i bid thee rise from thy indolent ass

There is some bad wiring between my ears. Most people I guess know this but it’s a certain sort of bad wiring in particular that we are talking about here. There is this little twinge that builds up as stress mounts and the increasing urge to move things around…like furniture for instance. And it triggers the reward center of the brain such that a sort of frantic calm or peaceful chaos becomes the dominant mood. However, like many other drugs the feeling wears off if doses are not increased and a melancholy, malaisc indolence sets in. This drive is a great tool to have in your closet for certain occurrences like moving out by the end of the month. Awesome, the closer I get to the deadline the more likely I am to pack and move and organize and scrub clean things because the stress grows. This is not so good around times like finals. When what is required is to sit down and pound out a paper it is less than helpful to have an urge to rearrange a room. This happened all too frequently in school. Sigh. At this juncture I am stressed but not the one project deadline stressed or the finals will be over in 2 days and it will be ok stressed. This is the sort of generalized, everything is unsettled stress that lingers about and pools in certain areas and generally coats the whole being in a thin film of slime. Solution 1 – Move in! Great that took all of 5 hours including unpacking and folding clothes. This is what you get when you fit all of your belongings into a car. I’m not complaining about the car sized amount of stuff…just the lack of doing it got me. Solution 2 – Have your boss place you in a small shed with cones and sandwich boards scattered about and myriad road signs hanging from screws in the walls and say go. Cones destapled, sorted, tallied. Sandwich boards destapled sorted and tallied. Road signs sorted, tallied, and organized via excel spreadsheet just for shits and giggles. Good thing that business only took 2 days…oh…wait….now what the hell am I going to do. Sigh.

After this overnight I am taking a nap, a shower, and a drive in that order. Then I might get to do something cool like smash walls. That would be exciting.

-Jn

Themes for the evening

Episodes from the evening that are asking for words but I am waning poetic.

There was almost no sun left and there was still a chunk of rainbow.

I took a walk with a pair of cats tonight. Grey cats. The only colors left in the sky were chasing the sun. Dirty orange and and purple fuzz. If you have ever walked with cats you haven't. Unlike dogs they don't actually check back in on you occasionally. They will chase after you when you get too far away but they maintain at least a 5 meter radius away from you at all times. By the time I was walking home it was nearly dark and I had to phantoms following me. Liquid shadows.

The wee cat wouldn't walk with us. He hunched himself down in the center of the driveway. When we came back he perked up and sauntered over to us. He really wants to be a dog. He tries.

A neighbor was burning something this evening. The air smelled something like the taste that lingers after cheap rum.

Quote: "I could hear the speechlessness" - Aunt Nora Lee

Go turtles go!!!

I've picked my turtle. Have you?

Months

Month- depending on which time frame you are using, a great deal of living and breathing and in this case far too long. I will skip on the apologies and go on with the writing. Note that I have been reading… just not putting my own thoughts down.

There is this sciency term, Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis, and it is very logical and important for eco types. It rambles around and comes back to this more or less. If your world doesn’t change enough things like predators or boredom eat you. If your world changes too much things like stress and too much fast food eat you. I planned on having a lot of free time after the summer after college and I thought that some travel would be in order and that I should work on seeing friends and getting my life sorted out so that I could start pretending I was a proper adult enough to fool most other proper adults, or at least those planning to hire me. Things went according to plan- meaning that what little plans I had scribbled down actually happened or at least I think they did and I can’t find the scraps of paper to prove otherwise…but I am not where I thought I would be. And it seems that I am either frantically on the road spending a few days in as many states as possible or…cleaning house and playing with cats. Everything from my love life to my future plans have either stabilized or exploded in a remarkably exceptional way. Too many things to write about with no time to do it or all the time in the world with nothing to say, which spins up a bit of irony into the moaning that maybe I was never meant to be a scientist, that I was after all these years in fact born to write great things. Yes. Moving on.

