Clearing Nettles

Not much to report. Past few days have been centered around food: preparing food, reading about food, cleaning up food.

I went to Blood Farm in West Groton to pick up a Chine end pork roast, which I am currently cooking, at low heat, for the next eight hours. Should be grand.

I read on the internet that the place has slow service. There was one person ahead of me in line and I probably waiting twenty minutes with my roast and pig ears in hand.

The smoked pig ears were for Slappy, and enjoy them she did.

While waiting, a man came in, upset that he had brought in his deer and that they had given him the whole carcass and he just wanted the head. He kept asking workers to help him, but no one seemed to know what to do. Finally, an older butcher -- he looked Latino -- heard the man and went outside to help. With a few cuts of his knife, no more carcass! Head only!

Today I have to clear out the rose bushes so that we can fit two cars in our tiny driveway. That's my big project, as well as cleaning out the chimney for the pellet stove, which we fired up for the first time last night.

Since I have to sit around the house while the pork slow cooks, I'm hoping to get some writing done. And it wouldn't hurt to get some exercise. Unfortunately, my knees are so bad that I'm limited in what I can do. A nice long walk? Who knows?

Turkey Plus

Okay, the turkey that tasted so good on initial sampling ended up uneven upon carving, with dry white meat. I don't care for white meat so much, so this didn't bother me.

But I can now retract my earlier assessment and say that my turkey was not as good as my mother's. This year.

Heavy on the Horseradish

My first turkey is done and cooling. I tried it. I don't like to brag, but it's the best turkey I've ever eaten.

It's not bragging, really. For the past two weeks, I've been going to Barnes and Noble and checking the net for recipes and tips. I'm not a huge turkey fan, so I wanted to do this right. I don't like the dry stuff I usually get, and this is almost more like a slow roasted pork, it's so tender. I've been up since six cooking. Now it's just a matter of waiting for the family to show up, when I'll finally let myself polish off one of the two remaining I.P.A.'s. My brother gets the other.

It also isn't bragging because I've only been eating one person's turkey for the past thirty some years of my life. My mother is a good cook, but a little conservative. She's remarkably consistent -- same bird every year all that time. But I've had enough of that bird, and wanted mine with bacon and oranges and garlic and fresh rosemary.

I also made a walnut stuffing and the cranberry relish recipe I heard about on NPR this week. It turned out to be even better than expected. Did I go a little heavy on the horseradish? Guilty as charged!

Jess is taking a shower after cleaning the house all morning. This is our first Thanksgiving together. It seems to mark a turning point. The weather is unseasonably warm. My knee hurts, but the sun is out and the cats are clearly excited at the constant company. I'm just hoping they don't take to hopping up on the counters during the meal. They seem in that spirit today. Hopping, that is.

I finally got my Netflix squared away. The new XBOX has a program that lets you steam titles directly off Netflix for free, assuming you have a subscription. There are diverse titles available, and I already have my queue loaded with Herzog and documentaries and David Attenborough programs.

I can be all modern with my XBOX, but I'll keep my old man taste in movies. Bring on the polar bears and spelling contests! I'll watch it all and eat apples with cheddar to boot.

Fifteen minutes to go. The family arrives soon.

Tissues and Toilet Paper

This morning I diverted my truck route to head to my mother's house. I dropped off a frozen turkey -- one of the contractors gave it to the Boss, but I'm serving him Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow and had already acquired a bird. So it went to the freezer, and the trip also gave me the chance to pick up a pan for the turkey.

When I pulled up in the truck, a strange looking bird of a type I had never seen before came up alongside me and pecked at my sneaker. It followed me around the house and to the porch. I suspect it would have followed me inside, had I opened the door for it.

"Hey, Mom," I said, "There's a strange bird outside following me around."

"I've seen those. There's a whole family of them. Are they pheasants?"

"I don't think they're pheasants. I think it's a wood grouse."

I have no idea why I thought it was a wood grouse. I've never seen a wood grouse before.

When I walked back outside, the grousebird was waiting for me. It followed me to the front yard and I sat on a rock and tried to pet it. It sat next to me, within a foot, but would protest and peck at my hand if I tried to pet it.

I went to the front door and opened it and asked my mother to bring me something for the bird to eat. She brought me an old cylinder of Quaker oats.

I put some in my hand and offered it to the bird. It ate some, and looked angry. It bit me hard in the finger, but not enough to break the skin.

As I drove away, the bird stood in the driveway, craning it's neck, protesting. It looked lonely and sad. I think it thought I was its mother.

*

Jess had to bring the Dufflebag to see his Dad tonight. While she delivered the boy, I sat on the couch playing Gears of War 2.

At some point, the door opened. "Oh shit," I thought, "Jess is back already." I was supposed to finish the shopping for Thanksgiving and pick up some tissues and toilet paper before she got back, and cursed myself for losing track of the time.

A strange, tall, pale white man entered the house.

He looked at me, casually.

"This isn't Adam's house, is it?"

"Nah." I replied.

He looked around.

"Hey, is that the new Gears of War?"

"Yep."

Bear in mind, I was wearing a headset and playing a live game with Macarena.

"Is it good?"

I had been drinking Dogfish Head 90 minute I.P.A.s and felt a little woozy. "Yeah, it's . . . it's . . . great. I really like it."

"Okay," he said, and went back into the night.


*

Addendum:

I googled the noble wood grouse, and it looks nothing like the bird I saw. I did take pics from my cell phone, and will post tomorrow.

The curious may find the true wood grouse here.

Taking Temp

The profile of playwright David Rabe in last week's New Yorker details the life of his father, a man who gave up teaching English. Financial desperation forced him to start working in a slaughterhouse, and the young Rabe grew up in a household shadowed by a sense of failed dreams and economic anxiety.

I don't want to be that Dad.

*

At my Halloween party, guests brought so much beer that I've been able to live off the excess since then, which is saying a lot, since I do enjoy beer. At one point there must have been twelve different beers in the old ice box. And now, I'm down to the last bottle: a Sam Adam's Holiday Porter. I'm drinking it now, and trying to savor it.

*

My mother called today and asked me, for the first time, when my birthday was. My mother always remembered -- my dad often forgot or had to be reminded. She actually could remember, when prodded, but she wasn't sure.

*

George was kind enough to secure a copy of Gears of War 2, and I spent some pleasant hours this weekend blasting the kidneys out of locusts and grubs. Sometimes, I get wrapped up in the games and will continue to play long after they are fun. The campaign mode was short and simple enough so that I felt immersed, but also able to stand up after an hour's time and not feel as though I was one step closer to amoeba.

The online mode is even more fun, as it gives me yet another avenue in which to poke fun of my friend and XBOX fan Macarena.

Speaking of Mac, he is going to lend me supplies for beer brewing. I'm inspired by the food issue of the New Yorker -- in which I recognized lifestyles I can probably aspire to and probably would enjoy -- read and you'll see why.

