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060404 Dr. Milton
Tuesday, April 4, 2006
12:07 PM; I am sitting in Ami Milton's examining room. I just got weighed and had my blood pressure taken. 186/43. Yesterday it was 190 something over 50 something and Dr. Aziz said it was too high. I also lost 3 pounds since Iwas here last time. Probably a result of those sick spells I had in Detroit. Nothing else has changedmuch.
I had a fuzzy math moment last night when I carefully calculated when I had to get up. I messed up bad. I barely got here on time. I had to park in a parking garage. It's $4for the first hour. I think the stamp your ticket and I am not sure what that does. Normally I park on the street for free and walk. It turned out that the parking garage was nearly full and I had to drive round and round and round before I found a place. I could have done that on the street for free.
I was listening to a religious discussion on NPR (they've had a LOT of those lately, I wonder why) with Dr. Buechner (sp?) who just has a new book out called Secrets in the Dark, a life of sermons. The one thing he said that really caught my attention is this: "Do what you love. You're doing God's Will when the soul'sgladness meets the world hunger." I'm probably paraphrasing here, since it was 2 hours ago now that I heard this. He said a lot of other interesting things,too,including that he has learned a lot from Buddhism and "Doubt is a part of Faith." Doubt,he said,includes fath, no wait, Faith he said, includes doubt, doubt is NOT the antithesis of faith but an integral part of it.
Someone yesterday said we are hardwired to be spiritual beings.
I believe this. He said, I think it was a he and he was sociologist, perhaps, he said that spirtual feelings help bind people together. They help sustain community.
I believe that for the spiritual part of us, that part that seeks meaning, it is important to CREATE meaning for ourselves and to lay it over the otherwise chaotic and meaningless aparnt nature of the world. I use chaotic in a social and everyday meaning, not its mathematical meaning, which has in internal organization and meaning. Perhaps the chaos (now I need a better word), perhaps the disorder and confusion of the perceived world is actual mathematically chaotic in a larger sense and produced a pattern of sorts but at a scale we're incapable or perceiving but is perceivable over vast time and space by "God."
So over the disorder and confusion of the world,weneed to placea personal order and meaning and that order and meaning comes from the meeting of the soul's gladness with the hunger of the world.
What this means to me is that somewhere there is and intersection between something that can bring us joy and satisfaction and in some way provide a service to others. There are billions, (trillions?) or people on earth (how many?) and if each of them were at the intersection between the soul's gladness and the world's hunger, we'd be a lot closer to living in heaven than we are now! And to do this,we need all kinds ofpeopleand all kinds of gladnesses. We need scientists, artists, artisans, all kinds of skills and pursuits, writers poets, blacksmiths, computer whizzes, whatever.
If we pursue our dreams and meet with uncommon success, we are doing "God's will" if those dreams fullfill someneed in others besides ourselves or might.
But finding what that love is, that soul's gladness, is a bit of a trick, I think. We tend to do what we've been doing. To think that habit is love. That's why awareness is so important,that's why we need zen, poetry and (mind fart artist).[replace with name when it comes to me] If we wake up and the follow the heart,we will do the best we cando,what we're supposed to do.
Creating order out of disorder is one of the reason to write poetry and make art. I tend to wantto do those things most when mylife ismost disordered. And I do believe they have to potential to provide solace andeaning to other. But you have to be seen,or read to do that. (I wandered around looking at the artguild art on the walls in Dr. Milton's waiting room.)
1:20 PM I am at Loretto. I've been here a while, long enough to finish the thought I'd started but not finished at the doctor's office. I had to pay $2.50 at the parking garage, in cash, boy I hate that, bad planning, I'd prefer to park free and walk. I'mgetting low on cash. OK, I'm going in now.
I'd like to state right nowthat I do not belive that the soul's gladness can come from anything evil. One could say that the world hungers for pornographyand violence and that the heart or soul of some people are glad when wallowing in porn or violence or stealing or whatever. But I believe that the heart is not truly glad when doing wrong. This meansthat the love of the soul,the gladness of the soul,must come from love and goodness. From something honorable..
2:39 PMIspent an hour inside Loretto,Momwasmissing when I first gotthere,not in the diningroom,livingroom or bedroom. There were noactivities in the Auditroim. The she appeared in the lounge (living room). I think she'd been having a bath. I HATE leaving her when it's not at mealtime. Today she wanted meto drop her off in Liverpool. Belive it or not. I told her Iwasn'tgoing that way,Iwas going to Clark. She was very plaintive and insistent, even whiel Iwaswaiting for the elevator. I'm afraid she thinks I'mbeingmean and neglectful and I hate that.
It's hard to always arrnage my scheule to be leaving her off at mealtime though. It'd be easier if I lived closer.
2:43 I am at Clark. It is cold and windy and snow is predicted. Very windy, I might add. The sky is mostly cloudy but with gaps for the sun and very dramtic looking.
I read my before-walk Patrick Lawler poem. I cannot reread the pem about Mengele and the Dwarves. I read instead the prisoner river poem. These poems areall true, but they are depressing. Wen I write my book,it will have dancing fairies and flying pink elephants between every depressing poema and the next. Or there could be exquisite healing photos or artwork between every devastating poem and the next. 20 atta boys for every oh shit. Twenty delicious sesuous photos and poems for every Mengele making the dead dance. We need that balance in our lives. So much of what we hear and read and see at least on the public media at least on NPR talk radio is depressing and upsetting and all too true. Yes,we need to not forget history or we'll repeat it, but if we wallow in it constantly, we'll commit suicide.
So what about Black Diamond Bay?
I immediately feel guilty.
Obviously, we're intended to feel guilty.
Someone has to care.
But we can't,each of us individually, bear the horribleweight of all the atrocities and tradgedies of the world. The world is a huge place.
It does give us someperspective to some of it.
3:17 Clark is not a place where Ican write on the computer while I'mwalkin, at least not a on the cliff trail. Besides the cliff tomy right, the rocks are uneven and full of crevices.
I wanted to take a picture of themosses, but I had the wrong lens on and didnt't have the energy to change it. Ollie isn't working and Iforgot Oly in the car. Eeyore's second battery is almost out of power. And I forgot to charge them last night (I was a basketcase--exhausted. I figue why waste any of the remaining battery on anything that isn't worthy.
Last night afer talking to Keith I had an idea for a picture but I was so tired I forgot it. I had opened a daffodil picture and was going to make it into a bush and then make a mosaic or tapestry (save each of those for future use) and then make a plate and wase and shelf etc all out of the tapestry, visible but subtle, keeping the background, using mainly shading etc to divide the pieces from the background. The vase would then hold 1,2or 3 daffodils. The orginal ones.
That was one idea and another fromanotherday Inever got to try was to dive a sene into vertical paralellstrips and skew them sligtly and then trnsfrom a coupleto the side in the center right or left and underneath there would be a young womanlooking out or Keith maybe,so that he would look asif he werelooking through vertical blings but the blings would be a scene, divided.
I always seem to want to make something real, or a represention of something real, rather than something entirely abstract. I like some absttract art. But not all of it. I like to be able to understand things, or to communicate with it on some level. I want it to be something or mean something or have a sense of order.
My view from here is really nice. Maybe I willchangelenses. I have the macro on and need the wide angle.
Buffalomeatloaf for supper and then I need to save someof it for Thursday lunch.
No wait. Oh yes. Today is Tuesday. I only have ONE full day left before I leave for Detroit. It is 3:32 PM. I've had no lunch and I'm out walking at Clark. It's not likely I'll get much more workdone before I leave.
I was thinking about the potential andkinetic energy of art. This in relation, as all of this is, tomy imaginary dialogue with Kate in referenceto her comments about doing less BPanddoing moreof God's work.
If one is to be an artist, onemust DO ART. And while doing art, only the ART mustmatter, the art itself,and nothing else. At this point, the artis full of artenergy, not social energy. It's socialenergy is all poential. (When it is just an idea, then the art enery is potentail, too.) First it has to manifest itself as art. Then as a social force. In order for art to have kinetic energy, it must be communicated. Someone has to see it, or read i,t or hear ti and ENGAGE ina DIALOGUE with it. If that art communicates soemthing meaningful to the viewer/reader/listener, then it has become kinetic energy in the world.
The artist's FIRST task is to make art, to be creative. His or her second task is to place the art in the world. This is a secondarytask that could be performed by someone else. An agent, a partner. Sometimes, often, the artist must do this, and often, they are bad at it. They need to be discovered. The ideal situation for an introverted artist is an agent or partner who can move the artwork into the world.
I contend, again, that the artist's first job is to make art. That that in itself could be doing "God's will." And, that since God's will is the intersection of the heart's gladness and the world's hunger, if the art isn'tmoving into the world, then the artist may have to chane hats to do that sometimes. And BP is an appropriate venue.
