School days - dazed and confused.

Today is the first day of the rest of the ...week, I guess.
Class at SCCC start today.
Meredith needs the Prius to get to Group health for an eye exam so I'll have my choice of either the VW or the Vespa.
Nice enough weather, I'll scoot.
Got to leave in half an hour, so I'm not going to post anything this morning.

I've heard so much chatter about "proper" punctuation that I no can no longer write its it's your youre or any of those kind of words without going into an hebephrenic
frenzy of confusion. I sometimes even pass out for short periods.

Like now.

Ranger's cabin.

Stuff Meredith found on her last archaeological sojourn.

Aspirin/ammeter

Monarch wood stove

Pack saddle

Fan? Hair dryer? Part of a wind tunnel? Your guess is as good as mine.

Heliograph

Bottles

More bottles

Record player and records

Blasting generator

Forge blower

And lot's more.
Looks like it would have been fun.

Now it's back to turning the horn sonata into a horn concerto.

The Pit

I turned SNL off last night so I could get back to reading about the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.
Wondering what peaches have to do with it.
And what is significant about eating/not eating one.
I have eaten more than one and all I remember is sticky hands, something I do not like.

Letter to a friend.

Dearest Melissa.
I appreciate that you consider me the "one and only" love of your life.
I know the feeling, I have felt the feeling, I have been through all that the feeling entails. I have felt the giddiness, the floating feeling of intoxication, the feeling of time suspended. And I have felt the withdrawal  aches as the it wears away and is slowly absorbed into the blood stream, converted into waste products and excreted.
Your willingness to enter into a "life long" legal contract with me on the basis of this feeling is flattering but I'm afraid impractical. The idea that we were "destined to be together" is a charming concept but is unrealistic to the point of psychopathy. "Living on love" is not a talent I've ever able to make work, nor can I imagine any possible mechanism by which the philosophy might play out in a real world situation. A situation, I might add that involves major legal, moral and monetary compromise. Actually, I can imagine such scenarios and they seldom end well.
As long as I'm on the subject, I might ask you to look into a dictionary an read carefully all the meanings of the word "love", a word which you seem to like to toss around a bit too casually as far as I'm concerned.
Love might find a way, but until it does we would need food, shelter, and a sensible retirement strategy.
Preparatory to this we would need a "job" or perhaps two.
Please do not interpret this to mean that I am not opposed to further relationship. On the contrary with a few years of serious discussion and examination of bona fides, a contract might possibly be drawn to benefit both of us.
By the way what was that perfume you were wearing Friday? It was wonderful.

Yours, Walter.

Three old ones

Jingle says I can link three of these things at -

Jingle Poetry Potluck

Weltchmerz

Santa Clause...

The Easter Bunny...

The Tooth Fairy...

God, Honor, Justice...

Love...

I'm half afraid that when I get to

Death -

That'll turn out to be bullshit too.

Love story number nine

Long trip in a short boat

I knew when I launched -

my Canoe -

Into the river of her -

Whitewater eyes -

That I was in for a troubling

Ride -

And wouldn't be back -

For Days.

Going places at the speed of night

Bus Trip

Through the clouded night

binary stars passing

at the speed of light

distant red stars pulsing

left and right

square, round, diamond

galaxies reflecting

far off - 

buffeted 

by dark matter -

unseen hands -

interstellar winds - 

rocking the bus,

the cradle

So why not?

Jungle trek

Sunshine through the curtain mocked me.
"Get off it loser" it seemed to say, "I ain't gonna be here forever"
"Right" I said and did so.
Rounding up my best available horse I headed out in to the wilderness.
After hours of dense underbrush, we managed to scramble to the top of a wild, untamed knoll.
Whereupon I discovered an oasis, a veritable fountain of youth where the waters run brown with the elixir of wakefulness.
I tethered my faithful steed, stowed my crash helmet, and Yea, I did partake of the waters there.
Also a ham and cheese sandwich.
Feeling thus refreshed I began the journey home.
But before I got to the hitching post, I beheld a strange sight; could this be the fabled Sasquatch?
Curiosity being what it is, I circled the area in hopes of getting a closer look whereupon, I came face to face with the curious beast.
My heart caught in my throat but I managed to hold my terror in check, for I don't think I was noticed.

It wasn't a Sasquatch, but a smaller ape-like animal that shared some of the Sasquatch's characteristics.

So my fear was unfounded, I was merely reacting to the surprise of the unexpected encounter.

