Promised rain never came...

It is a few past eleven and a storm is rolling in. The winds are building in the tree tops and along the water. Down the bluff there are whitecaps seen by faint glints of light coming from neighboring houses. There is no moon nor are there stars. Unless the tide is out all of the way, water must be crashing against the rocks below, but it can’t be seen.

The storm is coming in fast. Fifteen minutes ago I walked from the other building and it was calm. I was temped to stay longer in the garden to look at the night blooming flowers, but there was an eerie feel to the air. It was not so much a chill in my spine as an overwhelming desire to be back inside. Perhaps the same unsettled energy is what hushed the frogs and halted the chirring of the insects. Or maybe what I felt was heard silence driving me indoors. Regardless, by the time I gathered my laundry and made my way upstairs the wind had begun. Now the sound of it against the cliff face and thrashing through the trees is drowning out the hollow iterations of the fog horn.

Scattered in patches of brush and trees between the well hewn banding trails mother cardinals and other nesters will be huddled against the coming rain. A night like this may promise respite from the dangers of sharp-eyed night fliers. And the rain will compliment the cranberry bogs and their swampy surrounds for the frogs. More water lends time for breeding and frantic tadpole growth. It will also pool in depressions too small for much else but healthy crops of mosquitoes. And while the adults feed on banders and other woods wanderers, they will soon become food for the swift birds, and any young that hatch in deeper water will supplement the diet of tadpoles.

But the rain is not as committed to this night as the wind. No thunder cracks through the trees or against the bluff as yet and no lightning has chosen to highlight the cloud edges. There is still time for the drops above to reconsider falling here before the wind blows itself into stillness. They may merely be waiting for a moment of peace and a vertical fall instead of a complicated, muddling sky dance. Or they may decide this watershed has not issued the proper calling and follow the wind further until they find a suitable resting place. Storms are fond of our befores and linger at our afters but they rarely pause here above us for long if at all. Who can know the mind of the rain? And who can map the lightning’s course?

5/30/08 Manomet



...The winds blew all the same.
-Jn

Sip it

Some days are just made for nestling in a comfy chair with an oversized mug of tea and reading. Near enough to the windows that you can see the drizzly grey sky and the misty after-rain and watch the droplets race down the panes. Some days require driving to other peoples’ backyards in a van with a broken everything and a distinct potpourri of mixed molds. Then hiking through wet scrub to get to reach extra large puddles that may or may not be filled with special creatures and standing in cold water until you forget what feet feel like. The van was wet, the papers were wet, the range finder was wet, the people were wet, the waders were wet and the pools were dry-almost. I still don’t want an office job thanks.

My partner at arms is headed back to the frozen North on Sunday and today was my first day without training wheels. It also appears that my fearless leader has been incapacitated for maybe a week and unknown quantity = intern Matt comes on Monday afternoon. But I got a birthday pie, a grad school acceptance email, a perfect little spitfire birthday present, a jar full of tadpoles and planarians, left over Thai food for breakfast and a 14 year old kid who wants to volunteer with us. After we bailed when the rain started again I spent some time pretending to band birds (which I will do more of on Monday while waiting for intern Matt). Tomorrow should look like whales and sweet, sweet laziness.

That time of year

My friends here follow bird calls- they are mostly banders by trade. They seem to know every which mating noise and from whence and who it came. And yes you wonder how such a small beastie could make such a big racket. But birds are flying machines and they are made to hold a lot of air- maybe it isn't so crazy that they could cause a ruckus.

But I follow a different set of romance songs. First and always it is the peepers. Then the wood frogs, then the green. Now the tree frogs and the American toads. Peepers are the smallest frogs around but they consistently make the biggest noise. Unfortunately they all sound the same on the surface except for the occasional excited trill. Wood frogs sound more like ducks and while tree frogs sound happy their burbles don't exactly inspire. My favorite songs emanate from the toads. Long echoing trills stretching in to minutes and all toads at a different pitch and timing harmonizing with each other. But I guess this makes sense too. Honestly if you want to get some action, you need to sound fantastic if you look like a Bufo.

"I have always liked frogs. I liked them since before becoming a zoologist, and nothing I have had to learn about them since has marred the attachment. I like "looks" of frogs and their outlook. And especially the way they get together in wet places on warm nights and sing about sex." -- Dr. Archie Carr

Jn has a Job and 2/3 of a place to live

This post is for the uninformed which is most of my friends because I suck and the last week was also crazy busy. So was the week before that.

Two Wednesdays ago I had a phone interview about a job I had already kissed goodbye because it was supposed to have already been a week underway. Thursday I got coffee and then my motorcycle permit with JJ (I completely forget now why he is JJ in shorthand but I remember that he is). Later that day I got a call while buying high quality produce at Wilson Farms after visiting with the super pregnant, buck-toothed llama and the 2 super pregnant goats who like to bite chickens because I was locked out of my boyfriends house on the day before corned beef and cabbage day which I guess makes it the 27th and this a run on sentence. Regardless, they wanted me and I wanted that job more than any other job I have applied to during my lengthy term of unemployment. As I mentioned they intended to start work before they interviewed me which means they wanted me a week ago then...or about 2.5 weeks ago now which will be this Wednesday. We start from behind and race against time.

One Wednesday ago the Red Queen drove up from her castle in PA to help me pack (and go to a hockey game, a book store, an ice cream stand, and a reptile show-things that NEEDED to happen in order to pack properly I swear). We (NP included) shuffled most of my belongings in to a 5x10 storage room since I now have furniture and can't keep everything I own only in my car. However, it says in big letters on the wall in the office that you cannot sleep or cook or really have any fun at all in the storage space so this does not count as a place to live. The stuff I will actually need or desperately want to have with me is in Catsby who is reluctantly about 1/3 of a place to live. I will sleep in a dorm for the summer with 3 other people hence the other 1/3 of a place. We finished mopping the floor and cleaning out the fridge this morning and RQ and Gurgles were on the road this morning at 8am.