I've begun to notice that people who leave bjj because they are injured or can no longer make the massive time commitment, often turn to cooking as a hobby, and they are like arts in some respects. Adrenaline, aesethetics, the fusion of material acts with transcendental values, the feeling that the process reflects a certain psychology, and and the sense that our personal qualities, good and bad, are reflected in organization, knife-cutting, patience, and intuition we bring to the dish. It's as though if we could bake the perfect bread, then it's fate's loss if we aren't kings, and a sorry loss to fate at that.

*

With the restored water heater has come the restored baseboard heating to the second floor of the house. Whereas before, we arose on cold wood and scurried downstairs for warmth, now we sink into winter on the morning steps downstairs.

My morning ritual is to dress and then go outside to warm both our cars. I never used to warm up my car first, preferring instead to sit and shiver inside, but Jess has shown me the wisdom of this, and I begin each morning with a freshly cooked breakfast sandwhich, one often made from delicious Jimmy Dean sausage and some locally made, quality mustard (high/low!), taking off in a toasty car, the sun still yet to rise.

When I worked at the gym at NYU, we occasionally encountered a man who would sneak into the upstairs bathrooms to shave. It was demeaning to all involved to drag this guy out of the building, but the administration was strict.

We didn't know much about him, and, in retrospect, I should have asked. I'm pretty sure that on a few occasions I actually covered for the guy while he finished, although I certainly asked him to leave at times as well. Sometimes, he was only half done shaving, so he'd leave with shaving cream still on part of his chin. He also seemed to cut himself a lot, perhaps from using dull razors or from rushing before he got caught.

According to the assistant operations manager, the man was a former professor. That was why he knew about the gym. At some point in the past he either developed a mental illness, or became an addict, or did something else to lead him to a life on the streets.

There have been times in my life when I've thought about that guy and realized how close I've come to going that way myself. After all, going to graduate school was itself a way of escaping demons. I was galvanized by the death of my friend Rob back in 94. He died of a heroin overdose. Quickly thereafter, I decided I had to take action and do something with my life other than what I was doing: a vague hallucinatory mix of drugs and inertia and strumming guitars. Of course, it's possible I could have chosen that direction anyway, but it's what pushed me to dive in.

I bought some GRE test booklets and spent six months studying the history of English literature. When I took my subject exam, I scored in the 98th percentile, which isn't surprising since I read nearly every major canonical work and memorized a slew of rhetoric terms in Greek to prepare.

Little did I know that I would soon go off to grad school, where a twenty year passion for literature would be extinguished in a matter of months. There's nothing wrong with this. In a sense, it propelled me into history: instead of living and thinking like a pre-post-modernist, now I was in the New New Age and found myself, blinking my newborn eyes, and wondering what wastelands lay beyond.

I have never found anything as intellectually engaging as I did back then, but I have found much that is more sober, insightful, and useful. I am less provoked and more deliberate. But not without my limitations.

*

I made lunches for all five days this week and spent only 5.63 to do it. I bought three pounds of pork (on sale), a jalapeno pepper, a head of garlic, and a head of green cabbage. I found some leftover lemongrass and thai rice. The resulting dish is hearty and complex enough to not get tiresome after three or four days. The pork, like most pork in this country, was too lean, and thus slightly dry and tasteless. It was not as tasty as some of the chicken dishes I'd made recently, but I still suspect it's going to be tastier than just about anything I could while on the road. And you can't beat the price.

My local grocery store doesn't have organ meats -- otherwise I might have kicked it up with some kidneys.

*

This weekend I applied or made inquiries to Home Depot and the Wachusett Brewing Company. I can now reduce the list of career themes to: food, fighting, fixing things, writing, and teaching. Those are the points at which we now spin.

*

One of the guys from William J Malcolm and Son installed our water heater this weekend. It ended up being more complex we first supposed -- our low basements ceilings made finding a suitably sized heater difficult. But, in the end, the plumber did excellent work and we now have hot water. Plus, I still have three dollars in my pocket to last the week! That doesn't sound like much, but it's a cup of coffee on a cold day, and sometimes, that's all you need to make it through. And, given the expenses of the weekend, it's a miracle I came out with a full tank of gas and the hope of a warm cup of the black in the early, cold afternoon.

After helping Tracie move to her new home in Stow earlier today -- she is a jiu-jitsu student who injured her back and recently had emergency surgery -- I insulated the basement against the cold air that was getting in through two boarded up windows. The plumber brought the problem to my attention and reminded me that the sharp cold could cause the pipes to freeze. I did most of the work with some trash bags and a staple gun. Now, the basement is somewhat darker and looks even more forbidding, but it has a touch of warmth, even on a cold day such as this.

The Place of Salmon

I went to the local library tonight to research the town's history. The library is, itself, an historic building, housing a few peculiar artifacts that I'll detail in later entries.

It is small, but with books well chosen. In other words, there was an appealing randomness to it all, with enough to make me think I could go a few years and read hard there and not tap the stacks. I applied for, and received, a library card and took out, for my first borrowing, Richard N. Smith's history Divinity and Dust. Smith himself had an interesting voice. The book is tightly written, and slightly eccentric. He graduated from Harvard in the 1970s, had dealings with the state Republican party (a Mass republican) and peppered his chapters with enough quotes from Emerson, Thoreau, and Jefferson to make me think he'd be a great drinking partner on a cold night.

Maybe I'll try to track him down. Scratch that. I will track him down, and report back here.

*

Random Townsend facts and insight:

1. The town is multicentered and, aside from the barrel industry, seems given to cottage industries. A history of the Finnish in Townsend listed occupations as various as auto dealer, musician, upholster, oil furnace repairman, educator and photographer.
2. Speaking of Finns, the Finnish name for Santa Claus is Joulu Pukki.
3. Speaking of Finnish, they came to speak a mixed language called Finliskaa, which was mostly English words in a Finnish accent and with Finnish endings. Example: bedirooma.
4. Speaking of autos, early car owners padded their garages because of the unreliable shift from forward to reverse. Additionally, because the early Fords were built with reverse as the strongest gear, people typically climbed Bayberry hill backwards.
5. Townsend boasted one of the last paternalist-oriented industries, barrel making. When the industry declined in the fifties, with barrels generally only bought by the whiskey manufacturers, one of the major figures in town, A.D. Fessenden, owner of the local barrel plant, seemed to take personal affront when his workers unionized. The plant closed in 1960, but the workers didn't seem too upset. They quickly realized they could make nearly twice as much money doing less monotonous work in nearby Groton.
6. I enjoy the random. Shrubs was a popular drink in the town's early days: it combined a fruit base with rum or brandy. This was a popular New England drink. I'm game. Pour me a pint.
7. I live near the Squanicook -- I read today that the word means "Place of Salmon."

*

I still haven't managed to secure either a water heater or the money to buy one with, but I worked a lot of overtime last week, so I'll pick one up on Friday. Two more days without a dishwasher or shower. Nothing compared to farm life, but still.

I told George that Jess was working to get me into the painter's union. "You were just talking about teaching and becoming a paralegal!" he said, exasperated. "I need to make money!" I said. For me, there is no different, material or otherwise, between painting and teaching and I just need to help pay the mortgage. Obviously, I would rather write for a living. I can join the painter's union and still get into teaching down the road.