LOL! Did you get that long convoluted argument in support of using BP and other venues to display art?
One problem with it is that it's so huge. INprimitive communities, there was usually ONE Shaman, one artist. They were revered (or reviled)and noticed. Now at BP, there aresomany. It's likebeing valdictorian at asmallrural highschooland then finding yourslef oneamong thousands at a large urban university. The artist can benefit from both local involvement and learning from a large community that contains every level of expertise. Learning sharing and teaching are all different hats an artist can wear. They are intersections between the souls gladness and the world's hunger.
OK, a hunger for art may not be as important as feeding the starving poor in Asia or Africa. And someone does need to dothat. But wemight contribute to that needin other ways. Financially, or by volunteering somehwere. But I would argue that art is is all the more improtant in a disordered and confused world. (I'm trying not to use the word chaotic).
Think of Asimovs no wait, who? well think of the heirarchy of needss. Air water, food shelter clothing warmth safety (fredom from war) love art meaningful actualization
OK,art's down there. There are peoplein the world who don't have the basic things. SO, does thatmean help them first?
I am a strong believer in thevalue if art in even the worst, or nearly the worst of times. Art for art's sake. I also think that because artist's are intelligent sesitive people, they, like everyone else, should find ways, COULD find ways, to conbtribute to the betterment of the world.
4:50 PM I walked 51 minutes. I read the dream of Langston Hughes asmy after-walk Patrick lawler poem. It is hard walking. It got darkly overcast. I returned to the mossy cliff with the wide and gle but there was no sun. This could be a good thing, butmay not have been.
I have only tomorrow to get readyto leave and I was planning to go to a lectureon getting fiction published at the Y.
so I have to step on it. I wanted to write something more about artandGodand also about a botany of dreams. Two nights ago, whenIcouldn't sleep,as I thought Iwas drifting off, I sawlittle flowers and berries growing in moss, white berries sortof waxy and bluish. With the half of my mind thatwas stillawake, I tried to see what they were and to identify them,but this woke me the rest of the way back up.
Some part of mesays maybe it'sa cure for what ailsme. Themind knowsmore than wegive it credit for.
But Ihaven' t retrieved the info and the skeptical mind puts all that aside. i drink and entire water bottle and am still thirsty.
Wednesday,April 5, 2006 4:22 PM It's snowing steadily (but not too hatd) and I am out striding along at Longbranch Park (OLP airplane) Good dog park area, hurrying. I have very limted time, les sthan half an hour, hope I cancatch .more time later somehow.
I'm excited because it's very dismal out and .my time is so limted I didn't expect to see naything interesting. But first I saw three Great Blue Herons, one right after another. They aren't rare or anything, but they're the first ones I've put up and seen closely this spring. Then, I smelled something ful and dead alongthe pennisula and came upon a vulture feeding on a dead and disgusting looking deer that was washed up on the shore. I got a GREAT look at the vulture!
I was thinking about how all this camera gear I have strapped around my waist is like a weight belt divers use and imaging myself tumbling into the river and sinking to the bottomlike a stone and what the headlines would read. I crossed a small creek and said, at least I won't sink like a stone here, and slipped and almost fell in!
4:59 PM I am waiting in the Y reading room for the program to begin. There was gridlock traffic, reallyreally bad, and it's snowing like mad. Someone too MYSEAT, of all the nerve. Actually, she is sitting next to my seat andhas her purse on .yseat so I sat on the other side of the aisle fromwhere I prefer to sit, but I did NOT put my coat next to me in case someone needs or wants to sit there. Maybe she's saving a seat or maybe she just likes space, but it is selfish to clog up MY SEAT with HER purse.
The woman sitting two seats away puts someof her stuff on the seat next to me which I have carefully not occupied in case someone needed to SIT there.
I'm thirsty and forgot to fill water bottle and the cooler they sometimes have out isn't out.
Boy I hope this weather IMPROVES!
I hope this lecture is worth the trip down.
There aren't many people here. I always feel sad whhenpeople don't show up for carefully planned events, but the timing is bad for people who work. Phil says people have called to cancel because of the "white out" (that I drove through to get here). A man sits nect to the woman with the purse on her other side, and she takes her coat and purse off my seat which is not empty. I'd like to move over there, but now shelies her coat bacj down.
Writer's Market place at the library. send children's book straight to the publisher, MacMillanetc. Big demand. Big demandforchildren's books. Children's publishers.Put aperson'snameon the envelop, ask for the name of the senior editor. Writer's groups and organizations are helpful.
Sum up your book in about 30 words. and include that summary in the cover letter.
The big publishers with imprints. Plus smaller publishers. Smaller publsihers give smaller or no advances but bigger royalties. Smaller pubishers give you more control on cover, typeset, etc. Amazon helps smaller publsihers.
Never use a vanity press and never pay an agent a reading fee. 65-75,000 words afor a first novel.
CALL publisher, call agents. Call after 6 weeks. Call again after another 6 months.
It is not impossible to get published. Don't go to a vanity publisher, but you can publish your own books and sell them on Amazon (not through vanity.)
She saiys if you have a brain tumor, you don't go see a writer. AK!
I paid to park for the third time in a week and a half, I used to always park free.
I am at OLP West shore for the second portion ofmy walk. I got 27minutes earlier. I guess I won't read a poem. I got a free water bottle at the Y, they were having a party.
Boy what a bunch of self-promoting people at the writing workshop, GAG! not the speaker so much. Although her too. Which reminds me that Shari said last week's speaker was self promoting and GAG he was.
I just wattched a great blue heron come down for a landing.
It's still snowing, but not as hard.
I have just about the right amount of timeto finish my walk and get to Bangkok on time.
There goes another heron,this one taking off.
It's darkly voercast and spitting snow and rain and sort of "dismal" out,but the redwinged blackbird are going nuts and robins are flying about.
There was an interesting argument betwen the speaker an some audience members about children's lit. Thespeaker said that you could send a children's bookdirectly to the editor and several audiencemembers said, no, you needed an agent. The humorous thing is that everyone thinks the other people's genres are easier to publish in than there own. I keep reading how easy it is to break into Romance writing and how hun
gry romance editors are for new writers and the speaker was saying the same thing about children's lit but the children's lit writers were saying children's lit is very competitive. Whatever.
I want to getmy books done. I think some of them are as good or better as many things being published, butof course I would. I wrote them. I have gotten good rejections, though.
I was sort of suprised and amused the Kate did not like my glass platepicture. I can understand where she wouldn't, which is why I can be quietly amused. It's imperfect as is much ofmy "exreme" photoshop work. But Iampleased with it for what it is. I gave myself a challenge and I rose to the challenge. I know it's notperfect but it's the best I could do in the available time I had between talking with Keith and going to bed and that's all the time I can afford. So I do the best I can with the time I ahve and under the circumstances, I thought I did dang well.
I ams ecretly quite pleased with it even if Kate doesn't like it, even if no one likes it. I't's like a little private joke. I created a "reality" totally from scratch, like a dream.
I can see myself going "off the deep end" and producing a series of there that everyone hates.. Ironically, I don't even like displaying dishes. I like ART and photogrpahy as art and dishes don't generally seem like arttomeunless they are handthrown. But the thing I like about these is that it's an attainable challenge. It's hard to do well, but not so hard that it can't be done.
Saturday, March 8, 2006, 7:53 PM It's still light,thanks to daylight svaings timeand to living on te far western edge of eastern time. It stays light an hour later here than in NY and two hours plus some more than it did before the ime changed. I'm in the car in farmer Jack'sand Keith has gone in for spudaters, carrots and cabbage for stew. I'm making stew for diner tonight. Or maybe Keith shouldmake buscetti and we should have stew tomorrow night.
We are on our way back from Cranbrook. We walked aorund cranbrook for about 4 hours. Before that, we wentto the GM tech center so I could look at Keith's new work computer, a Panasonic toughbook. I was thinking of buying one but they are more exensive than regular laptops.
Good Friday, April 14, 2006, 2:11 PM We areon I 94 inmoderately heavy traffic headed north to St. John's Marsh for our daily constittuional. I finished working on my state income taxes this AM and the federal ones yesterday. Yesterday I also got word from Cindy Granger that they had received the final divorcepapers signed bythe lawyer. So, after nearly 20 years since he left, I'm divorced from Bruce. officially
And I have a brain tumor.
I had 2 short dreams last night (that I remember) and 2 others the night before.