The Job:
I am working for the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences and I am doing this. If choose not to follow the link here is a summary. I will drive around to vernal pools on privately held lands in the Taunton and Charles River watersheds and them for presence/absence of animal species, test salinities, and take water samples that will be tested for fertilizers, pesticides, and road chemicals at another lab. The goal is to hit roughly 100 pools twice between now and when the pools dry up around mid June. Then I will hopefully get to help crunch numbers for data analysis. You should still chase the link because it has cool pictures and a video describing the project. They run out of funding to pay me in mid July sometime, at which point I move back to the north shore or someplace else and reacquire my belongings and a black and white cat.

-Jn

Variations on a Mango- Updated Recipe

2 Large Ripe Mangos, cut in to pieces
2-3 Peaches, cut in to pieces (Optional)
Peach schnapps
Trader Joe's Multigrain Biscuit mix
Oil
Farm Fresh Whole milk
Cinnamon
Vanilla Ice Cream

Cut up the fruit and put it in a bowl. Soak liberally with schnapps and let the fruit bits get thoroughly inebriated. Make the biscuits according to the package (Oil, Milk, donno what else or in what proportions sorry) and add about a half of a cup of sugar (I didn't add the sugar I wish I had). Sprinkle with cinnamon and a little sugar before baking. After the fruit has floated for a few hours dish it in to bowls over ice cream with a warm, wonderful biscuit. If you make enough you can have the same thing tomorrow night too. Bonus!

Some of these events occur in the future

1. I have a job for the summer and I am super stoked. 2. Yesterday was seriously the best day ever. 3. I bought corned beef and company for St. Patrick’s Day and never made it because I joined a Pub Crawl instead. Today is try-to-make-this-meal day and I have included the recipes for your perusal and future use should you choose to trust my culinary skills. Like most of my recipes what follow are compilations of other recipes modified for my good pleasure.

Tonight’s Menu:
Corned Beef and Cabbage (Made following the Ideal or Real World recipe depending on your particular universe)
Horseradish, Chive, and Dill Sauce
Farm Fresh Marbled Rye Bread
Farm Fresh Whole Milk (from a glass bottle)
Dessert- Variations on a Mango

Ideal World Corned Beef and Cabbage:
5-6 Whole carrots cut in large chunks
10-15 Small red potatoes halved
1 Med onion cut in wedges
1 Small Cabbage cut in wedges
1 hunk corned beef (~ 3 lbs)

Enough water to cover the goodness
2 T apple juice

3 Garlic cloves minced
2 Bay leaves crushed (3 small)
3/4 T cracked black pepper corns
1 t Thyme
1 t Paprika
1 t Yellow mustard seeds
½ t Whole coriander
½ t Allspice
¼ t Celery seeds
Pinch of crushed red pepper

Wonk the beef into the crock pot and surround him in with the friendly carrots, potatoes, and onion. Mix the spices with the apple juice and about 2 C of water and pour it over the pot contents. Add enough water to cover the beef and most of the veggies. Cook on high for 2 hours then drop to low heat for 7 hours. Add the cabbage about an hour before you plan to eat (sooner if you like it mushy).
Prep time: about 15 Minutes
Cook time: 9 hours

Real World Corned Beef and Cabbage
(Same ingredients list as Ideal World Corned Beef and Cabbage)

Start preparation at least an hour late because of weird weather causing traffic and talking to your mother. Realize that you left necessary spices at home. Wonk the beef in the crock pot and add the veggies. Add 3 cups of water and turn on high. Make a shopping list (Bay leaves, thyme, paprika, mustard seed, whole coriander, allspice, celery seeds, rye bread, sour cream, chives, whole milk in a glass bottle). Go to Wilson Farms amid hail and rain. Stare at spices for at least 15 minutes. Fail to find yellow mustard seed. Marvel at the size of the snowflakes that are now falling. Discover that pickling spice is primarily mustard seed and coriander. Purchase contents of basket. Walk out of the store into freezing rain. Return to store to purchase a chilly, red tulip and save it from the nastiness. Walk out of store into non-freezing rain that changes to ice pellets half way across the parking lot. Drive home. Place tulip on the window sill between the sprouting white onion and the wee prickly pear cactus. Begin to mix spices. Have an Oh Shit moment over the mustard seed pickling spice dilemma. Dump half of the pickling spice into an empty bay leaf container. Remove the cap from a curry container because it has smaller-than-whole-coriander sized holes. Hold the cap over the now pickling spice container because it is too small to fit securely. Shake mustard seeds and other riff-raff spices into a bowl. Measure out the soloized coriander from the make shift shaker and dump the excess back into the package. Gently shake the bowl containing the remainder of the spices to group the mustard seeds. Tip the bowl slightly to take advantage of gravity and the round properties of mustard seeds. Scoop separated mustard seeds into a 1 t measuring spoon using an inverted ¼ t measuring spoon. Repeat mustard seed separation process until the 1 t spoon is full or madness ensues. Return the riff-raff spices to the original package. Finally add spices to the crock pot two hours after starting the heating process. Eat lunch. Mix sauce to serve with the beef. Type up “improved recipe.” Discover that the tulip is so pleased by its current company and the warmth of the kitchen that it has bloomed. Leave on high for 3 hours total then turn temperature to low. Realize you failed to add the apple juice. Add the apple juice. Add the cabbage just before leaving to pick up your significant other from the train station. Eat when you are too hungry to wait any more.
Prep time: about 2 hours
Cook time: approximately 7 hours

Horseradish, Chive, and Dill Sauce
1 carton (8 oz) of sour cream
1 T prepared horseradish
2 T chopped fresh chives (Use the kitchen shears. It is more fun and faster)
½ t Dried dill
Combine ingredients in a bowl and stir well. Chill. x1 Bonus Multiplier: Return the contents to the sour cream container for storage. (This stuff is really good. I have no clue how it will actually taste with dinner but if it is not a good corned beef pairing is makes one hell of a good veggie dip.)