So, then. I must be doing a lot of writing, right? Well, I did some research in the library tonight and got home at eight, my first period of rest since leaving for work at six this morning. It's now almost nine. All I've had to eat was a slice of bread and a half of a cold baked potato. And yes, I'm still tinkering away, writing short articles for websites and trying to keep myself to 400 to 600 working words a day. Easy enough, but not. My mother called me four times today, crying, because her computer had crashed and she couldn't figure out how to make it work. So I'll put in a likely nine hours tomorrow, and then go deal with her computer, and then drive all the way here, and I'm hoping, at that point, to have one concentrated thought that isn't just I should but my fingernails or a slice of pepperoni pizza would be delicious but yeah, I've got 600 words on the subject of Townsend, or MMA, or food, or beer, or the economy, or Obama, or AC/DC, or sex and patriotism, or early country blues, or the cold, or the dog, or any manner of beginning and ending that might rise or not . . . .

Check Out . . .

the bottom of this page for the astronomy pic of the day, as well as the "this day in history" gadget or gidget or whatever it's called.

I'm considering issuing a papal bull myself. Details to follow.

An Unfortunate Series of Clusterfucks

I was on the road for a clean nine hours today. This including one long, looping journey throught he backroads of Dunstable, where signs warning of attack dogs are posted on gates -- the houses beyond can be oddly geometric, or they might be the sort of rustic farm, the type a wealthy person buys after retirement.

It took over two hours to get to one of these houses. Three weimaraners barked at me from inside while an older person, at least six-five and apparently some sort of full-time maintenance man, came out to accept my goods.

He went through the whole order, rejecting all he had asked for. When I left, he stripped the order of copper and fittings until all that remained were two small bottles of paste. Two hours for two jars of paste!

And as I wove among the grand houses, I made calls, trying, with ultimate futility, to come up with money for a water heater Jess and I had located at Sears.

It was a despairing day, cold and quiet. I checked my phone for email, hoping for word about a job. Nothing. I decided at one point I needed to get a weekend gig and move to a seven day workweek. I've done it before. I wrote Jess and told her this and she told me her friend might be able to get me a better paying driving job.

Through this all, I am simply more confirmed that I need to keep writing, even if it's just at times as a form of lamentation. Not a complaint, but a mournful look at the old and lost. If there's beauty to the road, it's there: old bridges and rail lines spotted from a backcountry drive, rusted tractors, occasionally the sight of some frisbee carrying and carefree dog to balance it all out and push it into the universal. But I've aged and grown tired and seen my life change while on the road. It hasn't been a journey but one endless circle sucking me back home, with only hints of progress. At times, it feels as though my expectations of myself are falling away like ships on the horizon. I'm going to grow a beard and stand against the cold. At some point, someone with like blood would have cursed fate and reached for his axe, and I know that the hot spirit hasn't left me, however weary of disappointment.

Not a complaint, mind you. But a view from the road.

*

I stopped by my mother's house after work for a quick shower before returning to Townsend. I caught a cold, but it's just a headcold and I have none of the typical achiness. Still, I suspect a shower will feel damn good and will wash away the dusty feeling on my skin.

*

And then? Cold nights, stargazing, maybe a bowl of soup. The regular.

*

I had a dream last night that Jess was under attack by some faceless horde, and I was trying to protect her. When I was younger, I often had dreams about being falsely accused. Now, the pattern is that I'm trying to protect someone or something.

I woke up and the chihuahua, Slappy, was crossing Jess's shoulder as though she was making a journey across the hills. I could see her eyes in the starlight, and even she looked mournful and resilient.

*

Seven minutes to write. That's all I've given myself time for. Showertime, bitches!

Smoking Gun

The Smoking Gun's feature on mug shots has been impossibly good these past few weeks. Enjoy!

A Fork to the Cheekbone

Billy told me that he made the mistake of sheepishly asking his bullying girlfriend, the only person he seems afraid of, if she had made rice to go with his chicken and potatoes the other time.

"I thought she was going to kill me, Dougie," he told me. "I was scared for my life!"

So today I would send him messages on the terminal like this.

"Jess made pasta last night. Asked her if there was any sausage to go with it and she stuck a fork in my cheekbone."

So the wheel endlessly spins.

Donate

Donate to the site or I will kill a kitten.

Stay White

Today, work was slow in the w, so Billy and I fell into trivia. We always listen to Mike FM, the local mix station, and this gives us the opportunity to do a lot of "name that tune" and other such games.

Mike was kind enough to play one of my favorite songs, the duet "Stumblin' In" by Suzi Quatro and Chris Norman, and I let loose with questions about the Runaway's former members, Smokie's minor hits, and Happy Days.

An Irish kid, known for his love of hip-hop and ganja, was at the counter. Before he left, he turned around and said, "Hey guys, stay white."

And he walked away, without smiling.

It had been months since I'd heard whiteness used as some rough equivalence to uncoolness or awkwardness or whatever it was he meant. And that's mostly because I work in what is largely a white industry: Boston Irish Catholic, really. Sure, there are Columbians and blacks and Puerto Ricans and Brazilians who come through our doors, but they are somewhat outnumbered by the Irish. We even have regular customers who are Irish Irish.

Billy doesn't care about being cool, and he doesn't need to. He's 280 and can clean two-hundred pound cubes over his head effortlessly. He can still listen to Creed and admit to crying when he hears Sinatra. Who cares? Not much to prove.

I mean, I'm not that attune to hipness. Not that I would ever listen to Creed without an instinctual shudder.

But these things are inconsequential.

The Irish kid left and Billy turned to me, thoughtfully. He knew we were just made fun of. Darkness crossed his brow.

"Dougie," he said.

"Yes, Billy?"

"It's time for an old-fashioned."

*

An old-fashioned is not short for a plain friend donut, but a handjob. And over a year ago Billy and I realized that we both found the notion of a handjob inherently funny. I'm not the only one: check out the movie Rushmore.

All day long, Billy sends me messages on the terminal: "Dirty Dave would like his handjob now." "I'll trade you your lunch for an old-fashioned."

There is a difference in kind between crude humor that comes down on the side of humor and that which comes down on the side of crude. Dirty Dave? His humor is about enjoying the suffering and humiliation of others. He's not alone.

I guess what makes me connect to Billy in this way, aside from our ability to riff on the same topic for months, is this sense of it being not just because it's funny, but because we know exactly how unfunny it is. It's a sort of metahumor: transcendental! Humor in the w must be cyclical. It's a stay against the endless patterns of pulling orders and stuffing boxes.

"When my nephew asks me what I do for a living," Billy once told me, sorrow on his face, "I tell him I put stuff in and out of boxes."

*

Our water heater is still out. I went to my mother's on Saturday to shower, but had to go without yesterday. I was so self-conscious today that I went into the women's room at w, wetted a handful of paper towels, and tried to sponge myself down in the stall.

I generally opt for the women's room in the W. It's cleaner and there's less of a likelihood that someone will walk in on you. I'm not the only one. Eddy and the Boss use it, too, and I can usually get in a good read of the Manchester Union-Ledger while dropping a deuce. Since it is perhaps the worst newspaper published in a major city, it's almost always a sure bet for an unintentionally funny food review where the critic is more keen on portion size than technique.