• Chris and the dentist drill
• The bomb/mushroom cloud
• the rain of chickens and farm animals
• the lady next door and her jungle
Tuesday April 25, 2006, 7:02 PM We are on our way back home after taking Graham to his piano lesson, which went very well. He's doing well and Mrs. Lindow is pushing him. We're getting gas, orrather, Keith is filling the gas ank. Graham is spazzing out as if he's had too much caffeinated soda and accidentally flings a cup into the front seat. Apparently Keith told Graham to throw out the cup.
He's been singing songs from West side story. Not sure why.
We were working a puzzle at Ms. Lindow's. I enjoyed it but had actually been hoping to work on a story. I wanted to work on the back story for The Herpelogolgist. I did some work on that while I was riding in the car coming back from NY. Brucegot the divorce papers and is going to go see a banker Friday which is Erin's birthday. Erin will be 30!! Yikes. (I will be SIXTY in May.) Erin is apparently interested in buying the house.
Keith and I weretalking about our wedding earlier and set some tentative dates. They are: June 11, June 10, June 4, June 3, June 25, June 24 in descending order of rpeference. We are looking for a minister and checking into possibly having the wedding at the conservatory.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006, 5:24 PM I m sitting on aa rock in front of Mrs. Lindow's house. Graham is inside having his theory lesson. Keith is sitting in the car. We are just back from a 46 minute walk around Mrs. Lindow's neighborhood. I am feel unbearbly cranky and unhappy. I think I have eaten something that disagrees with me.
I am angry and annoyed with Keith. I was planning on making baked stuffed prok chops and having them cook while we went for a walk while Graham had his theory lesson and I had started making them and had the stuff set out but when Keith got home,he said he wanted to drive up after the theory lesson to ML's to pick up Graham's keyboard which wecouldnot fit in the car when we got back from NY. I was upset by this because it threw a monkey wrench into my plans and preparations but we discussed it and finally I said that we'dbest wait until we got back and I would satrt supper then. So when we got into the car, I asked Keith if we were going to ML'sand he said no,he thought we decided to not go because of the food I was making. That was not the concluding statement I'dmade and I never heard him say that, so I was furious, because I had STOPPED cooking and went and did something else. So if we go home and dont go to ML's, I'll still have to cook from scartch and it will take a long time.
We started walking and I was just cheering up from my disgust over our miscommunication when I said something to him and he absolutely tuned me out and didn't hear me. I was continuing a conversation he'd started about tar on the trees and pointing out another one farther down the streetand enthusiastically participating in HIS conversation when he said that the new owners must have not cared to continue tarring the trees,which imdicated henever heard anything I'd said about the tree we'd passed farther down. He's been doing that a lot lately, just tuning me out.
So i said I wasn't going to talk since he wasn'tgoing to listen and for the rets of the walk, I replied only in short replies to his direct questions but initated almost nothing. He didn't seem to notice.
It just made me crankier and crankier. I don't want to be cranky I don't want to be angry at Keith. I don't want to feel rotten. I want to be happy and cheery and have fun and be loving, but I just feel horrible and rotten. I swear soemthing I'm eating is affecting me. I hate it.
Then,when we gotin the car, he turned toward home (where's my machine gun?) I said,~where are you going?" so now we're headed to ML's.
Three turkey vultures were circling around us as we walked. The message to me was, "You're going to die, make the best of the tie you have." I understand that,but Idon't know how to make it better.
I hate feeling like this. How do I fix it?
Wahn!
Earlier in the afternoon, I made some phone calls to ministers. 2 of them. I learned that one requires a course, a premarital course. He had gone for the day. I only left amessage on the other one.
I've been trying for days to get a postcard ready for Erin,but wehad to leave before I got it done so it will be another day before I get it mailed and I need to remember to make sure it ismailed to the correct house.s
I got another finalist at BP for my chicken plate. I spent too much annoying time rearranging my gallery and commenting on the photos of people who'd commented on mine.
Iwanted to work on Silk Creek Review. I wanted to work on itto get it done and over with because what I REALLY wantto work on itmy novel.
I wanted to bring Toby with me and work on the Mafia conection backstory to The Herpeltologist, but I did not. I~m on Sylvia and would iketo do that work on Sylvia but did not have timeto transfer the infor from Toby to Sylvia and my Memory isn't good enough to remember alll the details and what I need to do.
Keit said it would take 15minutes extra total to go to his Mom's house, but he also said ittakes 20 minutes to get home from Mrs. Lindow's to Moran and it is 5:50 so we should be home and we aren't even to Ml's yet so good thing I did not start dinner.
I was thinking not that his estimation was wrong (Though it sounded fishy tome), but that we might get delayed at ML's and I didn't want to rushin andout.
The Herpetologist novel was the one I worked on all that time I was camping in the UP and thenit was stolen my first day back to the MOST. I have to rewrite it. Before I do that, I want to esstablish the complete back story and time-line, since the story moves in two directions at once. I may even decide to start the story in a different place and add more characterss.
7:24 There was somegiant traffic tie up on I 94 so we drove across themedian (like everyone else) and back to Roseville and had supper at Applebees. Now we are headed for Target to get boxers and PJs and jeans for Graham and jeans for Keith and maybe a bra for me.
Tuesday, May 2, 2006, 6:45 PM I am sitting in Wegman's parkinglot with a trunk full of Groceries and a dead battery, apparently. I've been here over an hour already. I tried several times to start the car unsuccessfully and then called Keith who wanted me to wait and try it again which I did, and while I was waiting, I walked to the bank and made a trandfer and walked to Sam's and walmart and checked a couple things out (but didn't buy any thing, then came back and tried and tried, then called triple A--it was 6:30 and they said the guy should come before 7:40 (an hour she said, but my watch said an hour and ten minutes. Then I called Erin who was out walking Mr. Rochester to see if I drove my car up to Kevin's Car Care if she'd come and get me and take me home andshe said she would. I have to go home and unload the goceries first (hope they don't spoil in this long wait in the hot car--they're in the trunk which is facing the sun. it's not exactly hot out, but the car waas fairly warm. I had the windows open ad it's cooling off, butthe trunk may be warm.
I wish I had Toby here aand could work onmy novelwhile I was waiting but even better, I wish it hadn't happened. But it did and here I am. Waiting. I~m hungry, too. I've only had onemeal today and it's almost 7. I'm sitting in frontof wegman's with a car full of food. But I wanted to eat the leftover sandwich from yesterday's trip before it spoils. Also the one last piece of meatloaf.
I got chocolate for Mom,hopeit doeesn't all melt.
Let's see if I can reiterate succintly what was going on in the Herpetologist Turtle story.
Scratch (Rudolf Heath) worked for both Crogan and Tony Baloney. Tony Baloney (Anthony Belaporco) worked for The drug-runner who worked for the Utica Mob boss. One of the is Luteo. (I don't need their names rightnow. Tony works as a chemical engineer and safety manager,engineer, he took over that job when Joe C retired (LOL!)
Tony Baloney has a laboratory in the Munitions Factory ruins at Radisson,down in one of the basement bunkers
Oh, here's my guy.
7:48 PM Took him a while to get it going. I drove home and unloaded the car and put the groceries away and called Erin and drove up here, eating the leftover sandwich and meatloaf as I drove. I sat in the car and wrote a note Kevin explaining wat was wrong and leftmy phone number and dropped they keys in through the slot.
Now I am sitting in the car waiting for Erin to pick me up. I told her not to hurry because I didn't wanther sitting here waiting while I was writing a note etc.
So back to the back story. Tony Baloney has
8:19 Well, I'm home,and since I never took a walk today, I'm out walking. Erin got me and then we sta in the driveway talking about the house and mortgage and the roof. And a wedding dress etc. It's gettingdarrk,no point in carrying a camera. I did walk from Weggies to the bank to Same's and back to Weggies so if I don't get a whole walk I wont' worry but my jacket is in Detroit with my headlmap in it's pocket and my other headlamp is in the car up at Kevin's. Hope Kevin is not on vacation for two weeks notw that I dropped my keys into the locked key slot. Hope they'll have time to work on it.
I should have gotten the old caping headlamp out of the drawer in the study but I didn't think of that .
Anyways, Tony Baloney has a lab in a bunker at the old munition facotry ruins. It's up on hte hill behind the A spend House in Radisso and he parks there or at the swimming pool and walks up on the trails the kids use. He's run a wire for power from A big electrical mini substation installment, Berni Naselli helped him with that. He's careful to use different routes when he comes and goes so as not to beat to obvious a path.
In his bab, he synthesis all kinds of stuff, practically every drugs that can be synthesized or altered from natural including ethanol--acid (LSD) Psilociben, speed (Meth amphetamine), etcetc. Crack,heroine, and he also know how to make various medical drush and psychoactive drugs which he uses in conjunction with other gang members to control the behavior of troublemakers orpotenial troublemakers.