Variations on a Mango
2 Large Ripe Mangos
.:I will get back to you with the rest of the details when I figure out what the hell I am actually going to do:.

It's quite sunny today by comparision

I ride the train. Other people ride the train. To note this fact is unnecessary. People have private cars, boats, jets, and even busses. Trains are for sharing. I ride the train.

I watch people. I listen. People interest me, their mannerisms, movements, modes of speech. In my opinion this is a better way of investigation than studying by nose. This is possible and it is done. Some do this as a vocation and call it research. Some have a passion. Some just have a misfortune.

Yesterday dulled the eyes and muffled sound. Yesterday chose to force scents. On train one a person nearby gave off the essence of cooked celery. Train two featured someone with the air of stale soup. Free Shuttle Bus air was overcome with the pungent and vibrant scent of ginger (as in fresh cut or candied- notably eatable, not a lotion or perfume). While this was a more pleasant olfactory gift, none of these smells mesh with the nature of a morning, albeit a bustling city morning. I think I would be more accepting or at least less begrudging of these intrusions on my personal space if the odors fit better with the time of day. Before 10:30 or maybe even 11 a day should have traces of syrup and coffee with perhaps some cinnamon or maybe citrus if it must carry a scent in the first place.

A home-bound train paused respectfully at South Station while another sluiced by on shared track. When I joined this train, one of my concomitants spread odors of soggy bread. I mention South Station specifically because during the wait at this junction a youth boarded the train and sat beside me. He deemed it socially necessary to cover whatever natural essences he might carry with his person in a cloak of cologne. The overzealous powers of his scent dampened the influences of any others in my vicinity for several hours afterwards. Perhaps he should be thanked, but at this point it can only be speculation. In fact, the only reason the prior soggy-bread air even remains in my memory is visual impression left on me by the smell bearer. It was unclear which of the people across from me actually held the mantle, but it was either the aged, nearly hairless woman with wan blue eyes or the aged Chinese man with mismatched leg warmers who was worried by the aforementioned woman. Both characters looked like they might be composed, at least in part, of moistened bread. Of all the day’s olfactory twinges, this one was not unnatural. It fit not only in excerpt (because of the physical presence of the bread beings) but also in the context of the whole day.

You may question my last assertion, for when does a damp loaf ever fit a day unless children feeding ducks is involved. Honestly though, it was just a soggy bread day. A cold but thankfully light rain came down on and off but always at a slant. People were walking in a stooped hurry with the speed of their bustle unrelated to the actual time and staring doggedly at the ground as if the concrete or pavement might share some secret of how to better resist the wind if their gaze pierced deep enough. The pigeons were also damp and malcontent, huddling in fluffed masses under eves amid the failed anti-pigeon measures. The only dry pair in the city, an iridescent and importunate groom and his antipathetic bride, reside in North Station and are therefore exempt from paying a weather tax. Surveying the day by eye, ear, and nose, one gets the impression that even a fine loaf of French bread would be flaccid at least in spirit and wonders if the crackers being tossed at the nuptial pigeons were really as crisp as their heritage scrolled on the package claimed them to be.

Some people need an IQ boost

Nick showed me this today.

Gravity: Doesn't exist. If items of mass had any impact of others, then mountains should have people orbiting them. Or the space shuttle in space should have the astronauts orbiting it. Of course, that's just the tip of the gravity myth. Think about it. Scientists want us to believe that the sun has a gravitation pull strong enough to keep a planet like neptune or pluto in orbit, but then it's not strong enough to keep the moon in orbit? Why is that? What I believe is going on here is this: These objects in space have yet to receive mans touch, and thus have no sin to weigh them down. This isn't the case for earth, where we see the impact of transfered sin to material objects. The more sin, the heavier something is.

I can sum it all up in three words: Evolution is a lie

several million years for a monkey to turn into a man. oh wait thats right. monkeys dont live several million years.

For more check here.

No title. Bah.

As soon as I am healthy Ima buy myself some flowers.

Avoid the Plague

Warning: This post is largely about the Norovirus of Death

I am slouching here writing because I am afraid of my soup. I am slouching because I can no longer lay down without going crazy but if I sit up any further it will take much longer to catch my breath. I am also out of breath. I am out of breath because I heated up half a can of vegetable soup donated by my ever-caring neighbor, soup which I am now afraid of. It’s not exactly that I am afraid of eating the soup, it’s the re-eating that’s not so pleasant and more fear inducing. (If the thought of reeating soup makes you queasy you might want to skip to the last paragraph and save yourself some pain.)

If you would like some graphic back story, on Monday at almost exactly 1530 and without even a remote bit of warning I became violently ill in one direction and shortly proceeded to be violently ill in the other direction with little enough time in between to maintain body hydration at an even barely reasonable level. My friend Murphy was around to hold my hair back while I expulsed the contents of my stomach, which is to say that with a toilet and 2 garbage cans in front of me I managed on more than one occasion to hit none of these and had to change clothes and wash a few rugs today when I could finally stand for more than two minutes. (This also makes me out of breath.)

On a positive note I am no longer afraid of the substance that would normally make up 70% of my body and ice cubes are not the coolest and most life saving thing ever invented. I don’t need the crazy cat to wake me up every hour and a half to have a few sips of water lest I slip into unconsciousness (which he strangely, lovingly, and punctually did all Monday into Tuesday). I have conquered my fear of crackers and I will eventually try this whole soup substance. Right now I am content to glance at it cynically and suspiciously out of the corner of my eye.

