golbbloggolb

in which entry we reserve the right to go both forward & backward in "time"

[1]

9 Oct 2005 SUN MetroWest Boston MA [home town]

Out on this damp evening for a walk with VT, GE & Smudge.

We spy a flying squirrel. GE & I spy it first as we were looking upwards as its dark shape bulleted over the sidewalk on to a phone pole.

VT had missed it >@ first< as he was pulling the wagon with GE in it as we headed to the waterfall healthy with recent rains.

So GE & I exclaimed & we stopt & were trying to find where it hid on the pole, when it leapt outspread and sped across the road into the darkness of trees on the other side.

{graphic of 2 dynamic hyperbole N & S of axis, like current in narrows btwn boulders}

14 Oct 2005 FRI 12:30 am "the Hurricane"

yesterday at about 7am my Uncle Augie, Augustine F-, died. He served in both European (Italian) & North African campaigns in WWII. My mom is now the last surviving of her siblings. [J, E, A, L, J, J]

[2]

15 Oct 2005 SAT 2am Bethlehem NH

Flying dream or persistence of vision {?}

What then of this drive

to place oneself up in the skies

what dreams then of soaring round

when rain everywhere pours on down

a teeming sound all around

while on earth a hero's place is in the ground?

{insert/scan attempt at graphical musical notation w/o standard musical staff}

[base note w/call & response probably identical but in timbre]

o why (jus don t know) o why (can t say so) o why owhy

o why

16 Aug 2005 SUN MetroWest Boston MA

Saturday up for ski work weekend. AC& I drove into St. Johnsbury VT to rent insulation blower in the relentless rain. St. Johnsbury where rivers & people meet.

Town extends down hillside to valley where runs river, railroad, retail & restaurants, and road.

We navigated to a lumberyard to pick up cellulose insulation and after AC said I like doing things with you Dad. It's true that the lumberyards are in danger of going the way of the dinosaur.

CMcC figured out the Jackson 10A dishwasher this weekend, a major accomplishment.

Today – still raining. It's been raining since last Saturday, & part, a good part of the time it was pouring – the rain finally stopped {stopt} at about 3 pm, which was good as Tim W came over w/ block & tackle and we hauled the docks out of the lake. {Lake Wauke NH}

A bit of a contentious ride home. Listened to Arcade Fire.

Dad goes into Brigham & Women's tomorrow for bypass heart surgery. Mom flying back from Trenton tonight.

29 Oct 2005 SAT 12:30 pm Blackfeet pencils came

Watched movie "Off the Map" tonight. Faith & redemption in the west. A lucid calm pervades this film like the radiance at dawn emanates over the desert horizon. Characters remarkably free of cliches & posturing.

So today "Scooter" Libby, Chief of Staff to the Vice President, was indicted on 5 criminal charges; the best political news in a very long time. I'm sure this whole thing has been a distraction for Cheney, who has spent part of the month trying to con Senator McCain that under certain circumstances torture is justified.

* * *

Last weekend the word going into it was that if I was going to get to anything then it should be AC's window trim. But then on Friday night, very last thing – VT was trying to barricade off the upstairs bath, where all the toothbrushes are, so he could bathe. And there was a yelling meleé. At which point CB opens the cabinet over the sink and – SHAZAAMCHKK! – the heavy ceramic mug atop the cabinet – that's been up on the cabinet {vanity} for years & holds razors & clippers & such – was overhanging the door; the mug plunges falling smashes! Big huge hole in a dozen fragments in the double-walled sink. So ended up fixing that instead & was fortunate to find I didn't have to replace the pedestal as {putting in} that was an ordeal.

Fragment from sometime maybe not yet written down:

My heart is like a rickety structure someone has left out on the plains.

[4]

14 Nov 2005 MON

Soccer yesterday finals playoffs vs Peabody that we lost but then we only had 10 players. Weird going up there because that's the exit used umpteen times off 128 to see TU. (former romantic interest. ha ha! easy to laugh now...)

AB was doing some research for world history, wanted to know could I recommend any modern Renaissance men. {women}. Couldn't so I did a Google on that very phrase. Right among the top half-dozen results was Karl Rove! What a JOKE! {Said algorithm is soo-oooo lame!]

Have you studied Machiavelli yet? I asked her. She had just. Well that's more like it. Renaissance, no: Machiavellian, yes. [Of whom I know nothing either].

Then hung 2 windows in kitchen. CB had stripped & repainted them. After dark went over to the other place – (the rental property that was our first house) – and mowed leaves into mulch for 3 hrs. Sat. did some prelim framing & insulating for the downstairs bath – didn't get much done but at least confirmed proposed shower will fit.

Last week was in Ottawa Tues-Thurs. Inquiry into the role of Canadian officials into the deportation of Maher Arar was on TV.

Thurs. night our flight was so late getting into Logan that we had to go into Cambridge for food – AA & I, an Indian place in Inman Sq.

Was weird being there again, remember parking the Bug & being down & out in the $5.50 hr carpentry job & me in my late 20's. And people out on bikes @ 10:45 pm on a chilly night was like being in a time warp. Cambridge MA is like in another dimension!

This coming Sat. night is a 50th birthday party, in Concord, for CL, now of Norway, who essentially I haven't seen since going out west with her & 3 buddies in 1974.

Weekend before I did get to AC's window trim. Should have been straightforward. Actually wasn't too bad but had to craft my own sills.

[5]

17 Nov 2005 THURS

Rode to work today. Was wet from last night & chilly but once the sun came up it was sweet. DC tells me the truck is on its last legs – frame all rusted out.

For some reason as I come in off the bike and VT was playing his sax & I was thinking about Kerouac and his totally honest use of "holy" & "sacred" and wondering if it would still be possible to use words like that.