He has connections at Eckerd's pharmacy and has his drugs subsituted for perscription drugs for Billy' s Mom and billy himslef etc.
don't know if Idescribed what he looks like so if I did and I do it over, Ill have to choose between the two descriptions. He is somewhat athletic looking, wears jeans and white running shoes and white socks. Oh, I think Isaid he was from Northern Italy and had red hai soemfreckles and bleue green eyes, not a swarthy aor drakskinned type, though he's Italian and and Luteo is his Uncle on his mother's side which is how he's involved with the mon. His father, Ermanno, was an alcoholic and a their. He was also etxremely bright and magaed inspite of worsening alcoholism to Get a Master's depree in (or a PHD?) in Comparitive Lierture and taught during the day at OCC. He taught all his claasses on Tuesdays and Thursdays and held conferneces and procject course meetings on ednesday and has four dayweekends to do Mob business.
He got bumped, Tony thoyfht, though the official cause of death was alcohol posioning. Ermanno had given up drinking and was inr ecovery for a year and half before a seudden brinking binge which was caused, Ermanno suspected, by a spiked drink--comeone slipped something into the cokes her drank at meetings, knowing even a single drink could get him going, and that was it. He may have been encouraged along the way. Tony thaought his dad, Erimanno, probably knew too much about something, and Tony often tought of of moving someplace far away.
Of course that was not allowrd, and Tony was so caught up in his own work and the payoffs he got from it that he didn'tthink aboit leaving.
And, then there was Ellie, or whatever her name was. He was in love with Villy's mother.
Billy's mother was ot and neber had been in love with Tony, however.
Thalidomide.
Oh, no, I was writing and writing in the pitch black dark andcametoa streetlamp only to discover thate evverthing I'd written was gone. Veru fangerous to wrote in the dark. I was wrting about how Tony had a conection at Brostl labs who submitted his new drugs and gave huum kickbacks.
How he was a Gemini with Scorpio rising and liked to have a hand in every pot. Oh, I wrote a lot, darn it.
I lost a lot.
Wednesday, May 3, 2006, 10:50 AM I am out alone ar Great Bear under a threatening sky. It must be about 65 degrees but breezy. And dark. Very springy, with Shadbush in full flower and small leaves on the trees.
I just got my car from Kevin's Car Care, it was lot, well over a hundred, and just for a bettery. He put it under the fender, which could be a problem if it ever needs to jumped again (like if I leave the lights on!) Aiee!
I was up til 3:30 last night and I haven't hadbreakfast or eaten (huh?) or showered or done my exercises and I am hungry! But I figured while I was up here, I may as well walk. I won't be wasting a lot of time taking pictures, as I don't have my camera gear. I was waiting outside to be picked up and it looked like rain and sometimes Kevin picks me up in a truck full of parts, etc. His Mom picked me up in her daughter's car which was very small and full of wreaths and other stuff.
Red trilliums in flower, False Solomon's seal in bud. Choke cherry leaves about 2,3 expanded, sugar maple leaves 1,2 to 2,3 expanded, other leaves not even started. Oak leaves about 1,4 expanded. (Morels!?)
Beech leaves half expanded, black flies, buzzing in my hair and ears, Canada mayflower up but no visible buds, buds and Mandrake, tall fiddleheads, garlick mustard in bud (behind other places where it's already in flower!). Downy or smooth yellow violets in flower and a few already goe by. Trout lilies half gone by. More red trilliums, baneberry in bud. True Solomon's seal in bud. Foamflower in bud. I stop in Mayapple Valley for a shot of a single red tillium with Ollie. Commontoothwort in early flower. Somenice flowering trout lilies. Others have gone by. Red-berried elder in flower. Tent caterpillar tents 3 inches across!
Up over mountain bike ridge. In spite of my late night, I'm doing good so far! That is, I am feeling energetic, happy and cheerful and not much pain, though I amkind of tired and sleepy. (How can you be energetic and tired and sleepy at the same time? My body seems fairly energetic but my eyes are sleepy--plus more, I won't go on about it.)
I need to get gas for the lawnmower and mow the lawn. All the things that take me away from the work I came to do!
11:12 AM I am down at the river, took me 23 minutes to get here walking at a fair clip forme. That is, 23minutes of actual walking. I stopped once briefly. There's a breeze down here keeping back the black flies.
There's no Geat Bear 12 minutes from the house is GPF. But there is Keith and Graham and hopefully time to work on my novels. I sit on the riverbank for a minutein the breeze, which feels more like a cold wind here. The sun is shining thinly through a partial hole in the clouds, but for the most part, the clouds are pretty thick. Thin or not, it feels warm, warm on the left, cold on the right.
The robins are singing incessantly for rain. I was shocked when Keith called them noisy! I think of noisy as a derragatory term! He often has a negative slant on things I think of as positive or just there. This concerns me.
I'd like to walk further, it's been a long time since I walked along the river. I'm always in a hurry these days. Sigh, somuch to do, so little time. I loved those days when I could take long leisurey walks. Wahn!
And when the house is done there's my mother's house. I was thinking that since I have power of attourney, I might be able to change the trust if I talk to a doctor and he says, as I suspect, that there is absolutely no chance my mother could recover to the point where she could live alone in her house, perhaps we could just sell it. While it would be a "free" place to stay while we're in town, the brothers and I, it's not really free and would probably cost a lot more to maintain than the cost of a hotel room.
Well, all that is somewhat off in the distance, but now it seems tied to my leaving my house--if Erin moves in when I go. Or is in the process.
Marsh marigolds in flower.
Poison ivy red, shiny,opening.
Tiny blue violets, pale blue.
I've noticedthat I amnot feeling quite so energetic going uphill as I was going down! LOL!
Last night, I wrote about Toney Baoney's connection to the turtle. He was working on a Thalidomide-like drug with similar negative and positive affects. Of course, He was hooping for the postive effects to be good and the negative effects to be less, but they were in fact worse than thalidomide. And in combination with the toxic pullution still remaining in the area from the munitions factory, and the chemical soup from all this other effluence, the frogs were starting to show up with multiple legs and deformed limbs. The girl finds them, notAlicia, (who also findsthem), but theone he had a crush on from college. He ought to have bumped heroff when she started poking around (she didn't like himanyway0, but he still was carrying a torch for her from a collge crush.
Northern whites, or whtever those minute tiny white violets are.
Berni Naselli is his electritian friend, Ermanno his father. Who is his contact at Bristol Labs? Someone a little like Ted Nettleton only different. Theodoro? I don't know the Italian equivalent of Ted. Maybe I shouldn't be that obvious in my connection,probably not. Although Ted's real name was Donald.
The trail's getting too rough to write while I'm walking.
Goldthread in flower.
Dado? Dado Danelli. Who's Dado? He is thirtyish? He is an intellectual. He loves Opera, especially Mozart. He is multilingual. He has a PhD in Chemistry and a masters in botany and (Puff, pant, big hill here) his area of expertise is the chemistry of medicinal plants. He also teaches, besides working at Bristol, a course at ESF on medicinal plants that all the kids take because they think they will learn about illicit drugs and he makes themwork really hard. Dado is not really associated with the mob. He's really only on the far fringes of it. He's genuinely interested in helping people and never takes anything Tony gives him hemself until he thoroughly analyzes it. Including food or drink.
The only reason that Dado has any relationship at all with Tony is that he ismarried to Tony's older sister, Octavia. And also because he respects Tony's genus and thinks it's possible that he might actually discover something useful, which in fact he has on several occasions, so these two things drive the relationship. Dado finds Tony somewhat disgusting at times.
Tony has an older sister, Octavia, and a younger sister Maria (now called Mary). He was repstced as a child for his boyness, maleness, and for his intelligigence, but always feltthat the girls were more well-loved, and has a very strong drive to prove himselfto someone. First mainly his Dad, whi was really fairly incapable of loving him. Now to the Mob bosses who have replaced his Dad as father figures.
Tony is a driven man, and he is driven in partby perceived slights as a child.
Dado is no pure saint, either, but his motives aremuch cleaner and purer than Tony's. He loves Octavia and there children (5 of them four daughters and a son, Dadino), he loves his work, he loves opera and plants and nature. His love is deep but low key in it's expressiveness. He has a problem with depression and none of the drugs help. He always hopes that some planthe's studying or one of Tony's drugs or soemthing else will help.
NOthing does.
Octavia always tells him, eat less sgar, eat this,e at that. Dado has an addiction. If he drank, he'd probably bean alcoholic, but he knows that and refrains. He's a foodaholic, addicted to suga, and that seems to play a role in hismoods. He develops adult onset diabetes, but seems incapable, in spite of his intelligence, of managing his eating and food addictions. He does it several times, and feels great, but always slips. His moodiness is partly due to his bad relationship with sugar. He also develops fibromyalgia, a disease experienced by many more women than men, and that and his weight problems give him issues with hsi manliess. He tends to swing between being gentle and sensitive and being overbearing and macho. He also talks too much and at great length and is incapable of noticing when other people have lost interest and are figeting and desparate to get away. He keeps the kids past the end of class even after warnings from the administration not to as he always has to finish a thread he's trying to get across.