I also managed to do something today that no one should really ever have to do. When you are a kid your mom or dad takes care of it and when you are in college you have a roommate and when you are old enough (but not yet smart enough) and get drunk enough there is usually someone there smarter than you or you are at someone else’s house and you sort of leave it in their shower for their mom to find and fix. I have a friend who found the rose bushes outside of the Whitehouse to be a convenient self-clean-up free location. I have cleaned up after sick friends, cohorts, and campers and oddly in this one instance of nasty ex-bodily fluids, I feel that it is so much more demoralizing to deal with your own than anyone else’s. You clean up mine, I’ll handle yours. No one should ever have to clean up their own vomit, especially if they are still sick.

By the way, the soup (and everything else that isn’t red bush tea) tastes awful. But I have Murphy tied up and gagged in my like-a-closet and so help me this soup will be properly digested. I am done with little virus demons.

Special shout outs to the neighbor who checked on me whenever possible, strongly encouraged the hospital (advice which I did not listen to mostly because I had no carriage to take me), gave me soup, etc. and to the friend who found me ginger ale as soon as he got off work and drove to the hinterlands to deliver it.

Currently

Currently bewildered
Currently unemployed
Currently enjoying the rampant honesty of the Burnside Writers Collective.

I wonder if they'd take me.

Special notice to the 151 psalm.

Reflections

I saw myself on the train yesterday.

I was taking the red line from Alewife in, sorta sitting to the front of the middle of a car. We weren't too many stops in so not many people. I was looking around reading what was posted for me to read because I figure me reading the ads keeps the prices down right? and people watching in such a way so as not to be staring at any one person and then mostly just staring off into space. (This is what I do on the T. I enjoy it. You don't have to. You can read your book or play games or music on your Ipod. Leave me be and I will pretend not to watch you.) I was staring frontwards and I could sort of see in the car in front of me and I realized that there was someone who looked shockingly like me staring back at me from that car but it wasn't a reflection because the person was wearing a blue coat with a fluffy hood and I had on my black wool coat. Now I took this in all in half a second and instead of locking eyes with the person staring I looked away slowly cause I am not an blatant in your face people watcher like some emo kids (just daring you to look them in the eye so they can think mean thoughts at you because you must hate them and you surely dont understand). And in an appropriate bit of time I looked forward again because damn, I am in that car. And that person was definitely still there but the car went around a bend as I looked up and I got to see the head, the shockingly me like head, detach from the blue coated body and hover staring at me beside a round Chinese face bundled in a blue coat. And to be truthful I sucked in a quick breath when my head got pulled off. It was me...but it wasn't me. And I know it was just reflections but it was still pretty creepy. Sigh...the existential.

I saw myself on the subway yesterday.

My clock says 8:20

Windshield wipers
…and on that account windshields
…but we will stick to the wipers for the moment.

The other day I was driving and the sun was shining and everything was going great…and unlike most stories that start with the sun was shining and everything was going great, everything continued to go great and I thought to myself…I am really glad that I have windshield wipers that work. Pause with me for a minute.

That was a pause for a swig of beer. Now think that through…why on God’s green earth does one think of windshield wipers when its not raining and they are in perfectly good condition but not needed at all. I don’t know.

But it got me to thinking…what else am I not using or not needing right now that still works and I take for granted? See its easy to complain about something when it stops working (like the other day when it was snowing and the wipers were part frozen and the part of the windshield right in front of my vision wouldn’t come clean) and when you are using something lots of times you still remember to be thankful about it (Like when I didn’t have good wipers for a couple of months and then I put new ones on and the next day it POURED). But what about all of the stuff that works and works well even when you don’t need it.

Like how about that clock. Yeah the one you just looked at. You probly hadn’t looked at it for a while until I just mentioned it and you probably didn’t need to look then. But it’s still working. And boy, aren’t you glad it works even when you don’t need it. Because if it stopped keeping time when you were in another room it wouldn’t be much good.

Windshield wipers.

More better than a cover letter

Not Every Café (Ipswich 12/04/07)

There is love and there is life and place to sit down and write and places that cant help but to be wrong.
I watch people walk and people talk and people watch each other going by.
And billboards scream commercial things. Did you know I can do anything if I just buy that lipstick cherry red?
Down the city streets a machine sweeps and discarded pink-orange cups go down the drain.
Meanwhile, my coffee cup keeps filling up by the window where I watch the rain come down.
And I think that maybe love and life dance upon a razor knife. It isn’t like a fairy tale at all.
Each step hurts and each spin cuts. Lovers, livers all are nuts, but they keep dancing lest they fall away.
And maybe to love true and deep you have to callous up your feet, walk barefoot nearly every single day.
But before I tease it in to sense my breakfast money is all spent and cream cheese clings to my finger tips.
Yes there is love and there is life and places to sit down and write, but as for this café, I’m moving on.

-Jn

From the chilly apartment

:::Editors Note::: Blogger keeps screwing up the formatting on the poem. It tells me there will be indentations and then it takes them away. Lo siento. Thats the way it its. ::End Note::

I fear this one is a little dark. Or a lot dark. I have been running around with a cadre of artists lately. Working for them rather. Raking leaves. Ripping apart quilts. Doing other peoples dirty laundry. Normal stuff. There are proper polished portraits in the studio. Children laughing on a bench together. A dignified gentleman. Normal stuff. Then there are the bizarre ones. Hubcaps with wires and a crucifix in bronze and black. A nude burgeoning attached to the roots of the earth. A portrait of a girl in a green dress who is beautiful at first look and second look and even fourth but the fifth shows her to be bound and blindfolded. Normal stuff.