I saw an eagle a very few days ago as I was driving home from MA. I was not too far into PA, and the bird was not to far from my car. It looked, it lurched, and it lifted in front of, beside, then over my car. Everyone should have an eagle, except then they would not be as spectacular…then again if you have that type of wing span with that general mouth shape and claw length…you would still win a lot of bar fights on intimidation factor alone. It was either a baby bald or a golden eagle but I am not up to snuff in 5-second, freak-encounter bird identification so just know that it made my day.

I also got around to seeing the last on the list of people one graduated with that one must see in the year after one graduates or lose them forever in the abyss of time. This was also a freak encounter and also made my day…or my life as one wouldn’t want to loose a friend of this caliber to the abyss of time.

For those monitoring my progress...or progressions:

Yellow- States I have been in at one time or another
Blue- States I have been to at least once since September
Green- States I have frequented twice or thrice
Purply Pink- States that I inhabit enough that one might assume I live there
Red- The road-artery that connects me to the places that are most likely home and that I drive frequently enough that I can put Catsby on cruise and crawl in the back seat to make a sandwich
Extended stay states (1 week plus): Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Missouri

Something else. One should always make sure ones compatriots are paying attention when one starts tossing the word subpoena around. It just makes things work better I think.

Also my fortune from last night: "If the cake is bad, what good is the frosting?" Lucky Numbers: 5, 20, 38, 40, 24, 8

It stopped snowing for a while

Anyone want a kitten. They are wicked cute.


Eternity of Days (02/02/07)

How long since I've felt your touch
The warmth of your body near mine
The scent of your breath when you speak an 'I love you'
It must be eternity
Maybe I can't tell time

I miss you like aching and always and final
I crave the contours of your face
The glint-blue of your eyes with a mischievous smile
The calendar says measure in days

I'd rather measure in miles
Those tend not to grow as fast
But any distance is to far to far
When this much time has passed apart

I don't know when I can see you
When I can escape this place
And the weather keeps coming to bar me from running
Damn this eternity of days

-Jn

The Quiz

As promised, a quiz on what you have learned. The answers are at the bottom but try and see what you can do without peaking. Let me know how you scored.
1. This one should be pretty easy...you tell me
2. This little guy is white but look carefully.
3. This one might be a little tricky because you can't see the head very well but you can do it.
4. Look at this face. She's all about eating the camera you can tell.
5. Don't think too hard.











Answers:
1. Sheep!
2. A cow
3. Black Sheep!
4. One happy goat
5. A Moose. Mr. Moose, my former basketball coach in fact.

Amendments

I was recently informed that a friend has...trouble distinguishing sheep and goats. I figured it would be nice to help her and anyone else with similar difficulties as best I can. What follows are a series of pictures comparing the beasties with a few extras. Tomorrow...or when I get around to it...I will post a pictures quiz and we will see what you learned.

First some Sheep.

Note that they are a uniform color and have curly hair. When they are shorn the hair is very short but is still very curly as it grows back in. They also lack horns and generally look pretty dumb.

Next, Goats. They come in a host of colors and even when their hair grows it remains more or less straight. Both males and females have horns though the males' horns can get much longer and spirally.

Here is a wee goat and its father. The male goat has whiskers on his chin. You can't see his horns but trust me they are pretty impressive. Also note the curiosity in the younge goats face...he thinks...most of the time.

This would be an alpaca. It is a close relative of the llama. In general alpacas are a solid color while llamas can be many different colors (this one is atypical) Llamas are much bigger much more misanthropic- they will spit at you for no real reason. Like sheep, they can both be shorn. Unlike sheep they have some inborn intelegence and a long neck. Neither llamas nor alpacas grow horns. (Bonus- they are related to camels)

One large beef cow with her friends. I'm not sure what to tell you...it's a cow.

A cow moose, aka a female moose. They share a reseblance but your mama moose is much larger and has a bigger nose and stick up ears (not stick out ears). Plus moose don't live in fenced fields...they go through the fences as they pass by.

There you go....Someday soon I will update with a little quiz. Hopefully this helps.