12:06 I'm back at the car. I (actually) walked 57 minutes, but I did stop several times to phtograph marsh margold and shad etc. So I was out longer than that. Not too bad though, now I'm off, stop home, go see Mom, get gas for the car and lawn mower, etc. See how much I can get done.
12:31 Kevin gave me a coupon for a free foot-long Sub. I'm so suspcious. They wrote my name on it. So the coupon come back, they put it in the computer, and they add $3 to my bill under labor or somethingto pay for itnext time I come in. But I used it anyway, I stopped at the nice and easy and had a foot-long meatball sub on wheat. With a soda, which I paid for, $1. The sub was scrumptious, I used to LOVE meatball subs. The toasted the sub on the grill. I tasted GREAT, and I ahdn't eaten all day,so I was hungry.
Of course, now I have to worry about gettin sick if there is soy or dairy or both in the sauce ormeatballs or bread. I had a small soda, but it was still too much, I should have just had water.
At the moment, I feel happily satisfied. Hope I still feel good later.
There were lots of people in there buying lottery tickets and scroungy guys hanging around looking dirty. The women all looked clean and nice.
Oh, the sign says foot-long subs $3.99 Tuesday so probably they're $5 every other day so Kevin probably takes $5 from us next time (or this time) by aadding it to our labor bill.
The fact that she writes our names on it made me suspcious. Aiee.
5:47 PM I am baack in my driveway after visiting Mom at Loretto. I guess I'll make dinner and wrap Erin's presents so I'll be ready if we ever decide to get together.
It's a really nice evening and I wish I didn't have so much to doad could sit outside. I need tomow the lawn. I wonderif I could sit outside with Toby and hook up to someone's internet service. (Not mine, I don't have a wirelss xyz.)
One of my neighbors is sitting in his driveway in a platic lawn chair.
I wish Keith were more enthusiastic about eating outside! It is a bit of a pain, I guess, but what a drag to be inside the house all the time in niceweather. One of my other neighbors is mowing the lwn though and it is makinga terrible sound.
Friday, May 5, 2006, 7:59 PM I am walk8ing alone through the woods at Three Rivers. The sun has set. The peepers are peeping and the mosquitoes trying to bite me. They are clearly out now! The wood thrushes are singing their nightsongs, as are toher birds, though some of the daysong is dimisnishing rapidly to evening silence. The old apple trees in the overgrown orchard are flowering adbundantly ("ABOONDANZA!") and the sky is a rosy pink with fish-scale patterned pink clouds. Orange at the horizon.
It was a beautiful sunny say and Iam kicking myself for not getting iut sooner. I am carrying all my gear but it's already too dark for pictures. I set Eeyore at 1600 for a quick hip shot of one of the old apple trees. Don't want to stop long as the mosquitoes are getting ravenous!
I wwish I'd come out sooner,but I had two goals Iw anted tomeet before I went out and as usual, they took longer that I expected. First,I wanted to clear that little table in the doorway between the livingroom and diningroom. Then, Iwanted to finish mowing the lawn. I finally did both.
Peepers peeping! I heard themlast night,too when I walked in the rain. Too bad Keith never really got to hear them! I guess he heard them a little, but not like this. Of course, he missed the wretched mosquitoes, too.
I'dlike to set a more rigorous work schedule formyself, but that is hard to do when Ican't sleep at night! I think I'll get up at 7 and get right to work, but after laying awake for hours, I reschedule my arising a little later.
And then I think, no getting on the computer until after 5 PM and until these three things areaccomplished and someone calls andwants me toemail them some info. And once I'm on, I think, I'll just quick do this and that. And it may be quick (or not), but there is alwys one more thing that needs to be done.
Ideally, I'd like to get at 7 and workfor an hourbefore rbeakfast (cleaning and packing) because I'm supposed to not eat for an HOUR after I takemy synthroid. They used to say half an hour, but they've upped it an to an hour.
So eatat 8 around then, and then work until noon and have lunch. Then shower and dress (unless I've had to for some other reason)and go out and walk. Limit my walking during the week so something close and local. Maybe if I've been good,I get to go alittle farther on the weekends.
Retun to work by 3:00 and work until 6 or 7. Then eat dinner, check my email, post my pictures. Do a little more cleaning or wash dishes or sort laundry and get on line with Keith at 9:15. Bud by 11, up by 7. That would be a relatively idealschedule, IF when I went to bed at 11 I could SLEEP. IF I could stay off the computer.
One of the things I found while cleaning today was a relativelyrecent version of The Herpelogist,by which I mean, I think it was fairly soon before Iwent toMichigan and wrote the whole book nearly, the book that was stolen at the MOST, the book I now have to rewrite.
It's a hard copy, and I don't know what computer it was on, but probably Dead,w hich means it may be lost, but it may also be on a floppy.
I'll never know these things until I get all my boxes unpacked and how can I do that when there is no place to put things.
Saturday, May 6, 2006, 4:56 PM I am sitting in an "old lady chair" (or "husband chair") while Sara tries on jeans and Erin advises. We just shopped at Lane Bryant and Kaufma's and the acres of shoes store for Wedding clothes for me (including shoes). (DSW). I didn't get what I wanted but what I did get will work OK. I like it pretty much. I wanted a royal blue dress but I hated all the royal blue,slate ble and tourqouise blue dresses I saw and how much time do I wantt to waste shopping? I gotmatching shoes (sandals). Graham will like thembecause they are ornage. Orange isn't a color I considered to getmarried in. But It's aornage and pink and beige flowers (the skirt) and a beige blouse. I'm not fond of beinge but of all the things we looked at, it's what I liked the best. It looks dressy without being "overly." And afterwards, I can wear allof it for normalwear.
OK, back to the novel
I wanted to work at the timeline
9:07 PM I amout walking in the cold darkness under an waxing gibbous moon just past quarter, and feeling kind of cranky about it because it is Saturday and though it rained in themorning and early afternoon,it was sunny later. I wanted to walk whileit was sunny,somehwere nice, but by the time I finshed at Loretto, U was so hungry. I had hadno breakfast and lunch was long gone at 7:3o or whatever it was. I went to Danzer's hoping to then walka t Clark but there was a long wait. So I went home and made dinner and now I'mwalking.
I already hurt. Shopping is hard work.
I'm sore.
I went to see my mother this afternoon, after the girls and I split up in the parking lot of the carrousel center. I had two bags of goodies for her. I love bringing her treats bevause sheis always so pleased to have them, almost like a child, and considering the conditions under whcih shelives, aprked in front of the TV in the lounge all day and not even alowed to go to her room, anything that pleases her pleased me.
When I got off the elvatoron the 10th floor, various people pointed me toward the diningroom. (I just walked under a magnificent flowering crab andit suddenly seemed miraculous that it was flowering so abundantly at night. Someflowers close at night and someopen at night and somejust keep onfowering. I wonder what the adaptive value of closing at night is. This, when expressednorammly with a voiceofreason, soems completelu logical and reasonable, but walking tough the dark andencountering that lushly flowering crab was like a dream. A non whatchamacallit event. And I just walked by a sign that said 2 free toilets in excee.nt condition, free, ask inside.) and that seemed a little discrepant and dreamlike too).
But anyway, as I was saying, I saw people being wheeled away from the diningroom (it was about 5:40( as I went way back to the furthest back corner where Momnow sits with Marguerite, Margaet and Marguerite, at a little low table of their own because they ware both so low intheir chairs.
Marguerite had a plate full of food but Mom had nothing in frontof her. Marguerite said she didn't eat much andthat the aids and nurses areupset because shesilled up on Graham crackers and coffee and then won't eat her meals.
I am not quite sure how she can do this unless someone gives her those things,since she can't readily get them herself.
I told Mom I'dbrought her somepresents and first gave her the new socks I'd just gotten at Kaufman's forher. (I carefully did NOT break out the candy aftermy badexperience doingthat the last few times!) The socks are thick soft, pink purple and white andof course, sheliked them.
Then I showed her Tom'sletter and weopened it and read it. Then we wrote an answer. All this timeMargeurite was still eating. Also Janet cameover andjoined us for a while and read Tom'sletter too. Marguerite seemed very impressed by theletter we wrote to Tom (which was very simple). Mom knewwho Tom was,knew who Rosy was (and was happy to hearfrom her) AND rmemebered oreo and identified Oreo toMargueritte and Janet.