This kept coming whilst walking back and forth from house to out buildings on one or another task. I polished from the poet throne. (Which is not a toilet- it's a longed for chair. Pictures eventually…when the cat lets me put the bed down)

While the Christ Hung Dying in Mid-day Night (Ipswich 11/26/07)

Two boys there (small)
With stones in hand
And cornered, a cat (cowering)
And the stones flew
For in the market they had seen it
Their fathers doing justice
Following the Law (perfect)
Purging the sinful from the world
Calling out the sins as sentence (stones) fell
And are not all guilty of sin
Thus this mother cat (unwed)
Must have secrets (lecherous)
Must be removed
But for the (troublesome) bent woman (ancient)
Who came cackling
Rebuking the boys
"Wanton killers
Untamed beast children
Fear you not God (omnipresent)
Or the Law (perfect)"
And they ran- but laughing
And they laughed- but also they ran
And they did not mock the hag
Away the (broken) cat limped
Into the alley (shadowed)
Where the soldier (former)
Deserter lurking
Watched the beauty (girl-youth)
About to pass by
As on previous days
Grabbed her (virginal) (screaming)
Fulfilled his deed
Ran
Fearing God (omniscient)
Fearing the Law (perfect)
Fearing the sobs (post virginal)
Fearing men (fallen)
All while the Christ hung dying
(Agonized) eyes closing at "finished" to mark the stop
God-Man (naked) perfect and dead
And the great God (omnipotent)
Closed His eyes impossibly– curtains rent
Counted to ten– children wailed
Ever so slowly– dogs howled
Opened them– (mid-day) night ended
And all could be forgiven
Though the cat (girl)– alone
Did not outlast the darkness

-Jn

Picture = Acadia

My world is working its way into rights now. I have a wee apartment and a parking space off the street. The front door is cranberry to match the juice in the fridge. I have laundry and dish cleansing machines for my personal convenience and I can make tea any time of day. My clothes have homes in drawers and on hangers which is better than suitcases because it is easier to find items and remember that they are owned and loved and should be worn more. I have pieces of me scattered everywhere to remind me of who I was and who I will be and the walk between the two places. I have a chair to sit in and ponder and write about the journey. Every time I turn around I find something new that I needed or wanted or missed that I didn’t even know was lacking but I can now claim for myself again. My soul makes little happy sighs and life is good. It’s like little waves brushing up against the beach of a cove when the tide is coming in, small push-pulls taking away the stress of hundreds of days homeless and leaving scattered treasures for a shell seeker. I know things now about what I can and cannot do and I more deeply know friendship, answered prayer, comfort, and love. And now I can scribble my collected know’s down for keeps in the battered yellow poet-throne that I have been waiting on for countless days. It’s coming back home though I’ve never been here before. It’s rebecoming human.

Look a penny!

Dirty Feet (Ipswich 10/31/07)

The world. The world. It swirled, the world, and white was black was white was color. And then the words in twos and fours impatient came and called names, laid blame. And the silence was violent and empty and the stillness was full of sounds. Alone was undone and I was the one put paid to for dirty hands.

Why? I didn’t understand.

And I righted what was left I thought and I begged and I bought but the prices were high and I couldn’t fly anymore. Dirty wings.

Oh the things I would sing and I would sing and sing and the people would bring flowers and gifts and children with fits would calm and give alms in the streets.
No.
There were taunts and jeers and I fled in tears. Streaked face, my face, my dirty face.

The colors used to dance for me in this magic book and the words would flow in to steady rows and salute. I’m destitute. I’m alone. And I go and I go. I’m trying to grow. To be bigger. To be stronger, branches get longer. Why can’t I just leave?
No.
Dirty feet.

Feet wont walk. Mouth wont talk. Eyes won’t see. Hands grope and hands touch. Hands sense and hands feel. “What is there? What is there Dirty Hands?”
Dirty hands.

“Be clean. It’s a dream. Wake up. Please wake up.” And I tear at my skin. Let me in. Let me in. Let me out. Get me out of this place. A well? A hell? A falling for sure. A down without out but not nearly the end. No final amen and a choir on high. I wont die.

“Colors stop coming! Where are your lines? Who stole the designs of this life?” A knife to the pages or better a torch. A threat in a flame. “Say my name. Say my proper name Words. I am good, though I’m sullied and not to be bullied and I know I know how to sing.”
Dirty face.
Dirty wings.
Dirty life dances in cold rain. Pleads for clean. And I spin and I spin and focus comes in for a moment, an instant and the tempos they match. Words line up as they hatch.
Exhausted.
I collapse. Still dirty. Now dizzy. But the bitter is sweet for my dirty feet.
Dirty feet washed little more clean.

Space

I have a place to live for 6 whole months…almost…and sort of…I can’t move in yet because its not done…but it will be…I hope.

Now I have to find the job that goes with the rent payments and the etc. that comes with actually living some place. That’s gonna be a bit tricky.

What I really want is a space that belongs to me. Kinda like the Ground Hog gets his own little old oak stump. I don’t have a place really…just bits of space in other people’s homes and bits of time when they might not be home. I never feel alone. I never get the type of rest that comes from sitting around in your favorite chair with a cup of tea or a beer with a worn out book or a notebook. It’s not the same when you are surrounded by other people’s comforts. Other people’s treasures don’t shine the same way. You can’t tell other people’s guests that they are ugly or ignorant and that they should leave because you are one too and maybe its better you step out.

I get weighed down by the fact that I am stuck living in places that don’t feel like home. I am tired of temporarily setting up shop and living out of suitcases, tired of lugging all of my food around in a laundry basket, tired of my car acting like a giant closet. I want a window to put plants in and I want a bed to put my quilt on. I want a closet for my stuff and a kitchen that I can keep my dishes and pans in. I want to be able to come home to silence…or to have people over or go out if I want. I am tired of being forced in to being social when I am not a social person by nature. The more stretched and stressed the harder it is for me to function like a person is expected to and the more often it seems to be required of me. I understand 5L a lot more lately. Space is precious.