Oh look....A Recipe

Apple Cranberry Pie That Even My Mom Likes
2 Pillsbury Pie Crusts (If you want to make your own, more power to you. It would taste a whole lot better…provided you make good pie crusts in the first place. Maybe you should stick to the dough boy.)
¼ C White sugar
2 T flour
¼ t Salt
¼ t Allspice
1/8 t Nutmeg
½ t Cinnamon (5L you can skip this and not miss too much)
½ t Lemon Zest
1 T Lemon Juice
2 T Honey
1 ½ T Brandy Jim Beam Bourbon
1 t Vanilla
½ C Dried Cranberries
A quantity of Apples (I think I used about 6 Empire apples, which are smallish, and a pair of Granny Smiths)

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Use the nifty apple slicer to core and slice apples for you. Peel the skin off and cut into smaller chunks. Toss in to a microwave safe Corning ware dish that you find in the clean dishes side of the sink. Microwave the apples for 7 minutes and drain off the juices in a colander that you also find on the clean dishes side of the sink. Put the apples back into their very warm Corning ware and add the dry ingredients and cranberries. Go on a search for brandy in the liquor cabinet and finding none use bourbon instead. Mix all of the ingredients together and take your time figuring out how to zest a lemon. Do it wrong anyways. Roll out an oval shaped pie crust into a glass pie dish and dump in your mixture of apple-y goodness. Roll the second pie crust on and crimp the edges. Make sure you cut off the extra crust so that you can re-roll it. Cut a shape or two out of the crust to make a fun design and add some slits so that the steam can vent. Pop your baby pie into the oven for 35 minutes or until the crust is crispy and brown. Don’t eat it with freezer burned ice-cream that your father finds in the freezer. Avoid the temptation.


-Jn

End of Year Game

I don't really think I like this game. I don't know if it is actually fair. Maybe it is. Randomness of break followed by the suck of the month of Febuary that slowly builds up to the goodness of Summer and then all of the sudden my life explodes into traveling. Hmmm...

Go into your archive and copy the first sentence from each month of this past year. Skip pictures and memes. Only copy sentences which you actually wrote. This will give you a miniature review of your year:

January
A story by request. Among other things it includes: An East Coast Beach Resort, A Washed-Up Anchor Man, and something similar to water melon rinds.
February
What exactly am I quitting you ask?
March
Remember, you are dust and to dust you will return.
April
So I spent most of yesterday in a sewer pipe.
May
(The first thing was a poem about dead some deer and a car and a smattering of pictures)
As much fun as scheduled events and parties and dances are...sometimes those spontaneous ones are just that much better.
June
So as a part of class today we were asked to write for a bit about something along the lines of Salt Marsh Elegy by Aldo Leapold.
July
-I should be sleeping but I cannot
August
My head crunchified then fireworked and now its pretty stellar.
September
I got to play miner today. Sort of.
October
It's good to be home.
November
Um. Life is nuts and I am moving around so much that my muse keeps getting lost.
December
But can I have puppies???

Mini-Pig

So anyways I got a llama for Christmas. Llama does not live with me and I don't get to name him/her though I am hoping they name it Elmo. I was under the impression that Elmo was going to live in Peru but after some research I think Elmo gets to chill in Bolivia. That is fine with me. Elmo can help herd the guinea pigs. While I am on the topic...would you consider eating a guinea pig. If I have a guinea pig roast in the future would you attend. I mean think about it. You could try several different flavors of roasted pig sauce. Think about it. Also think about the heifer project. They are a solid program that works at a grass roots level. They not only provide animals; they provide training in animal husbandry and veterinary care and also how to provide the best food for the animals. That sort of thing. They are also big on gender equality and they like to turn the programs over to the people as soon as possible so it isnt some overstuffed american college student telling Sancho how to raise his chickens. It is neighbor...and brother, Pedro. My favorite part is that they require people to pass on animals. They frequently give pregnant animals and the first offspring of a heifer animal is passed on to someone else in need who lives in the area. So really when you buy one llama...its more like you get two...or at least 1.5. And in all honesty who doesnt want a llama?

Forget Hippopotamusseses

I got a Llama for Christmas! I don't think I hate Christmas. These things a vaguely related in ways other than they both feature Christmas. More on that later...