We wrotethe letter to Tom Rita and Rosy on a notecard from Sara. First wee xamined them at length and picked the one she wabted to send to TRR. Everyone admired them with their food-sticky fingers.
After we wrote the letter,we took our leave of the others and went down to her room where we found a stampfor the letter to TRR, watered the plants, and dressed her for a walk inwarm clothes because it was cold out (and still IS!)
I got Pepper to help and we trasferred her to her new travel wheelchair and out we went for a walk with her feet up on the rests. What a relief! So much easierto push and no dragging feet.
She ocmmented about the dandelion seedheads and I reminded her how she and Pa usedto dig dandelions on their hands andknees with special dandelion diggers. We looked at the house in the woods and stopped to take pictures in the Gazebo. I took someof the two of us one oneof her by a flowering crab and then she wanted to take one ofme, anddid.
Then wewalked all the way to the old priest nursing homesinging. She loves to sing and did an excelelnt job of rememberingthe words. (whichreminds me that Janet was astonished that Momcould still write.)
Singing is a good thingthing towith her, she just enjoys it so much. We sang home homeon the range, I've been waorking on therialroad,Swing Low,sweet chariot, and other spituals and then got going on Christmas Carols and sang them all the way backto building and up theelevator (no oneelse was in it.)
Sunday, May 7, 2006, 3:359 PM I sit in the car listening to the poet David Tucker, author of Late to work, reading his poems and talking about his job as a journalist. I likethe poems, and considerputtingthe book on wish list. But I have so many unread books. I sigh. I read ONE patrick Lawler poem. he mosquitoes are all ready hovering around me. Geese honeking, the sun filtered through expanding thin pale green leaves. The trail ahead is lovely.
I like this timeof year, except the bugs!
One of the poems David Tucker read was about lounging, and how we don't do enough of it and how important it is and boy I feel that way right now.
I am wearing the white Phil's Phase II baseball cap Scott gave me. I was thinking of Scott, ad I drove here,thinking O should have called and askedifhe wated to meetme here, theinging I still could call him, but then I'd have to wait.
I'm too hot inmylong-sleeved shirtto help keep off the bugs.
The poison ivy is really opening.
There'e a goose nesting on top of a beaver Lodge in the middle of rock pond and honking loudly atme and two men on a nearby penninsula.
I forgot to take a picture of the trail. Tomorrow's theme is water and fences, next Monday is shadows--that's for Photique. I can't keep too many of them in my head at once.
There's BP and 101 and Monday artday and Thursday and Friday Photo challeges and Friday Illo day. Thursday challenges are work and then Family.
My camera is still not working right. I need to send it or take it to be repaired. I have so many things I need to do I can't focus on them all.
I wanted to get Keith's computer fixed,too.
The beavers have been raising thelevel of roack pond and their dam which runs along the rock pond berm trail is now higher than the trail so the trail is a mudhole. They are also riaisng the marsh pondand at this rate, the berm trail will be totally submerged.
Wild strawberry in flower, not the first. Violets in abundance. Lots of baby marsh ferns and sensitive ferns,newly unrolled. A hoking flock of geese lands on rock pon and joins the protesting goose in honking loudly. Redwings trills, robins anthrushes sing. I want to ake a picture of the berm trail where it is near submerged between rock pond and marsh pond, but I foget, so I take a couple of wet trail shots. I'm beyond the open waterof marsh pond. More men join the other men on the pennisula. Atleast some of them are fishing I I can hear some say in a male voice, catching anything, but the replay is too faint.
I'm looking farward down the trail and can't maintain an interest in the men.
It's looks so quintessentially spring-like with the pale green birch leaves and bright birch trunks and the red and orange sof newly opened red maple leaves.
Question: when do you take a vertical shot? Answer, right after you take the horizontal. According to Bryan Peterson.
Question: why am I wearing my baseball cap backward when walking into the sun and alone? Answer: thebrim gets in the way of the camera and the camera knocks the cap off.
Question: why am I taking reflections rather than shadows when shadows arethe next Photique theme? Answer, because the reflections aremavelous today. (I did also takea couple shadows.
Question: Why is grasspond called grass pond when there'slittle or no grass in it or around it? Answer; Some of the grass is starting at the edge. The water is high now. Later it will lookmorelike a feild than a pond.
The water is so still. I was goind to say no breze, but now a tiny one starts up.
I am on the ruins berm trail. My goal is to see where the ruins berm trail comes out by the ruins because last time Iwas at the ruins looking for the other end of it, I couldn't find it and I thoght i was looking in the right place.
A thin veilof clouds has risen to cover the sun,making it hazy bright. This is nice for wildflowers, but not so good for shadows. I'm under the powerlines now and very near the ruins.
4:47 PM I am at the ruins. It took me 24 almost 25minutes to get here, so in the interest of time,I should go straightback to the car rather that flowing the far shore rock pond berm trail which is significantly longer.
The reason I did not find the trail is because it was closer to the raod than Iremembered. You have to go straight in from the road side of the ruins (where they are dumping stuff!) and the turnleft, twiard the road, go over a small berm,trash heap that has an old galvanized gate crumpled up in it, turn right again below the canal on the berm--it's quite overgrown but the trail IS still there, thank you.
Speaking of overgrown, I was astonished how overgrown the ruins look! Way more so than when Keith and I wererecently here. It gave me a moment ofpause until I relaized itloks more overgrown because all the leaves areout now andthat block the view and makes it seem "thickerer!"
I really haven't been takingmany pictures, in spite of being out during the day, and I'm all sweatified, but happy to be here in the sunshine. With the birds singing.
I want to work on my turtle novel I'dlke to sit right here right now and do it. But I'd better go back and sort crap.
I also got excited about working on Nathaiel'sstory,Story 16, or Over the Edge, when Is aw a picture of a longhorn in aplace reminiscentof Idaho.
I wish Icouldwork on my stories.
I wanted to go to a certain aprt of the ruins and attemp a picture I hadinmind but I'mthinking I should just go home and work! Wahn! I found the trail again,I have to turn and go towardthe raod from the ruins.
The tent caterpillars are out of their webs and crawling around on the outside and branches.
The shore of grass pon used to be clear enough to sit on and I used to come and sit here and write and enjoy the view but now it is all grown up. I'menjoying the view as I walk along, but there is no clear spot for a picture and no place to sit.
Soem bird has built a nest in the alders above the warer that is the most ungainly pile oflong sticks--itloojs as if the babies would fall out and drown.
Barberry in flower. I'msortof sad that I didn't go a ways fatherand trythat shot, buti feel like I really need to put the old nose to the girndstone.
5:20 Iamalmost back to the car. Just put up somemallards and that goose is honking upsetedly again. The fishermana regone,someone has pooped here. Iwasgoing totakeapicture of the rock pond rockreflected in the still water, but I walked too far and the reflection is gone.
I can see the car now. I've just walked 45 minutes, so that's good timing on mypart, good thing I didn't go any further to take my ruins shhot. I must have walked faster coming back.
5:42 PM I am home. In the car in the driveway. It's so utterly nice out I am loathe to go back inside andwork, but I am trying to be good, darn it!
It is hotand stuffy in the house. I open the back door. I have only hadonemeal today, even though I've been up since 5 AM and I'm hungry, but before I eat, IAM going to sortfor a while first.
I am sad that the radio won't work, it's been all staticy all week so I am listening to the Dueno Eligies over and over.
Monday, May 8, 2006, 4:16 PM I* am out alone walking a winter walk, waling my widely used winter path on the Radisson sidewalks. It's an incredibly beautiful bearly perfect day and this is not where Iwanted to walk, but I called Jacob and he's going out to CentralSquare and said he'd stop by around 5 or between 5 and 5:30 so I am walking as fast as I can to make the loop more quickly than usual or I won't be able to be cack in time, it will be slose as it is if he comes at 5 I may stillmiss him because ittook melonger than expected to get here because of course there was construction on both 31 and River road that weren't there yesterday. IAnd I got stopped by a flaman. I wasn't counting on that.
I was going to go get distilled water for the CPAPa ftermy walk,but now I have to zoom staight home.
Someone isplaying rapid scales on apicolo or some other similar high-pitched instrument--sounds like a picolo, and it also sounds like some kind of bird call. I approached it and now it receding beind me,very interesting.
The leaves are expanding daily. The maple leaves are probably 7/8 their fill size. Same with beach and alternate-leaved dogwood. Basswood maybe half size. Periwinkle and garlic mustard in flower everywhere.
Mourning cloak butterflies. Imight have been able to get a shot of one if Iwasn't walking so fast (forme).
I was just thinking how Idesperately needed sometimeto relax and break from always running around and here I am practically running around the course trying to get back to seeJacob.