Lots of murders, up there in Manchester, it seems, and lots of food festivals. Sounds like a fun place.

*

My knee hurts enough so that I'm taking a serious vacation from BJJ. Well enough. Of course, I miss it, but, over time, you find that the experience of training holds as much futility and disappointment as it does revelations and progress and I mean this in a broad sense. But I'm in for life, still. It is, after all, tattooed on my arm.

*

Listmania:

Ten songs that just played on my iTunes party shuffle:

1. "The Cowboy Trail" anonymous song on compilation cd of early cowboy music
2. "Vito's Ordination Song" Sufjan Stevens
3. "Heat Wave" Linda Rondstadt (I am a closet fan.)
4. "A Big Hunk O' Love" Elvis Presley
5. "Eyes of a Child" Mark Lanegan
6. "Taxi Driver" Guitar Wolf
7. "Death of a Disco Dancer" The Smiths
8. "Warden in the Sky" Woody Guthrie
9. "The End of the Summer" Frank Black
10. "The Thing that Should Not Be" Metallica

Empire of the Signs

My damn GPS wasn't picking up a signal, so it took some luck, some of it bad, to find a Starbucks near my house. I like Starbucks, obviously, because of the free wi-fi. And I'll go against you both the uber-snobs and the reverse-snobs and admit that the coffee is pretty good, too.

I have my knock-off noise cancelling headphones on, listening to my downloaded music/fuel. Nice mix now: some early Springsteen, Entombed (good music to write to -- although I haven't given much thought why. It works well with the mechanical rapidity of typing), and Mahler.

I'm working on a few freelance articles to see if I can get into that game and supplement my income. Who knows? Maybe I can actually make a living doing something I enjoy?

So much of the afternoon was spend banging out a clean, clear piece on MMA, easy enough because it was meant for a general audience. I do well with that mythic beast, the general audience, because, deep down, I'm kind of an idiot and don't understand things well myself. So I always approach a subject from the perspective of an outsider, even if it's something that, on the surface, I have close knowledge of.

I'm planning another article that I'll start working on tomorrow on Massachusetts history. I figure I'll keep writing about what interests me: fighting, philosophy, history, food, sex, and culture. Nothing wrong with that!

*

I did manage to get some reading time in, despite the long work hours yesterday and the UFC party last night, where a few of us went Martha Stewart and made it into yet another surreal BJJ event -- instead of chips and drinks we had Texas chili, Indian chicken, and what I see as somewhat Scandinavian pork, although perhaps only I saw it that way. Viking pork! There you have it. Add in cookies and cake, and mix in brutal fights with unassuming engineers, a curious eleven year old in the shape of the Dufflebag, and a living room scattered with children's toys and fitness equipment, you have some sort of postmodern grab bag at its finest. If we had all been speaking different languages, it might have even made more sense. An empire of the signs.

*

No need to leave you hanging. What was I reading?

I got a whole whopping two chapters into Guy de Maupassant's travel book Afloat, a work that blurs the lines between fiction and reportage. It was put out by what is probably my favorite publisher, the New York Review of Books Classics, which specializes in releasing undeservedly obscure titles.

The introduction is about the cynical, overspending Maupassant and the creation of this book. And I love to laugh at how awful writers can be. In their day, worse than rock stars, it seems, and mostly because they could articulate their world in broader scope.

Here's how Maupassant begins. Classic!

This diary has no interesting story to tell, no tales of derring-do. Last spring I went on a short cruise along the Mediterranean coast and every day, in my spare time, I jotted down things I'd seen and thought.

In fact what I saw was water, sun, cloud, and rocks, and that's all. I had only simple thoughts, the kind you have when you're being carried drowsily along on the cradle of the waves.

I love the mix of understatement and poetry.

Please Donate

Hey guys. For the next year I'm going to try to give it a go and make a career out of freelance writing. During that time I'm going to continue to look for teaching jobs, while remaining open to anything else that comes along.

I'm going to continue posting here and if I can get some donations going, then I'll be able to keep it updated more often and offer more interesting content.

Got an extra buck or two? Donate it to me!

Blue Team

Inventory is over.

Billy and I were partnered up, with me as the "writer" and him as the "counter." Imagine that.

Billy recounts each item repeatedly and will empty out a box of, say, three top take-offs, onto the ground to make sure of the number. I might look inside from a distance and mutter "three, Billy" and he'll say, "Goo Goo, please."

Fact is, in a world where mistakes are almost inevitable, given the lack of real organization, the multiple part numbers and bin locations, the different manufacturers for the same item, Billy's error rate might be close to zero. I've caught him once, in all my time, making a blunder. I suspect I make as many mistakes in a week as he does in months, and I am careful. But there's still and odd "w cloud" -- a vague sense of propulsion that will make you look and know you're supposed to count out twelve seven inch dampers and you still count out six. If asked, you'd swear you'd counted out twelve, but there they are in the box. Six.

And it's not a simple lack of focus. We had to recheck some counts later in the afternoon and we're assigned parts covered by a senior worker and one of the owners in the company, and nearly every item was miscounted. There must be some sort of w mind that needs to be cultivated in most people, like pec strength or quick mental math.

Billy talks to the parts as though they were naughty animals. While going through the Hart and Cooley return air grills, he saw something fishy. "Hold on, Goo Goo. Hey you, get out of there!" And he violently wrenched out the same size grill, made by Total Air. "I caught you. Couldn't get past old Bubbs."

"That's good warehousing," I told Billy.

"Mmm. Sweet as melon," he told me.

*

My mother lives near the w, and I often stop by but try to avoid conversation. This makes me feel like a turd, but the conversations are depressing. I mean, literally, depressing. In that I leave and for hours feel darkened. She's been unemployed for over a year, and any given conversation concerns the house falling apart, the government falling apart, or the fact that some potential employer didn't call her back. She seems to exagerrate their villainy, insisting me that the managers are telling her, "We're not going to hire someone like you."

When I say, "Mom, did they really say that?" she'll say, "I don't understand why you think it's easy to get a job! I'm trying everything!"

*

When I get home, the first thing I do, usually, is to take a shit, and my mother will often follow me to the door and start talking to me. I have to tell her, "Hey Mom, anyway we can talk later? I'm busy now."

She'll stop and then continue to stand outside the door, talking to the cats. I often turn on the cold water just to make white noise.

*

I took a nap after inventory. I needed some rest -- I'm going up to Haverhill for a UFC party tonight (for the record, my money is on Lesnar). At one point during my nap, she knocked and asked me, "Is today Monday or Sunday?"

"Saturday," I replied.

"Oh," she said, and I heard her walk away, back out to the family room where Fox TV waited, the only light in an otherwise unlit room.

Goo Goo's Steel Nipples

Billy's nickname for me is Goo Goo. It evolved from a shortening of my name, backwards. Doug to Geh to Goo to Goo Goo.

He is the only person in the world who calls me this, although people know who he's talking about when he asks, "Where's Goo Goo?"

*

Last night I was getting ready for bed.

"I hope you're not planning on getting into bed with that sweatshirt on."

I wasn't, but I feigned ignorance. "Why not?!?"