Magnolia

There is so much but so very little. When your whole life has become one big exercise in procrastination the little bits of procrastination that used to be so relieving sort of drag on you. Hence the spate of unblogging. And you would thing that simply not posting is really something neutral except that I would think things to write, even start to write them…and walk away consigning them to never-never land. For words this is not a happy place of eternal childhood nor is it like limbo. It’s the slow eating deathof beyond apathy sadness. Poor words. I wish that I had cared more…kind of.

So I am coming and going and never quite slowing, the bodies starting to wear and clothing to tear and someday soon I will crawl home again. Or I will run out of places. This is more like it. My plans end after Christmas. Normally these black holes of future bother me but I’m so mellowed and road bumped by the past, oh, six months, that nothing just might be a 4 dimensional place where I can visit for a while and then continue passing through. I still want a puppy. Eventually I will learn how to sit still. Promise. Then I can get the puppy and teach him the same. I want a dog that can do the cool flip the bone off the nose and catch it trick. I tried it with Spanky but it never worked. Iguanas and hermit crabs are nice but they are a little too endothermic to take hiking with you. It will eventually need to be a dog.

So while I’ve been running helter skelter and inadvertently refusing to stay in my house for more time than I spend elsewhere I’ve settled in a little sea-side town in MA where I can cook amazing things and bake nothing. That’s not entirely true because I have baked masterpieces. The problem is that I have to hire out mercenaries to track down things like flour. There is no flour in this house. (Nor are their flowers in this house but that seems like less of a staple.) So baking takes place in stages in several places with borrowed equipment. I forgot how much I enjoyed cooking for me and not worrying about others tastes and letting experimentation rule in the kitchen. It doesn’t ever seem to work this way at home. I have a great idea. How about post-christmas when I am destinationless you invite me over. Fill your kitchen with pre-foodstuffs and I will cook for you. In a few days I will wander elsewhere to others with well stocked kitchens and in such a way I won’t really have to settle. I can car train my wee pooch as I go. Sounds amazing. Lets do it.


(eventually I will poem again. Stagnation is the rule right now)

But can I have puppies???

House Bouncing

Something more pathetic than most things: A declawed cat trying to sharpen its claws on the corner of the couch.

Where's Waldo

Um. Life is nuts and I am moving around so much that my muse keeps getting lost. In the past 23 days I have been in 13 states, some more than once. I think what happened is that (s)he fell off the truck in South Dakota because I seem to have picked it back up on the train in to Chicago. I am guessing it would take a muse about 2 weeks to make it from South Dakota to Chicago in fair weather. It is still a little bruised and shaken. Hopefully it follows me home from here and doesn't get lost on the way again because as far as I am concerned the states between here and there are something like a black hole on non-existance.

I did the Idaho thing, the grad school search thing, the leisurely drive home thing, the madly unpack and repack thing, the MA thing, and now I am doing the Chicago thing. In my travels I have I have committed to alpacas and guinea pigs, seen lopes loping, created an extensive list of reasons why Indiana is patently wrong, galavanted through cemetaries, delivered hermit crabs, and been snuck into the bowels of a building.

One hundred people moving to the sound of the train on the tracks
Far off stares, distant cares, not quite unhappily bored
There is work, there is worry, and hurry and hurry
To the train, and the rythmn that idle thoughts mask.
Doors will open, Mind the tracks, tickets ready, Click-clack,
The steady approach to the city thats calling
Each stop adds one more to the rythmn that goes
Children on foot, bags in hand, on the tracks on the tracks on the tracks

Waldo lives in coconut bark on Haskel Street...I think.

Sad Things

My car hurts. I don't want to talk about it.

I leave for ID tomorrow.

I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.






...I may not come back.

Good things...

So I got in a letter in the mail...

Chestnuts are falling

The Last Holyhock
Pears that never get ripe
Some Plums
An afternoon's foraging
It's good to be home.

-Jn

hehehe...

Lz sent this to me today. Reminicent of the death by cheese-grater days. Mmmm those were good days.
-Jn