Catch Up

A list I meant to post ages ago. We went up to Maine. We went to Acadia National Park. It is a wee little park compared to some of those other national treasures out west. It has a wee little tourist town associated with it known as Bar Harbor. We finally started keeping track of license plates we saw on the island when we were driving around because there were more other plates than Maine plates. I have included a map mostly so you can see who isn't cool. This is what we came up with…

States we saw:

1. California
   
2. Colorado
   
3. Connecticut
   
4. Delaware
   
5. Florida
   
6. Georgia
   
7. Hawaii
   
8. Idaho
   
9. Illinois
   
10. Indiana
    
11. Iowa
    
12. Kansas
    
13. Maine
    
14. Maryland
    
15. Massachusetts
    
16. Michigan
    
17. Minnesota
    
18. Missouri
    
19. New Hampshire
    
20. New Jersey
    
21. New Mexico
    
22. New York
    
23. North Carolina
    
24. North Dakota
    
25. Ohio
    
26. Oregon
    
27. Pennsylvania
    
28. Rhode Island
    
29. South Carolina
    
30. Tennessee
    
31. Texas
    
32. Vermont
    
33. Virginia
    
34. Washington
    
35. West Virginia
    
36. Wisconsin
    

Canadian Mini-Nations or whatever:
Quebec
British Columbia
New Bruswick
Manitoba
Ontario
Nova Scotia

And the outlier:
Washington D.C

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

Back

I don’t know that I realize it before I start but every time I come home from a while away I play the same game and I think something similar before I leave. And I always look for the same things first though they aren’t the same any more. When I spin into my driveway I am waiting for a spunky puppy to come tearing around from the back of the garage or when I am not met there at least a stiff old one to sheepishly haul her arthritic self off of the couch. But there is no dog. Instead there are puffball kittens and half cats and a lithe and lanky yellow eyed wee-beast waiting for me mowling. And I wander around back to check on the trees I know and the garden growing things. The pond is nearly empty and only has 3 frogs and no ducks. Strange. There are chickens. There are always chickens. Sometimes more sometimes less always different colors. Chickens. Check. And then I look to the last patch of sun on the back porch for the orange tripod that never really quite acted like a cat anyways. But of course he is not there. These two are buried side by side like they slept near the rock pile at the edge of the woods. If you were some how wondering, this is what I meant (It’s like coming home in the twilight when everyone else is gone.) though I suppose there were twinges of amber and orange. Let's call them ghosts. Welcome Home. -Jn

Caryatids are not Katydids

A Beast Called Sorrow (9/22/06 RRC)

Deceptions become repetitions
To perpetuate the hurt received.
Never finding peace
But searching all the while
In a style recognized by gangsters cowboys and the like.
It’s an open mic.
Tell me your fears and dreams and then
I’ll share mine
Just like every time.
Except I don’t expect a solution to the problem
I’ve come to love as me,
And what I do and what I see is
Tainted by the sorrow I claim only as my own.
It’s like coming home in the twilight
When everyone else is gone.
Slightly bruised pride purple splashed against the walls
And an echo in the halls,
But though you want to run,
It’s where you need to be.
Please don’t try to take from me
This beast that I have tamed
Even named
For sorrow is sweet,
purposed,
meet
When the leaves have fallen away
And on special gray days
When the flowers mourn
Because they’re not quite as bright
And on those nights when the hurts are remembered.
They’re dying embers,
But child still don’t touch.
Meddle in the fire too much and
You will be burned in the self-same way.
Maybe then we can share this pain.

-Jn

I forgot about her

A Daughter Of Eve
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.

My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.

Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:--
Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.

Hehehe...

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Antigone

Coal Miner’s Daughter (9/12/06 - RRC)

Pondering what it means to be a coal miner’s daughter
I can’t help playing in the water
And I like to watch it as it goes
Coming down in rains and snows
And piling up in pools behind a beaver’s master piece
Filled with water-weeds for the geese
And I like to watch the trees turning red
Before they are forced to disrobe in the cold
It shows what you know
When you name them by feel
Makes them real
And I like their hidden rings
Because there’s beauty in seldom seen things
Like the dark bands round the earth
That fuel the lights of the night
Globe round and in your town
And the water shouldn’t turn rust-brown
But you find a better way
It’s not to say that I don’t care
I know what’s there
And what it means to take away
I know how red blood can be
When you fell a beast
But in the least I’m thankful
For the chance to understand
For these hands to know the textures of a life
And the colors to be seen beneath the skin
Maybe it’s a sin to dig to the earths black
But stand back and tell me
How you keep your hands clean
When you tell them they can’t cook
Or have lights to read
Because there is no steam
Have you ever thought it through?
And what do you do to make acid rain?
We’re all stained- guilty for living
And for passing around the blame
Really we all stand the same
Though you choose to look away
Or shake your fists at my father
But what do I know
I’m just a coal miner’s daughter

-Jn

You mean I don't live here?

Interesting....I like the Beverly house. I dont think I want to leave ever. It is prudent that I leave on Thursday as that is the day that my itty-bitty lease runs out. Maybe if I buy them some beer. Work is bouncing between overnights and days and split shifts which are just my gosh awful favorite. It's getting about time to go home. Pitty. I have lots of people to play with up here. I'm around for another week or so, then this homelessness business will end. I do miss PA. I just wish there was a more direct route from Boston to my end or that maybe it wasn't quite so far away. I should visit ALL the time. I should get a car that runs on H2O while I am at it. Silly financial instability. My Saturday went like...taking a nap after work then making blueberry pancakes and having uber stimulating discussion over breakfast with one NP moderated and mediated by Tybo then meeting up with MelKel to play in the tide pools at her "cute little beach." I got to ride on the shiny but yet unnamed bike and we found critters of all types. When we couldnt catch any lobsters the 8 year old kids got us some to play with. Those kids were awsome and this is not to say that Tybo is not awsome because he could not catch the gianormous lobster. He put in a damn good effort and he still earned himself a beer because he caught me a fish barehanded. The ride home was something like stimulating because we were in a slight hurry to beat impending death and large coastal thunder storms. We only got a wee bit wet. Then we went to Kitty's and met up with some other just-happened-to-be-in-town types and had a spectacular night. Sunday we made ammeretto french toast and hit up church then they let me watch football ALL day yesterday!!!! By they I mean the networks and the oldschool tv and the boys. This is not to say that the boys watched football with me all day as well, just that they didn't complain. I even get to watch my Steelers play on Monday because they are going to let me come back. Must make sure I am not working that night. That would be tragic. Hmmm....