"It's terrible!"

The w soils and tears and ruins. From shoes to shirts. The dust and the metal work in conjunction to sully and rend. I've broken glasses and belts and cell phones. And this, not with the stunning speed of the farm, but with a slow, patient, insistence that, given enough time, just about any object will emerge, worn.

*

Inventory is tomorrow, so I'm putting in a six day work week. Financially, it will keep me above water for another week, but in the sense that I'm just barely being saved from drowning. It seems, I suppose, an awful lot of work to do just to scrape by. But that's in the nature of the world, at times.

And this isn't a cop out or quietism.

Or fatalism, for that matter.

Just an acknowledgement that there is a relationship between work and success, but the relationship is tenuous and strange at times. It follows the convolutions and reversals of any relationship: and there is betrayal and bad luck and good fortune here, too.

No mere fatalism, here! But still, I'm thinking of spider webs.

*

I was so drained by the end of the day that I had to wonder: at what point does this make me into someone who'll stab a man just for staring at me funny? That's the way I felt: testy and worthless. A bad combo.

I counted hundreds of bins of brass fittings and some steel nipples. I counted flanges and fuses and p-traps and concentric line kits. I counted five foot pipe in both twenty-six and thirty gauge. Most of the time, I was wishing I was in a cafe, drinking coffee, reading, and watching the rain fall. This wish was dim and ghostlike, and, to an extend, so was I. So when Billy came to mutter if I was ready to hang myself, I could only mutter "Maybe I already have."

But that's a cold, rainy afternoon of ill-fitting work with no immediate prospects. It'll do that to ya! It's a grim enough day so that a river of whiskey wouldn't drown out the sense of unease.

I have, however, found some respite. One: in music, which sounds particularly good these days. Ripping my cd collection has excited my ears and reminded me of what why I used to pursue music with such abandon. And two: cooking. Cooking is meditative for me.

This isn't to say there are other forms of solace: Jess is sick and I'm avoiding her a little, just because I simply can't get sick tonight because I'm going in tomorrow come what may. And the long work week is hard enough to endure while feeling healthy. Not to mention, it would spoil one of the few perks: free pizza on inventory day.

Free pizza! Fate be damned!

dreams and teeth marks

As I neared home tonight, Jess called and told me that the CO2 alarm had gone off.

"What do I do?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said. It's one of those things in life that might be obvious to some, but I've never had to think about it before. I called my brother, and then Jake, from the jiu-jitsu school, my go to guy for anything involving brokeness and leaks and machines.

*

A female police officer parked outside, and she waited with us while the firetruck came. A small group of firefighters, all but one shockingly young to my eyes, appeared with hats and meters and flashlights and went into the basement, where they detected a slight level.

It took some time as they went around and made sure. They petted the cats. They looked around with a heat camera.

It seemed that trace levels were leaking back in through the vent.

*

An hour later, the firetruck arrived, with all the same people as before but about six more, and this time they practically broke the door open.

"We heard about your high levels of CO2 and rushed over."

"High levels?!?" Jess asked, looking at me.

I shrugged.

Before the night was over, the water heater was disconnected and we are once again without hot water. I worked a ten hour shift today. I was even going to write an entry tonight about how bad I smelt. I know because I was in small rooms all afternoon counting brass pipe fittings.

The confusion came because they got a reading of 17, but this somehow got communicated as 17,000, putting us on the road to death.

But they noticed the sorry state of the water heater, which is now leaking full force. One of the firefighters was also a plumber, and he explained that our heater is working all the time because of the leak. Additionally, he felt that the vent pipe was partially obstructed.

Earlier today, I was scrounging around trying to figure out how to meet a Monday car payment I can't afford. Now I'm looking at a heater and repairs. That's the bad news. I'm uniquely situated to take care of it. After all, I work in a warehouse that sells waterheaters and can buy them at cost. But still.

As they firefighters left, one of them said, "And you should probably get those stairs fixed, too."

*

I had a few truck runs early this morning, most of which were spent dwelling on the quiet melancholy of the road as compared to the sense of dread resulting from the economic news. From the driver's seat, not much has changed. But I can sense something else on the roads, even as I sit, isolated. The highways are life some parts removed -- with mostly the radio to give me a sense of connection. But I couldn't help but see all the cars and think: which are the ones who are suffering and jobless and desperate? Who, driving by me now, is doomed?

I drove to my mother's home to grab an armful of books, hoping to get in some reading. I left for work at six and got home at six. After dealing with the fire department, and then cooking some chicken and cleaning, and then dealing with the fire department again, and then shopping for food for next week, it's brought me to the time now, almost ten. I need to get up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to go to work for inventory.

It doesn't appear that there will be much time to read. Or do anything else, other than work and try to be optimistic in the face of diminishing returns.

Jess is sick. She thinks she might have strep throat. Tonight is the night when the Dufflebag gets to stay up late. He's watching a generic comedy on tv and laughing loudly.

*

When I finish writing, I need to mop the kitchen floor. The firefighters tracked in some mud from the rain. And this despite their best efforts -- I noticed them all trying their best to wipe their feet before entering.

So yeah, to the mop. Here's my sole attempt at meaning making for the day, and it's necessary, given the situation.

*

Here's Vic Chesnutt. Maybe you've heard of him.

A Beartrap to the Face

I actually had a good experience with a phone company (for the record, Verizon). My first call produced no results but my second sure did. I got through to an affable woman (she kept cursing on the phone and apologizing when I explained my situation) and, with the added detail about "my new family" she took to me and offered to send the rep for free. Done deal!

And I lucked out the guy who showed up to fix the lines, too. He was young and didn't seem too busy but also liked to talk about phone lines. I love talking to people who talk shop to strangers.

He explained to me in detail why the lines were so messed up. The previous owner did a radio show out of the attic and needed multiple lines for his call-in program, and the renters who took over the place switched to a different provider.

I figured him for the one local repair guy hired by the company at a time when people weren't repairing the lines a whole lot. He kept making suggestions for other places to install jacks and I got the impression he would have put them in every room if I'd asked and, later, I almost felt bad I hadn't.

When he left, the phone rang. It was the first time in perhaps a decade when I had a land lane I might conceivably call "my phone."

I picked up the receiver. There was no one on the other end.

*

Dufflebag is next to me, and he's working on his homework. There's a predictable pattern. I ask him what he has for homework and he says it's a small sheet and it's easy. Then, he does it in a few minutes and I have him redo it, since it's harder than he first thought and riddled with errors, mostly coming from rushing through the questions to get to the tv time on the other end.

I wonder what patterns I had like these: did I never finish a glass of milk and leave it on the table before rushing off to play? Did I leave my shoes in the bathroom every night? Did I go through similar, unconscious rituals, of losing then finding a pencil each time I sat down to do homework?

Honest truth -- I didn't do much homework, ever.

I don't have strong memories from the time, or even thereabouts. Perhaps the most vivid -- and I have no idea why this sticks out other than its sheer embarassing quality -- is the hours I'd spend in the basement with Star Wars figures. My mother would never let me have more than three or four of them, and she wasn't the sort to indulge me with multiple viewings, so I had a shallow knowledge of the original film's plot. Plus, the figures didn't have knees and this bothered me enough so that I had to get creative about moving them around.