Seeing squirrels, not stopping to try to "capture" them.
I've reached stickleback Creek, it's coolandshady here with the hemlocks.
The pond is completely greened over withalgae and duckweed already! Mostly algae.
I am walking aloop that normally takes mejust about 45minutes to walk. I'm trying to shave a little time off ofit. Does that ten mean I have to walk more later, since I didn't walk the required 45 minutes,if in fact I succeed and do it more quickly?
I should have left mycamera gear in the gcar. I have all this gear strapped to my body and no timeto use it. It's heavy and awkward.
OH, no,I stopped way back there, for just a minute, and forgot to turn the watch back on,so I won't even know for sure how long I walked! I suppose since it's a 45minute walk,I could just call it 45minutes, but I have a feeling it will be less tan that!
I HATE the fact that I am always rushing and always feel like I am rushing and always feel like I have too much to do and always feel overwhelmed and can't keep up. I HATE the fact thatthere seems to be nolight at the end of the tunnel and things seem to be getting worse rather than better, mylife is hurtling by and Iam not able to dow hat I wantto do which is work onmy novels, mypoetry and my art.
Instead, the great burden of the KIMBOOK HOUSE Looms over me. I haven't even completed the cleaning of a single room yet.
Iwish Iwere better at it so I could just get it DOnE!
I know it was 4:15 when I was strapping on my camera gear.
It's 4:44 now.
I am just approachingLake Oberon on thereturn leg of the loop.
Oh the geese have babies, tiny fluffy yelowbabies, te first I've seen this year.
I could take pictures if I weren't trying to hurry.
Theregoes another moruningcloakI probably could have capture. Instead, Ialmost steppedon it in myrush, inmy headlongflight.
Why would people WANT to walk fast--youmiss somuchthat way!
My hips are startingto really bother me. I don't knowif it's soemthing I ate or the stress of trying to walk much faster than I'm comfortable walking.
The hemlock I just passed was all budded out and the newlittle buds are liketiny green balls. A cutepicture, but i didn't take it.
OH! There's the picoloagain! Still playing! Must not be a kid, well, not a young kid,not that a young kid could play thatwell anyway.
Mixed with the picolo,mounrbing dove.
4:55 The fence is in sight. I will have shaved off sometime because I dropped my gear in my hastte and I know I didn't leave right at4;15.
But I still may notmake it back by 5.
I little girl hanging out along the path just gave me a Bible Tract. A pretty one, but still. Blue,with matching flowersfoldedinsie.
There's my car, 4:58, clearly I won't make homeby 5.
5:07 PM Iam back in mydriveway andthe note Ileftfor Jacobis still on my door, sohe proabblyhasn't been here. I thinkI need to walk a few more minutes. I also have to pee.
5:28 PMNO Jacob. I could have taken a more leisurely walk and stopped to take a fewpictures.
Bad news, I just got a jury questionaire!
GPS Map 76 CSX Garmin GPS Jacob says this is a really good GPS, it floats, is has a baromenter, USBportmemory card, $550 list but cheaper on line, $450 from Lake Powell marine Electronics .com, comes with the auto kit with all the US streets in US. He did a lot of research,and says it's the best, batteries last 18-30 has a power adapter thatcomes with the auto kit.
This one you can operate with one hand (someothers like the 60 you need two hands and it changes color scheme so it shows upbetter ta night.
4'11 PM 4:11, Tuesday, May 9, 2006 I am out at Great Bear alone, waling in the bright sun with my white hat on backwards --i turn it forward, if and when U want to take picture, I need to remember to turn it the other way. Iam planning adifferent route today for the first time in a long time and I'm a little sad because I love to go down to the River. I alsolike adventure and variety and want to do something differnt. I don't have theroute all planned, but I'm pplanning to head down through the gravel bed to the old train right-of way and if it is still passable, head north on it.toward Fulton. Then turn left, west, toward the rover, but maybe not all the way down,in the interst of time and all the work I need to do and considering how bad I am at it and how much I have to do.
The msutards are in flower, and the apple tress blossoming and the dandelions gone to seed and the posion ivy leaves red and expnding. The sky is nearly clear, it's in the high 70s,but at least up here at the top of the gravel bed, there's a cool breeze.
The replace backup battery light has already come on,damn, it eats those thinsg and without it,my files arein danger.
I SHOULD have gone to Hamlin today, because I'm out of food and it isnear Wegmans so it would have been more efficient, but I didn'tthinkof it.
I wish I could work on my novels while I was walking, but as I've said before, it is hardto doanything but new writing while walking because I can't really see the screen unless I atop and I no longer have time for thatlife-style I used to have where I walked and wrote and stopped and looked things up atc..
4:24 PM I am now on the railroad bed. I've walked 12 and a half minutes, 13 now.
The elaves, though fairly expanded, are still a pretty spring green. More variety of color than there will be later. Chartreuse, pinks, reddish leaves, a while pale but bright spactrum of colors. Hmm, pale but bright. Saturated pale colors?
The trail here of course is ruler straight, fine for x-country sking or biking but boring as hell to walk fortoo long,so U will turn west at somepoint.
To the wets of me is a hemlock forest with it's dark trunks and dark canopies and inthe center is sunny flade, very pretty. But I don't stop. I'm worried about the time and don't think te picturewould be worth the lost time.'
Here's the thing. I need to shop. But I also have a goal of finishing the nearly finsihed project I had started several days ago of cleaning the card table and under thecard table and I wantedto finsih it today, but haven't yet. I mean, I wna to pick everything up that I laid out and top off the box. Then Iwnat to sttart on the lower paart of the writing desk.
I turn west. I really would have liked to go farther cause there's a pond a little farther, but I've already walked 18 minutes! I enter s sunny grove of red spines reminiscent of the spiral grove. Very pretty, but I worry wehn the trail turns Noth, so I set out bushwahacking west, which is where I wantto go.
It is difficultto write while bushwhacking and alsoslower.
There are voices in the woods nearby, but as long as I am bushwhacking, I am unlikelyy to encounter anyone else.
At 25 minutes, I trun south. I climb a steep hill, puff pant and enter another spiralgrove, thus one chock full of poison iny. Thick with it. My trajectory must be headed toward a trail, because through the pines, Isee a man and a woman on mountain bikes. And, here's the trail.
I wishmymountain bike weren't in Detroit, but I'm trying to move and if I keep everything I'd like to use here til I move, I'll never move.
Or, I'd have to have a big truck come and take everything at once.
A young, blond, curley haired man, a little like Jason Reimers comes toward me on amountain bike and turns off on another trail just before he reaches me. We exhange pleasantries. he's wearing shorts and shirtless. Thee clouds of mosquitoes and blackflies aren't bothering him the way they are me cause he can move gaster--reminds me of another reaon to love mountain bikes, they help you outside ride outrun the bugs!
The trail I am on is one where I sked with Judy and the girls and in the spot where Judy crasjed in her skis, there are common toothworts flowering. I grab a quick shot of them. Cross another wetland. Did that while buswhacking but could writeof it.
I grab a QUICK shot because the bugs are too bad to stop long. I'm wlaking fast in part to atmept to escape them, uphill, puff pant!
There is a convergence and crossing of two trails and I hesitate, unsure which way to go and the turn south. The car is south east, one trail went east and one south, aand I was afraid the east one would takemnme back to the railroad bed but the south one has turned wst and I donlt want to go west.
Oh, here comes anothe rintersection, now I turn south southeats.
The tent caterpillar webs are bigger than yesterday.
I am walking through a series of sunlit ravines, or I should say, sundappled ravines. I meetthe mountain-biking couple, but they head off a differnt way. They are riding sharply downward and the girl loks nervous!
Up and up and up, through a network of trees through sun dappled woods. The pale but bright leaves lit like stained glas windows. The forest floor is covered with Canada myaflowers ready to burst into bloom.
4:56 PM by choosing at the trail intersections the one that best seemed to head in the direction I wanted to go, I have effectively (maybe luckily) arrived at the precise place Iwanted to come out, at the intersection of the railroad bed and the road from 57to the river and am makingmy way up toward the car now.
I have been walking 45minutes and the car is several minutes away still, but that's pretty good timing considering it included bushwhacking. And unknown trails.
A middle-aged man with a beard, a helmet, and brilliant chareuse riidng suid and backpack rides toward me from the parking area, smiles a charming smile, and says hi. I'm all sweatified and bugbit.
I'm luggiing all this gear and not taking pictures, to speak of. Phew. I'm so nervous about my lack of progress at the house.
But, I have to walk and I have to eat.
5:05, back at the car, stuff put away, Iw alked 51minutes. Not too bad.!