Things you dont want to hear while I'm eating

I mean while you are eating.

Normally when your mucus makers kick into overdrive this is a bad thing. You spend your days woah-is-me-ing (woad-id-me id more what id souds like) and nose blowing. However, in my uniqueness, this seems to be my bodies way of telling me that I am quickly approaching better.

See evil guerilla germs infultrated my mucus factories in force in an attempt to change my personal autocratic government into a dictatorship bowing to the whims of the head germ leader. All factories were forced to close and production ceased, crippling the traffic infrastructure. The coup was nearly successful as the powers that be were too stuborn at first to call for help and unwilling to admit that Immune System First-Strike had been overwhelmed and colapsed instantly. But when militia armies of Chicken Soup and OJ made were ineffective and Na-Cl monoxygen-dihydride gargle-bombs were scoffed at, RN peace keeping troops were called in. After a mere 24 hours of constant battle the guerilla forces have been pushed back. A monitoring RN force is in place to ensure that the rebel forces are irradicated and there is no chance of a second attack while militia units are brining relief to the state forces. The mucus peasants are showing their support by redoubling their efforts in mucus production and outside critics are wondering if this was all staged by the government to receive support from other nations. What remains to be seen is how many other nations have been infiltrated by escaping rebels as the nations borders could not be sealed during the initial irradication.

(I worked ~20 hours and attended a recital while contagious...oops)

In other news I am moving away from the cat house and into a princess suite this evening. Whilst there I will be waited on, hand and foot, by 4 strapping young gentlemen....or something like that anyways. Who ever said it was bad to be homeless? -Jn

I didn't take pictures

I got to play miner today. Sort of. I was helping 105 dig a basement with a ragtag crew of some pretty random people. I like this idea of friends helping friends do things like build decks and basements and whatever. People should do these things and friends should help them. Free sweat, dirt, and well worked muscles with pizza, beer, and pop for lunch. Yes. This is why the Amish can do those cool barns and houses and quilts.

I learned fun things too. Like dirt comes in all colors, textures, and even smells. When you are all shoveling from different places into one big pile its beautiful really. Rocks are the same way even if all the rocks were granite. But regardless of all the myriad cool things about geology all rocks and dirt are heavy. And man is mortal. And my arms dont work anymore from betwixt the shoulderblades and decreasing in functionality down to the finger tips.

This is a good tired. Not like those other tireds I have been this week.

-Jn

(Tybo can come too)

HMoCZ and finches

I have been running around with crazy people all week. I saw Frog and then Tybo and Mel Kel and we went bookstoring and talking and breaking and entering and vintage shoping and eating a lot of eating. I also got to hang out with JJ for a bit. Oh and I got a pen. I think I mentioned it before. I mention it again. I got a pen.

Yesterday I saw everything and that is a lie. We went into bean town (well cambridge anyways) to the Harvard Natural History Museum. There was and amazing photograph exibit that what worth our student discounted admission all by its lonesome but then there was the museum of comparative zoology. We spent so much time running around in there that there was only about 15 minutes for the glass flowers exibit and they kicked us out before we ever got to the minerals and the history section (and they had a thing about anceint peruvian culture). Silly closing time. But we were never gonna leave otherwise. Then we went and found and idyllic concrete bench on the side of an asphalt path and munched on a rather late lunch. Is it dinner when you wait until after 5? Maybe. I started feeding this cute little finch some of my sandwich. Then there were like 4 more little finches so I was feeding them too. Then there were 100 finches and they ceased to be cute and comenced to be a little creepy and opressive. Mel Kel accused me of pushing buttons. She was right. She is frequently right. I told Tybo he would get $2 for a finch but he never caught one. We also talked about a million good things on the way too and from. Homesteading, farming in general, keeping all industry in village, travel, our honeymoon, books, people, and many many other things. And we made it home with no problems. That was exciting. Then Kt came over. We ate a lot of pizza and talked until I almost fell asleep. Life is good.

It is my day off and I am going in to work. Orientation. Freshmen. I love freshmen.

My favorite I think is that it is move in day and it rained all night and it is stlil raining on and off. Life is good.

I have pictures of yesterday but once again they are trapped in a camera...whose batteries are going dead. Hmm....

(it mentions fish!)

When I lost my computer 20 times a day I would stumble over the fact that I would show someone something (a picture a poem whatever) if I'd had it. The same is true about the camera. This time see I have the camera but no way to transfer the goodies that live inside of it to a more public media. I am told the way is coming via mail. My thought is that like the computer the immediate, essential uses for the camera will disapear when it isn't out of service. Had I a camera I would show you the pen. For now you have to wait on the USPS.

As an update, I am homeless again in a little over 2 weeks. No worries. School starts in days which equals friends with floors and an over abundance of meal points.

Also I do NOT like silverfish. This is promted by the silverfish crawling from out of no-where in the office and suicide jumping off of the desk onto my pants. I like house centipedes and they live in drains and have an unusual number of legs and strange appearance so its not that exactly. Silverfish are just...just...shudder. Thats all. Period.