My solution (why did I do this to myself) was to invent long operas with the characters. Yes, operas. They sang to each other. And, to further shame myself and family, I also need to add that the characters sang to each other while ice skating.

Now, I know about the infamous tv special, although I doubt it influenced me. I think it was more those unbendable knees.

That, my friends, is one of my strongest childhood memories. Playing with Star Wars characters and making ice rink operas with them. And I could sit there in the basement for hours making them up. I would get so absorbed in them (and remember, I only had, at most, four figures ever -- to my memory Darth Vader, Boba Fett, C3PO, and Obi Wan-Kenobi) that I was go into a near rage when I was interrupted for dinner.

There, I said it. Kindly, let's not talk about this again.

*

Just now, as I finished writing, Dufflebag came up to me and told me he had a question, but that he would wait because I was busy. He looked concerned, so I told him to ask away.

"What," he said, looking sad, "is the oldest animal trap ever invented."

Hmm.

I went on to explain the difference between history and prehistory, and the problems of answering his question. I took a stab at an answer -- perhaps a ledge where herd animals would be driver off onto spikes.

As I spoke, he lost interest and changed the subject. "If you put your face in a bear trap, would it kill you."

"Probably."

"It would hurt."

"It would probably do more than hurt."

He didn't seem satisfied by this answer but it was all I had to give. He turned around and went upstairs to play.

To avoid another chicken curry incident, I cooked up a rice dish for the rest of the week and added sausage, not bothering to cut it up the way I normally would. I told this to Billy and he offered me fifty dollars for the bowl.

I refused.

"Twenty, then!" he yelled.

No deal.

*

I'm working six days at the warehouse this week for inventory. It's left me a little drained, and I'm hoping to have time for the job search soon. Right now I'm too drained to write, but at the least I'll share a website I learned about from Toucher and Rich, the funniest guys on Boston radio right now.

It's called toplessrobot.com and it's a humor site dedicated to "nerd news."

Check out their lists. Here's one: the top ten star wars toys that look like other celebrities.

lostnotfound

I picked up my check at the bjj school last night and started driving home before I realized I didn't rememeber where I'd put it.

It was 10:30 and I'd been up since 6. I was so tired, by this point, that it was a chore to reconstruct the evening's events. I turned off the highway and went back to the school, to see if I'd left it there. I cursed myself. I checked the trunk of my car. It was difficult checking the front -- the interior light went out and the replacements bulbs I bought were the wrong size. So I pulled up into the light of the doorway and found nothing. Pockets, check. Hood, check. I used my cellphone and toured the parking lot, wondering if I'd put it on my car roof.

Nothing. It was getting late. I hadn't had time to eat dinner yet and I had to get up at five-thirty the next day.

*

I arrived at work early and picked up the paperwork for the day's runs, which would take me from Somerville to Lancaster to Ayer to Salem, with stops in between.

As I got into the truck, Billy ran over. "Who's Natalie?" he yelled.

"Natalie? She works at the bjj school, why?"

"There's a note here from Natalie."

The check had been placed in an envelope, and Nat had written on it, asking me to stop to pick up an order of school tee-shirts, which are printed near the w. Apparently, I had wisely and unconsciously put the check in my pants last night, but my left rear pocket, which I never use and would never think to check.

I drove to the Bank of America atm and deposited it, getting an error message and the machine could neither return my check nor read it. The receipt instructed me to phone their claims department. I called and, after entering my social security number, card number, and pin, got to option that eventually sent my call to the appropriate department.

The recording began: "Bank of America is closed for Veteran's Day. Our regular hours are . . ."

*

When I got back to the warehouse, I was looking forward to eating the rest of my chicken curry. I made a batch on Sunday night. I could tell right away that someone had eaten part of it.

"Billy, thanks for leaving me part of my lunch," I said, without having to guess who took it.

"I couldn't resist!" he said. "It's the best chicken I've ever had. I couldn't resist
!"

Hard to get mad at old Billy. If he has only a single beer, he'll pour half in a glass for me. He gets my orders ready and keeps me on the road.

I heated what was left of my food in the microwave and ate it, with a fork, while driving. When I finished, I was still hungry. But I had to admit, Billy was right. It was damn good chicken.

*

The thermocouple appears to be installed correctly and we now have hot water. If it lasts, then I successfully fixed the water heater myself and will count it a victory against the week. Other minor victories this week: seeing my friends and students get promoted at the academy, fixing my mother's printer, cooking lunch good enough to steal.

Failures: persistent knee pain, 175 repair bill tab for Dufflebag's laptop, no word back on the job.

*

From my experience, the towns with the worst drivers are affluent or poor. Best to stick with the middle ground. In the richer towns, you get a lot of drivers who seem to willfully disregard road conditions. There's a pushiness to the style. In the poorer neighborhoods, like the area of Salem I passed through, once again, I encountered a sort of fog or blindness - if someone would speed up or slow down, I might be able to get into traffic, but it's as though I'm not there. No one would let me in. I had two cars pass me on a two way street while I was passing through a school zone, with warning lights blinking.

I might be reading more into this than the topic deserves, but the patterns are clear.

Recent experience shows that the car of choice for meatheads these days is a Dodge Charger, and the oranger the better. If someone is tailgating me and swerving while on the exit ramp, I'd give it about a one of four change to be a Charger.

So seems the view from the road.

Maze of Lights

Jess and I realized that we've only been in the house for a month in a half now. This amazes us as we seem settled in. It isn't the sense of newness that gives us pleasure -- more a feeling of being home. And this comes not just from sitting on the porch and watching the river flow, but from walking the Townsend streets for a morning cup of coffee, or from, in some larger perspective, a sense of shared history.

It hasn't been long enough so that I know where all the light switches are. I've come to slowly discover that our underlit living room can light up like a star when you know what buttons to push and you've replaced all the dead bulbs.

I made a tempeh, cauliflower, mushroom tikki masala for dinner tonight that Jess claimed was the best thing I ever cooked. I haven't been able to cook much recently, but, now that I'm finding the time, I'm throwing myself to the burners with passion and whatever is leftover from my weekly paycheck.

I also wrapped some garlic up in tinfoil and roasted it, coating it, as a butter, on toast. The aftertaste is warming. It's enough to make me think in terms of ecstasy, but I'm that kinda guy.

I think this winter, I'll make some good soups.

*

I've been trying to do holiday shopping. I bought my mother a calendar frame from a local crafts store. I had never seen one before, but it takes a calendar and gives it more the feel of folk art.

In keeping with my attempt to shop local, I also bought up a few odds and ends that will serve as stocking stuffers. I won't go into details. Who knows? You, the person reading this right now, might be the intended recipient!

*

Jess is out there, somewhere, driving the Massachusetts night. She has to pick up Dufflebag at the halfway point between here and his father's home.

On Saturday, as we drove, Jess talked about our concerns over Dufflebag's horror movie watching. He is somehow getting access to films inappropriate to an eleven-year-old. As we talked, his father called. At the exact same time, Billy called me.