Thursday, May 11, 2006, 9:41 AM I am supposed to be at Janine'sat 10:00 and it is 9:41 and I amalmost there. I have been driving more and more slowly and inally pulled overto the side of the road to wait. I allowed 45mnutes because it seemed far away and I did't remember how long it took. It hasn't even been half an hour.
9:47 I read a Patrick Lawler poem and thecars speedby shaking mein the car. It's the first Patrick Lalwer poem I've allowed myself to read in a long tme. I've been too busy attempting to sort clean and pack. I'm trying to be efficient with my time.
The car is heating up. It was clousy until I stopped.
I get out and walk around on the road. Thereis an old mill here that should be photogenic but U can't find the right angle. I'd have to walk into the yard and don't want to do that. I could try with a different lens, but Ileft them in the car.
I walk around the roadside and take a few miscellaneous pictures and have a happy memory. When I bought one of the girl's 5th grade camers, Erin's I think, I wanted to test it to be sure it worked so I got a roll of film, stopped at an abandoned lot, and and shot off the roll of film of cracjed mudand trash and weeds. I was thrilled and wanted to give myphot classes that assignment. When I got the pictures back, they were OK, pretty good, but not prize-winners. What had been good was the meditation, the close looking, the seeing.
now it~s 9:58 and I'll be late. Give me a camera and computer and I can make the time disappear!
2:45 PM (loretto)
Stop drop and roll
I went to Janine's today. We went for a walk (link) in her woods,where the new poison ivy is thick and shiny, and had a wonderful lunch together, looked at her creative nonfiction pieces for Silk Creek and then did Reiki on each other.
Janine's invisible trail
I'm at Loretto and I maywant to take my Mom for a quick walk because it looks like a storm may be moving in. I want to possibly beat the storm. It.s VERY windy. Maybe she won't want to go out. It's supposed to start raining this afternoon and rain all weekend.
Friday, May 12,2006, 6:11 PM I am out walkng at Radisson and passing the huge sign that says No Unauthorized personell beyond this point and a truck comes out. I am writing on the Psion and I keep writing and walking hoping they won't stop me: thy don't.
I'm overly bundled because just before I was leaving to walk, there was an aannnhh annnhh annnh signal of an emergency announcement which they took their sweet time getting to: a severe storm alert, dime-sized hail near Cazenovia and moving northwest, take precaustion to protect life and stuff. Stuff wasn't they used, oh yes, property. And they said there were several other's in the area. Well, I hope I can get walked and get safe before it hits if it does. It was supposed to rain all day, and instead it was sunny. I was supposed to work all day and isntead, I dorked around. Very upset. with myself.
The sky is very black and threatening, and I'll kick myself if my gear get's ruined.
Because of the imrpessive sky, I brought my graduated grey filters and I stop to take a shot looking over the power lines with the filters on.
I always think I'm going to run! Whta's that all about? I guess because I'm trying to only allow myself 45 minutes of walking time, I think if I run,I can cover more ground. But once I have all this gear on, andall these extra clothes, I don't feel much like running, not that I normally do anyway.
Oh-oh, I hear thunder. In the distance. I've been walking 17minutes, so Iam not near the car. Should I go back? Or on?
The thunder is getting closer, theblack sky is getting closer, it's windier, and darker and I turn around at 22:20 instead of 22:30, absurd as that may be! I hurry back, fasterthan I came. I probably won't make 45minutes and then I'll feel guilty. BUT then, I stop and take another picture of the sky and one of viper's bugloss as the thunder rumbles forward, closer and closer. And lightning!
Yikes, it took more than the 20 seconds I gained to shoot those two pix.
The rain that was supposed to come today was one of the reasonsI took my Mom for a walk yesterday. I usally don'tgo two days in a row.
I takemy jacket off, puff pant, as Iclimb the hill to the ridge, and put it on over mycamera. It's not very waterproof,but better thn nothing.
I reach the top of the ridge by the ruins (the upper ruins) and start down on the other side. Still no rain or hail.
I need to stop and get batteries for the Psion andmouse, assuming I make it back without getting soaked. Then I need to put the cleaning and pakcing aside and work on the invitations.
I also need to mow my lawn, but I think I willplan on doing that tomorrow.
The sun comes out. The sky is really black still, and Imean black! But there's a gap in the clouds and sun shines through. The thunder seemsto be diminishing and I'm beginning to thing the storm is passing without hitting me. The wind seems to be subsiding a little too, but the sky,amazingly black.
I could have walked those extra 20 seconds, maybe even walked the rest of the way to the ruins. Dang.
And Iwalke dso fast that sure enough, I'm almostback and only on 37 minutes, not 45.
AND I'm all sweatified from the rush!
I stop and take more pictures,since I'm near the car and it's not raining a wisp of rainbow shows up and then it brightens and a second wisp shows up, but they are mostly behind the trees and I can't really get them well.
Well it's raining. I did get a little wet trying to capture the rainbow.
7:35 Driving to Staples,along river road, the view of the river with the rainbow behind it was wonderful, but Icould't stop even at the pulloever, toomuch traffic. The rainbow was still clearlyvisible when I got to Staples. It rained hard, very hard.
I got my batteries, but it didnot take two minutes of walking to get them.
I'm sure glad I had my gear in the car before all that hard rain came.
I stop in BJsbut they don't have what I want. When I come out,t he rainbow is bigger and brighter than ever.
Monday,May 15,2006, 6:01 PM I am out walking in a rain, a light female rain, but a rain, nver-the-less, and evrything is soaked with it.
I am carrying my camera gear on my back but since it's raining faiarly steadily, I may not take any pix.
Wahn, just passed a gdead, smushed snake.
Foamflower is out and opened. Yesterday, wild gerium and Mayapple.
I wanted to write about Janine's invisible trail and about the burning woman "Stop, drop and roll", but it is raining too hard to write and yesterday I was bushwhacking for my whole walk and when I'm home I'm supposed to be packing and cleaning
6:33 It seems to have actually stopped raining, though everything sokaed and the trees overhead are dripping big splotchy drips. I walked in on drowned own trail. No one is around, the swamp seems clean and pristine, the birds are singing wildly.
jo(e)'s invisible trail
Iwent to visit my poet friend, jo{e). She loves nature and poetry and is kind and generous and loving, always a joy to be with and to read.
The sun was shining, and after warning me that her woods were full of mosquitoes, she asked if I wanted to walk. I did. Walking in nature is one of my favorite things to do.
We headed out across her back lawn and through the field behind it and into the woods. I took her picture, walking in, because the long blades of grass achoed the veritical trunks of the trees, and the trail looked lush, spring-like and inviting.
The trails were overgrown, but I didn't worry. jo{e) seemed to know where she was going. We talked and laughed and caught up on each other's activities and our children and families. We sat on the fallen trunk of atree and talked until the mosquiotes drove us away, and then walked somemore.
"The trails are a little overgrown," she said apologetically. I didn't mind. Then, later, "You probably wonder how I can find my way." Actually, I neither wondered nor worried. But her concern reminded me of a mutual friend who when we walked in the woods, often asked how Iknow where Iwas going. My daughter asked me that once, and I wrote the poem that became the basis of this blog.
I could usually (but not always) see the hints of the trails that jo(e) was leading me on. And since Ioften tramp through the woods along old trails that are barely visible, I know the process. A number of things contribute to such wayfinding. There is body knowledge or kinesthetics. It's amazing how the body know where to turn and duck and bend. And there are landmarks, and trail traces, the berm or ditches of old logging roads, the stream or pond or curve of the hill the road follows.
I felt at peace with jo(e). I trusted her completely, as I trust myself in the woods. I am writing this as Iwalk alone through rainy spring woods on another invisble trail. And our mutual friend? She too has since elarned to navigate the inviisble trail
xxxx
I'd like to write stop driop androll but Iam nearly back at the car. My back is starting to hurt from the ehavy camera pack which I have not opened. I did take one picture with Ollie of myself back by the treewith the broken statuary.
XXX
Stop, drop, and roll
6:50 I am back at the car, I took only one picture, with Ollie, so all that heavy back straining gear was just a burden. I walked 48 minutes,most of it in rain. Didn't get as much written as I might have if it weren't raining. But I got my exercise and did write one thing, an invisible trail blog entry, but who knows when I will get to post it.
I need to get those bottles out of my trunk!
I need to make an agenda/plan for my leaving for Detroit, so I don't forget anything crucial. I am leaving May 19, Sarah and Steve are getting married on the 20th.
Detroit List
(what good is this list if I can't print it?)
CPAP, plants--I want to take the plants
Camera, green bag of battery chargers, camera gear, Psions
forward mail
phone messgae
boxes and folding table and wedding clothes from garage
lay out clothes
wash clothes
buy and prepare trip food
I'm all sweatified.
--
I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination- John Keats
Mary
