justify every one, but why isn't there a small, fixed-pane, horizontal window, looking north, from where I sleep? I overlooked it. I hadn't imagined it was important, nice to know you're often wrong, what you thought someone else meant. Meaning is tricky. What you thought you meant. There was a story I meant to tell here, I had a story all made up and everything, but it's then the phone rang. A telemarketer in Bali. I ask about the weather. And we were off to the races. I lost the thread, I'm more ephemeral than that, I parlayed inattention into a business, what we didn't mean. This is what's called betting futures, progressive bets in black-jack, a system, if you wanted to apply yourself that way, you could earn a living doing it, the cards fall where they may, a spread. Like tea leaves. Make something of them if you will. Counting cards is easy, if you train yourself, I do it best when I don't think about it, let my mind float. I remember everything for a short period of time, then it's gone, I harbor no anger. Anything I might say is probably a product of just trying to get better, you know, more clear. What's said. I'm guessing, but everything seems germane. It happens for me, at a certain point, that I can't mention something that doesn't fit. I look at my tool-kit, it doesn't explain it, I'm left with you. Not particularly where you'd want to be, me and you, what we thought we meant. Listen, I need to cut myself a lot of slack, everyone would agree I'm unbalanced, just don't fall.
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Batten Down

First winter storm of any intensity and there are things to do. Missed my chance to get the truck down yesterday and it drizzles through, but a lull early, just at sunup, and I walked over to the driveway. B went out at dark last night, down to the other house. His tracks were a full, locked-up skid trail, all four tires. I think he enjoys this, because he's a good off-road driver and because the driveway is designed for this weather. The camber moves you over into the beginning of the grader ditch, where you can control things, and then, before the curve, you almost stop and creep back out on the driveway. Nothing to it. Problem is clay at the top and there's not much we can do about it. But it hasn't rained for several hours and the outside track seems fairly solid. B went right for the ditch last night, not a single wiggle in the straight line of his skid, but and also, I don't want to get in his tracks, they're slick, already churned, and I don't want to make them deeper. Driveway Management. Goes fine, exhilarating way to start the day. Quick breakfast and coffee, then the stations of wood, kindling, starter sticks, and sections of old planks that need burning, hot fast fires with too much ash, but on a cold morning just the ticket. Cold rain, 34 degrees, then mixed with snow, then snow. With two left-over chicken thighs and egg noodles, make a note to buy chicken stock in quantity, I made a very nice chicken noodle soup. Reading this newish Paul Theroux novel (B thought I should read, brought it over) "Blinding Light" which is very good indeed. A wonderful command of language, complex plot overlays, fully realized characters. When I first sat down to write, at exactly four o'clock in the afternoon, the snow was coming down hard, straight down, then the wind picked up and it stopped snowing. The wind establishes dominion over the winter landscape, becomes a presence. I hear nothing but the wind for weeks on end, and It's like Bach, composing for the cello. I must say, last year, and this year, I don't really feel prepared for the demands, but this is my life and I'm comfortable in this place, I'll make do, I always have. Still, because of the wood-shed, I want to get a year ahead on firewood, simple now, just drop the trees and rick them in the shed. I imagine a wall of pallets to break the wind and driven snow. I was kneeling on my foam block, in the wood-shed today, splitting kindling, humming a Partita badly, thinking about a pallet wall, and I was inordinately happy, being there. It's snowing again, lovely, in the failing light, I couldn't do it justice, but this is the place I find myself. Not to take the wind out of my sails, what a batten is, always considering load, never wanting to just sail before the wind. Begs the question -How can you miss when there's nothing but target?- which I asked myself recently over some failing. I had no answer. I don't trust myself. Several times recently I've not made sense, and my actions could be deemed inappropriate. By default, I am the Old Man On The Hill, how do you think this makes me feel? Is it a role, or do I play it straight? Theroux does this wonderful thing with voices. They'll haunt you. Have to say, too, that I've probably done more psychotropic drugs than anyone still alive, and he gets it, why you would do that. Death by datura is a small price to pay for a book. A questionable surgery. Whatever. Who am I to judge. I'm not a doctor, I'm actually just the janitor: on the first floor, you might tell them, dust-bunnies accumulate in the corners. See if they get it, if they don't, fire them. I grow increasingly impatient with lack of understanding, assume you know what I mean. It's easier to make everything a fiction than it is to positively describe something. I could make this up, substitute some things, but what's the difference? How would you know? This is as good as anything else. Life at the museum. Wherever we found ourselves now, we all know this place, the excruciating present, we live with it. It's a condition. A cross-road you're confronted with constantly, yes, or no? A simple bifurcation. All that is required is that you make a choice. And All is a joke, a stupid elected official, nothing is what it seems. Mining grants are ancient, grand-fathered, what is the common good? I hate seeing Ute cows munching in ancient grain bins. History is tenuous. I come down nowhere as a champion, I merely record, some things just seem wrong. Have you ever tried to control a sword at your hip? It requires a double swivel or a whole lot of luck. I have scars, the hooks pulled through with pliers, when the lures went astray. Life is an imperfect model, oh, wait. It's all imperfect. Life is, sure, what we think we have.
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