We pulled into a parking lot and I hopped out. Jess thought I was being a pain in the ass, pretending to talk on the phone. But I wanted to tell Billy about the Parker house pancakes, since I knew he'd understand.

When she got off the phone, she told me his dad said that we needed to curb the Dufflebag's horror movie watching. A coincidence!

It turns out he found Dufflebag in the garage, playing with a crowbar and a pitchfork, intending to use them as props in a film.

It's an odd position to be in, of course -- the parent of a creative kid. Especially for Jess and, by proxy, me -- both of us having done our share of getting into music and art that was meant for older eyes. In some ways, it's great that he is getting ideas for movies, rather than sitting around content with the passive entertainment most kids go in for. And if he wants to make a horror film, why not a pitchfork? What is supposed to use? A spork?

At the same time, he's eleven, and thinking of such violent images swirling around a confused head is frightening. The good news is that he seems, by nature, to be gentle. He loves animals and takes easily to people. But you can see the dilemma. Instead of shooting hoops, he wants to run around making slasher films.

There are no more cowboys and indians in the collective imagination of youth. I imagine it is much on the order of violence and survival.

The Moose Incident

Dufflebag was with his Dad this weekend, so Jess and I spent a quiet weekend taking care of errands, fixing up the house, and watching netflix films on the computer. I can now no longer say I've never seen Dirty Dancing.

*

While driving to Leominster, Jess suddenly yelled out, "Holy shit, a moose!"

"What? Do you mind if I turned around. I want to see it."

"No, no. Turn around."

I sped up and turned left onto a sidestreet and then circled back to where she had raised the alarm.

"There it is!" she yelled. "A moose!"

And sure enough, there it was, off in the woods. A cardboard moose.

She burst out laughing.

"Now, Jess . . . " I said.

*

Jess and I went to Parker's Maple Barn for the first time, and I had the best breakfast of my life. Nothing out of the ordinary, but everything done right, with real maple syrup and fresh baked bread. The barn itself, combined with the only slightly chilly New England weather, added to the experience.

I had blueberry buckwhat pancakes and Jess went for a tomato and spinach omelete. I ended up trying some of her omelette and it was excellent as well.

The whole time I kept talking about how good the food was and how I wanted to tell everyone about the place.

We went to the gift shop afterwards where I bought some jalapeno jelly to make mixed drinks with. I had heard of it being used in martinis, and I wanted to give it a try. A mango, pepper jelly and vodka drink was too syrupy -- the only other juice I had on hand was tomato, so I tried again with better results. Fresh ground horseradish would have made it perfect.

*

We got somewhat lost while driving around Leominster, and wound up at the Bull Run restaurant in Shirley. It's an odd place -- it's in the middle of nowhere but they get famous musicians to come play. Not superfamous, but people famous enough to be surprising. Stan Ridgeway, Leon Redbone, and Janis Ian are all on upcoming bills.

I had a plate of hot wings -- not particularly good -- and some ice cold country ale -- particularly good -- while Jess ate an overly buttery Mushrooms Forest.

It was raining out. We were parked by a covered bridge. I thanked my good fortune.

Leaves of Grass

For me, the great thing about facebook is that, through a long a day of driving, when I talk to no one, when all I do is think, when all I do is figure out paths along 95 or 93 or 3 or 495, I can't paint or write or whistle or do yoga. But I can always find ten seconds to let the world know what's going on.

I like radio. I like the intimacy. I like the Clash. I like how their lyrics assumed a distant, solitary, intent, listener, ready at the ring of a phone to take up arms or hit the bars or dream about Jamaican sand beaches and angry walks down Brixton corridors. I like the sense of the future, of prep. How will you go? With you hands on your head or on the trigger of yoru gun?

*

I also like that young people feel patriotic in the wake of the election. I sympathize deeply with people who say, listen, we've fought and died for freedom, we've invested ourselves in values beyond our own lives so that these young people can be free to turn their backs. And I think, well, pride is a danger, but it's also involuntary. And when some kid says they're finally proud of America, instead of looking on them as some thankless shit, I wonder if it isn't more valuable to plumb the reasons why. Don't anticipate socialism or racial hysteria. Anticipate young people taking up hammers and rakes and looking to build and help. Mark my words. There are idiots and yahoos on both sides, but strike true to the heart. I hope these aren't empty words, but those that resonate. It's hard for me to do so, but I do my utmost.

This is all to say that patriotism, or cynicism about patriotism, isn't some calculated choice we make. We're not politicians. We're people.

I, for one, have been longing for a progressive yet center leaning, rational, calculating, pragmatist, willing to take up arms and willing to consider that government might be good. Obama is my man. Objectivity be damned. This is history. I have faith. The teacher part of me, the worker part, the part that likes a good fight and the part that believes that in progress, the part what longs for a new Enlightenment, for a new way, all these are drawn to Obama. And frankly, I don't care about race or all the other carrots dangled. I am, however, optimistic, and grateful, and not much can make me feel otherwise.

*

We are, it seems, finally, living Whitman's dream, and his poetry rings true to me. Take a few moments out of your busy lives to read or reread "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." Is there any doubt, now, we've been fighting enemies of democracy for so long?

And this is a little heated, and not what you came here for. But I only offer honesty, and have tried, whatever the consequences, to offer nothing but. Well. That, and style, and passion, and something else.

Those in the know understand.

Sugarhouse

These truly are writer's cats. Bubbs came running into the room just now, as I started typing.

*

Worked overtime today but did a little shopping while making deliveries, picking up some speaker mounting brackets and a staple gun. I have a surround sound stereo my Dad got for me when he worked for an audio company, but the peculiar layout of our living room made me hide the back speakers up out of range. The other speakers were becoming targets for kitten mischief, so I spent a few hours after work hanging them (the speakers, not the cats) from the wall and hiding the wiring as best I could. It was well worth it -- sounds like an entirely new stereo.

I broke it in with the Dylan live 1966 recording, in 360 degree sound. And sure enough, it was: the organs, drums, vox, and bass all seemed to come from different parts of the room. I also put on the Mission of Burma doc for a minute, which isn't a great documentary but worth watching for some excellent footage of the band.

*

A few weeks ago, I bought a screwdriver set from a truck sale. I was excited at what I perceived as a great deal. I finally tried using the screwdriver tonight and it was too light to bear much forces and the bits melted like butter when I tried to use them.

I can hear my grandfather now: stick to Sears and you can't go wrong.

*

There are two pellet stoves in the new house, but the cost of the pellets seems higher than electric heating, so we haven't bought any. Or at least not yet.

The stove in the living room has become my little writing desk, and I suppose that's fitting. It puts the typer at just the right height. The kittens have to fight a little to get space, but they somehow manage.

*

Since Monkey shut down, much has changed in my life.

I have yet to get into what I did with photography, and the highly unusual life I lead during that period. And I thought back and realized that, since then, I've stopped using email almost entirely and communicate to friends with facebook updates. When I get some free time, I'll get into all this and more.

But it's late. The pilot light went out some time last night. I think there's a leak in the water heater that makes it go out easily. I've given the water enough time and there should be enough now for a shower.

Jess is asleep already. And I should be, too. Stay tuned.