21 Nov 2005 MON Running Strong Blackfeet pencil

AC went under the knife today so I was with him instead of going into work.

The basement over at the other house is just such a mess a complete disaster area. Too many jobs taken on without finding time to clean up after the last one.

This place is a mess too. Upstairs, downstairs, basement, my room – hardly any art on the walls – quite a bit tucked away in drawers. Not like most other houses I go in. Is it just because of 4 kids & one being 5 or is there something the wrong with me?

Running out & time to read until sleep.

1 Dec 2005 THURS

Just back from overnight trip to Waterloo, ON. Yesterday a judge ruled against RIM in a patent dispute & they may have to settle for over a 1/2 billion $.

Grateful to god for what is, for the chance to perceive, for all the years & the opportunity to make mistakes, for not crashing the aircraft though I sat in row 13, for blowing down this deserted country lane in the dark in the truck that's blaring like a crop duster 'cause the muffler went.

[6]

1 Dec 2005 (cont)

Stopt into Amarin thai restaurant on the way home, where they like me because I tip on takeout & where the last time I was in there on a night full of rain & the place empty sat & wrote furiously over my traditional post-trip glass of merlot, and read a Mark Jenkin's piece on sea kayaking the Dardanelle (Dec 2000 Outside misplaced 5 yrs ago). Read a piece on Ed Viestures too which was inspiring and full of gratitude – or is it just the wine? – drove homeward with plans for writing and also for some wine while I write so I actually drive past the house in order to go to the packy and then a black cat bolted across the road and I turned around and went directly home.

on 11 November with the truck at 135520 DC the mechanic did diagnose and repair wiring harness to rear tail lights – cut and chaffed by rear bed settling down onto frame from being badly rusted. $78.71. He also wrote –

Note: rear frame is rusted very bad on left rail

transmission cross member is rusted bad

rear bed rails are rusted very bad

right rocker panel is rusted

exhaust is starting to go at catalytic converter

slight scraping noise in rear brakes – possible rust

oil leak in front of engine

Well the exhaust pipe gave out at the Cambridge toll inbound. Had to park in the Economy lot at Logan. One of the aging working class guys running parking said thank god for Bondo huh. {?}. On the way outbound at that same toll. Made a hell of a racket and didn't lay off it a bit if anything stuck it a little longer and torqued out the lower gear and all the Benz' and Acuras gave a wide berth.

Last Saturday went to Conigliaro Industries in Framingham. A giant recycler & though they were closed the guy there let me pay $45 and unload 10 bags of polystyrene packaging – 10 or so years worth – and about 2 gallons of household batteries. I really don't know how to charge you and they'll probably yell at me that I didn't charge enough he said it's the batteries that cost us.

[7]

2 Dec 2005 FRI early AM NYorker article

Who were you with? How did you come to be there? What are you trying to accomplish by doing these things? (What were you doing there?) Where are you going to strike next?

I don't know. I'm not sure. I can't say.

I mean I can't say because I don't know, nothing makes sense.

We're wasting our time! I say we use pain!

And I'm telling you it won't work in these instances. He's not talking because he has nothing to say, (it's total amnesia). Nothing you can do to him will change that. You'll just reduce him to gibberish and he'll be lost to us, no value to us. Better to put him under, reintroduce the (removed) probe and follow where he goes.

[Voices of interrogators & interrogated lost in a fog – no visuals].

A rotten rain. Lots of pink insulation lying around. The wizard jumps in an instant to a height. Run round a huge skyscraper. Climb up the sides – why it seems like the escape is easy – clinging to a holdless place, siding and pipes. Lost. Way up high on the steep roof & tiles shatter & pipes give way and I fall right into the circle of enemies. Only the magician shows up & we are away & free not knowing how.

[8]

3 Dec 2004 {sic} SAT

CB & I last night went in & saw American Repertory Theatre production of Chekhov's "Three Sisters" directed by .

Afterwards I felt bad about our level of applause because the acting was quite superb, but there wasn't a whole lot of us and we were all still so stunned it was a major act of will just clapping our hands.

Last week I rented a watched a concert film, "Fema Kuti, Live at the Shrine". A tremendously interesting performer in an utterly different world. Not everyone can visit the Shrine, to paraphrase Fema, but through the film people around the world and in future times can know what the Shrine is like.

I met a Nigerian at a [the company I work at] seminar last year, who tried to get me to help promote Engr. education in Africa but seemed like I was stepping on someone’s toes so I gave up on it.

18 Dec 2005 SUN 12:56 am

spent mid-pm, during 2nd half Pats vs Bucs 28-0 game until about 9:30, decommissioning old sink in hereforto mention downstairs bath. None of the lines in, H or C, has shutoffs, in fact cold feed shutoff is all the way back to incoming from street 'cause one shutoff was {sic} failed. So there's no water when cold line's being workd on. Then the shower faucet broke off in my hand. Got the hot off but the shower cold is on and & only on. Had to make a run for hardware. Nutcracker is going on here so meanwhile managing GE VT AC & the newly acquired used Subee w/129,520 miles, while CB & AB are away @ performance. Skiing. Annual review time at work.

[9]

18 Dec 2005 (cont but 9pm)

Everywhere are these things that Pirsig called gumption traps, which isn't what I would call them but which is stuff lying around, shit lying around, out-of-place or without a place. And the sheer volume of this stuff – how will I ever find time to clean it all up? – I try as hard as I can not to needlessly trash stuff – so it's all waiting around to be organized, recycled – and then there is the stuff kids leave behind. And there is the stuff my wife doesn't have time to do well. All of this shit lying around threatens to swallow me up in its cumbersome inertia and drag me down in the deep.

entropy sucks