-Jn

Nothing More (finished 8/22/06 RRC)

I’d mourn you if I thought you’d mourn me
More than lost fate and too little too late.
But then, I haven’t given up on us enough
To write you off as gone for good like I should
And learned how to grieve the twice deceased
And love almost had. Though it’s not quite too bad,
And I can live half-widowed before I’m promised wed
Or ever met in bed and I never have to know
That it wouldn’t have gone beyond a kiss or two
Under a moderately romantic moon before
You left me for whatever seemed better at the time.
But pity’s not my line. This is just the mess I guess
That could be in my head. Instead I sip here waiting,
Cold beer in hand, anticipating the day you’re on this shore.
Only this, and nothing more.

With Love and Squalor

One of my favorite shorts. I don't exactly know why. A few typos but I think that's what keeps it free.

yup, gate's still broken

I was going to post about my new dog but apparently I don't have a new dog and it was a dirty rotten lie the whole time.

For the record The Wall has been chosen and and while many have been sentenced no one has been sent...yet.

Pictures I promised sometime

I planned on leaving you with better pictures of my rainbowhead and adding some of camp but I left my camera cable at home so this is all you get for now. The hair pictures really only show how nuts it is not the actual colors...sorry.

The really cool bug.

The hands that killed Barney...or dyed my hair

A little more blue than it should be

A little too pink

-Jn

icteo-thesaurus your mom

abrupt, acid, acrid, acrimonious, awkward, bad-tempered, base, bearish, bellicose, bitchy, bleak, blue, blue funk, bluff, blunt, boorish, brief, broody, brusque, cantankerous, captious, caviling, chapfallen, cheerless, choleric, chuffy, churlish, cloddish, clodhopping, contentious, contrary, crabbed, crabby , cranky, crestfallen, cross, cross-grained, crotchety, crude, crusty, curmudgeonly, curt, cussed, cynical, dejected, depressed, desolate, despondent, difficult, disagreeable, disconsolate, discourteous, dismal, disobliging, dispirited, disputatious, dour, downcast, downhearted, dragged, dreary, eccentric, eristic, faultfinding, forbidding, forlorn, fractious, fretful, gloomy, glum, grim, grouchy, gruff, grumpy, hard, harsh, hasty, huffy, ill-humored, ill-mannered, ill-tempered, impatient, impolite, irascible, irritable, joyless, jumpy, loutish, lowbred, malicious, mean, melancholy, menacing, mirthless, miserable, misanthropic, miserly, moody, moping, mopish, morose, mournful, mumpish, nasty, nasty-tempered, oafish, obnoxious, obstreperous, odd, offensive, oppressed, ornery, peeved, peevish, perverse, pessimistic, pettish, petulant, prickly, put out, queer, querulous, quick-tempered, ratty, rude, rustic, sad, sarcastic, saturnine, scornful, severe, sharp, short, short-tempered, snappish, snappy, snarling, snippety, snippy, solemn, sour, splenetic, stringent, sulky, sullen, surly, tart, terse, testy, tetchy, touchy, tough, trying, twitty, ugly, uncivil, uncivilized, uncultured, unfriendly, unhappy, ungracious, unlikable, unmannerly, unpleasant, unpolished, unsociable, unusual, uptight, vexed, vulgar, waspish, waspy, weary, whiny, woebegone

Can I ask you a question?

To the guys I met at the gas station off 84 in NY at quater to 3 last friday night. Normally I am more talkative, I was just really tired. Lets get coffee or something.

Vacation

In a week I've:
Sucked at darts
Played with kittens who hate thing
Exagerated to the point of untruth (What is it about my family)
Marveled at the interconnections in a family tree
Played college counselor
Watched bats wake up and run
Swam in no degree water and disGUSting water
Watched a cat have kittens
Seen a bunch of friends
Found out about a bunch of impending weddings
Washed my fathers neck with WD40
Washed my car
Hung out in a hammock
Obeyed a speed limit of 9 1/2
And any number of other things

And for the record my family is pretty damn awsome. I will keep um. All of um. The sister snuck on to my blog unannounced and purchased for me some of the books on my list. Yesssssssssss.

Eclectic like hair color...

My head crunchified then fireworked and now its pretty stellar.

The gift that keeps on giving. I have an anklet of a different color. This instant colors it purple. I wonder what comes next?

I found a wicked sweet bug last night heaving his last breaths. He might survive the day and if he does we cheer for him. If not .:wipes a tear:. I think we stick a pin in his back and encapsulate him in a box for posterity. I like posters.

What the man didn't know was that I actually started vacation before my last shift was over. I'm not exactly sure when but it was sometime between waking up on a cold tile floor when the compressor kicked on and saving the love-birds from the beach mosquitoes. Moscos Cojoneses, Aye! The other man knew but there was nothing he could do about it but supply direct pressure and hope the bleeding exhuberance stopped. It did...when he went home.

Breakfast rabbit style in Glouchestershire. (A little south of Manster) Carrot cake pancakes with rabbity goodness baked right in. Unless I go for the uncrunchy granola aka oatmeal of amazingness. Shifts can be run on giddiness without caffiene or sleep. Breakfast choices require coffee and MelKel.

Did I mention I was engaged?...I thought not.

Hopefully the happy intellects forget this building as condemned as it should be has internal-air cooling, external-air heating, electric meter propulsion devices. Half-couch sleep is better than so many other things, for instance negative-sleep driving and full-floor sleeping.

I prefer to drive when it is well dark. The more insane people are sleeping and more sane deer are awake and in the middle of the highway where they can be properly illuminated. Catsby prefers live deer as they have the option of moving out of the way. Dead deer not so much. I take her advice on most things (like potential boyfriends) though her definition of full and mine are rather different. I can't tell her to suck it up wuss...but I can put and apple sticker on her forhead.

Pictures of important brightly colored objects should follow upon my return to uncivilization sometime tomorrow around no oclock.