Watching a PRon

Sorry for the gap, friends. I haven't had internet access for the past few days, so I wrote these out in word and will cute and paste them here.

It’s the eve of the election. I won’t be able to post this entry until tomorrow, or even the day after that, because of a complex situation with our internet. We subscribe to Verizon, but we can’t get it to work in the house. For complicated reasons, I was able to set up a Comcast box so we could at least get a signal, but we knew it would go away and it did. Now the trick is going to be to get Verizon to find some way to get us a signal without having to pay extra, unfair fees.

The only election talk in the w came from an impassioned owner on the phone with a friend. He yelled at the friend and went through a litany of problems with Obama: he idolizes Farrakhan, he wants everyone to be paid thirty dollars an hour so that we’ll lose the incentive to work, and he wants to increase the estate tax.

I listened, and said nothing.

*

It was a particularly awful day. We’re getting ready for inventory in two weeks, so I was kept in the w counting items and checking locations. For eight interminable hours. Sheet to shelf. Taking out my tape measure. Measure. Going through boxes, making sure a stray six inch take-off hadn’t fallen into the seven.

One of the critical problems I have with the w is this.

It’s a pretty rotten job. I know there are worse out there, and that from certain perspectives, I have it good. So I sometimes second guess myself and think, well, someone has to run the warehouse. Who am I to think I’m somehow better than this? If I don’t work this tedious, low paying job, someone else will have to.

There are tough jobs that people feel sentimental about upon leaving. I find it hard to imagine there will ever be a time when I look back fondly at my days in the w. I might appreciate it because of my friendship with Billy, and the ways the experienced toughened me in ways that I likely needed.

So what is so rotten about it? That it prevents me from realizing some precious sense of self? The shitty wages and meager benefits? The co-workers who stand around whistling and telling stupid jokes while you’re trying to count?

Of course, I exaggerate here. It’s not all that bad. But to explain, with clarity, why it’s that bad for me is a thornier issue.

How to advance? The universe owes me nothing, but what I want remains unclear. I’m fighting shadows!

*

Or at times, I am. Tonight I’m already looking forward to cracking open a winter ale and watching the elections with Jess, this same time tomorrow.

Day two of internet-less life continues and it causes unexpected problems.
Because I can’t connect to itunes, I can’t import cd song data. I brought a big stack of cds downstairs to rip while I write, but I’m going to have to leave off working through the pile.
The kittens are with me. Either they’ve stopped wanting to stand on the keyboard or they’ve picked up, finally, that it is off limits. One stands on either side of the keyboard, still, like lions at a library. They are writer’s cats.

*

When I got home earlier today, Dufflebag turned up the volume of the tv while I was trying to talk to Jess. I didn’t want to be outdone by Judge Judy, so I said, “In our house, people come before tv.”

“It was my house first,” Dufflebag said.

“No, it’s ours,” Jess said.

I was happy she came to my defence, but the war of humanity against television was lost long ago and I realized I was only in the way. So I climbed into the attic and started working out.
I’ve made the attic nicer yet by hauling up push-up bars, strength cabes, a medicine ball, and, today, speakers for my ipod and a space heater. The music was a nice addition: I did a pushup routine, mixed with yoga and shadow rolling (bjj done without a partner) to the soundtrack of Mission of Burma – music apt for both activity and the atmosphere of the attic.

Who knows? Maybe there is hope for the human yet.

*

While studying in England, the literature prof pulled a trick on us that I later found out was made famous by some poet or another.

He gave us lines from various poems and had us rate them by preferences.

After writing the results on the board, the results were clear: Wordsworth, Shakespeare, and Byron were at the bottom. Larkin and Owens were at the top. I can’t remember who I chose as number one, but later found out he was as minor English poet of the mid-twentieth century.
It wasn’t an exercise to show us how poor our taste was – rather, the opposite. The more literary the student, the more likely to choose unknown writers, without mystique. Much in writing, art, jiu-jitsu – is about this nimbus that surrounds major figures. We are taught to mistrust our own judgments, for better or worse. Our early judgments ought to be second guessed: they can be naïve, ill-formed, and uneducated in the real sense. It seems to take some vast effort, coupled with life experience, to get to the point where we can trust our quick judgments to be other than snap.

*

I am wearing noise cancelling headphones, but there’s still an odd buzz at the periphery, perhaps illusory, of some distraction, something to remind me that this is something other than a quiet house, with those quiet spaces where an odd, but for me, welcome, sense of ahistory, might creep in. Or a ghost. Or, a sense of history or something beyond history, but not what we normally get: purgatory, stasis, static and hum.

None of this means I don’t watch tv. Only that I also like to have time when it isn’t on.
It reminds me, I guess, of my mother, who sits in front of the tv all day, in a near stupor, ringed with a vague anxiety. Nature of the beast.

*

Funny thing about my reporting is the lack of immediacy. Like a nineteenth century newspaper, these entries might not meet with a reader’s eyes for days or a week after events have occurred.

“What’s a substitute for bread and beans?
Do engines get rewarded for their steam?”
-“John Henry,” the Johnny Cash version

*

The political commentary on both sides of the divide was so heated today that it quickly became tiresome. All I really wanted to hear was rumors, not analysis. I wanted to know who might be Secretary of State and if Palin went back to Alaska and stayed in all day eating Ben and Jerrys. That's all! Just rumors and personalities.

There was some good analysis -- Moyers went on NPR yesterday and showed himself to be one of the few people both historically insightful and honest about present conditions.

I worked overtime today, logging nearly ten hours of driving. My mind is numb.

I can never remember the ideas I get for writing, so I keep a piece of cardboard in my pocket and jot them down. Even the most obvious ideas for entries seem lost when all you want is a burger.

So I did have an entry update tonight, but I lost the idea because I lost the cardboard. It's out there, somewhere.

Fall into the Sun

The weekend was a nice mix of the eventful (party at my house, jiu-jitsu tournament) with the restful (drinking beer brewed with orange peel, writing this) notable also because an old friend visited all the way from NYC.

We stayed up late drinking and talking.

He admitted he didn't like seeing me in this situation, by which he meant still working some crap job and going about life, unrealized. I admitted there was some truth here, but also told him that I still lead a better life than many people, and probably am happier than your average person. I went off on a drunken litany of what I encountered daily, not to counter his impression but just to give it variance: friends, training, music. When the comedy works, it is uncommonly funny. The drama is both serene but despairing.

In some ways, it's a problem of categorization, and the terms have yet to be worked out. In the meantime, there is much to savor.

*

Listmania.

Discs ripped to computer this evening:

Boards of Canada "geogaddi"
Dntel "Dumb Luck"
Matt Sweeney and Bonnie Billy "Superwolf"
Deftones "Saturday Night Wrist"
Klaxons "Myths of the Near Future"
Lucinda Williams "West"
Thin Lizzy "Vagabonds of the Western World"
Robert Palmer "Pressure Drop"
Spoon "Gimme Fiction"
Andrew Bird "Armchair Apocrypha"
Entombed "Unreal Estate"
Neil Diamond "In My Lifetime"
and at least part of the Hank Williams 10 disc boxed set.