Still, I was a bit shaky on the trip homeward, although that might have been due to the elixir of which I did imbibe in unintended quantities at the aforementioned spa.

I did divert my journey to pass by a ranch of mine just to see if the fences were in good shape.
Thus I judge the quality of care that the keeper of the grounds is maintaining.
Everything looked in good repair, so I rode on.

But the adventure wasn't over.
On arrival, my amusingly comical sidekick informed me of a smoke signal from the very quarter from which I had so recently decamped.

A leaky roof.
Had I only known.

I was back on the trail on the instant to respond to the situation.
Being back in the area and having dealt with the problem, I found myself again near the lair of the Sasquatch.
Fortunately, I once again managed to avoid confrontation with the beast.

"Beast", I suppose is not exactly the proper denomination, for it was a rather attractive animal in many ways and not nearly as fearsome as I had first imagined.
Nonetheless, why take chances?

So I sipped once again the waters of the spa ("Coffee", that is the name of the place) and finally managed to get all the way home without falling off.
Alas during the interregnum the sun, true to it's word, had departed from the sky leaving my day a little darker for all my efforts.

About.

I am about to go out for some coffee, perhaps to disappear from the face of the earth.
Don't wait up.

O what the hell?

We Are Still

We are still -

We are still

apes

We are still -

ashamed of our nakedness.

We are still

Waiting -

We are still

Apes

How long til evolution catches up to our vanity ?

Sometimes a faint zephyr of hope stirs the air around me -

Sometimes I think we may be human after all.

Sand through the glass

More about 19th century mechanical engineering.

Another bike trip.
34.4 miles
9.69 avg
33.5 max
600.1 odometer + 1307 = 1907.1
This post is an official splog posting to be used for official purposed only.

Got totally pooped out at about 21 miles, stopped on the waterfront and watched the boats for awhile.
Last time I made this tyrip I was hooting along Airport way at 12 to 14 mph and rode all the way up Ryan way.
Today it was all I could do to keep it at 10 and I took the longer path up M.L.K. to avoid the climb
I am so ashamed of my wimpy self after all those Spanish bike rides I've been watching on the telly.

O Solo Mio

Meredith is off again digging up the dirt on some people who have been dead for thousands of years.
So, yesterday I celebrated by firing up the Vespa and doing some bike trail  recon looking for a way down from Beacon hill that doesn't involve the Holgate freeway overpass, which is steep rough and has a low (from a bicycle seat perspective, anyway) guard rail.
Scary!
Seems possible to use the Spokane St. route.
After which I scooted on up to my fave spot on Q.A. then headed home.
Partway there, I made a sudden u-turn and headed out towards Ballard and Shilshole,
then back to Q.A., making it a 45 mile jaunt.
That ought to charge it's little battery!
Meredith has the car, so the scooter is my default transportation for the duration.
(could use the van, but the scooter is more fun and gets 80 mpg).

Q.E.D. I had too much coffee yesterday

Then spent the rest of the day rebuilding my latest Duke map that I lost when I inadvertently saved it in a wrong format.
I still have it, but I can't use it.
Had to do it from memory, (the one in my head, not the computers).

Actually got to bed before 1:00 AM this time.
But the new version is better.

So, no poetry today.

Just the mundane.

REM

There is a phase between sleep and wake,

Where the liqueur of life is brewed.

A world of possibility -

Free from the chains of  madness awake

There is a well of pure conceit -

Where the only truth is now.

Powered by a beating heart,  

the electricity of a soul -

Assembled by a  hand unseen -

The  author of it all

Drink deep, travelers, from this spring 

Drink deep , drink deep.

Archaeology.

Here is where Meredith went.

High in the Rockies.

Trees don't do so well as here in the Soggies.

Nice house. Lots of potential

Here is where she worked. The job site.

It is a team effort.

The folks she worked with.

Shake it but don't break it.

Bending over for long periods of time is not necessary.

Here is where she slept

Looks like fun.

After a week of this many fine tiny chunks of obsidian chips were added to the sum of human knowledge.

And she is off again tomorrow on another adventure beneath the thin veneer of civilization.

Nike

Got the new (relatively) machine up and running.
Got the videos of last year's show posted on MySpace.
Found out how to load them on Reverbnation.
I'll do that tomorrow.

This is one of the pictures from Meredith's archaeological adventure.
There are more, tomorrow for that also.

Tonight it's, well, good night.

Igloo

Spent the day so far in frustration.
First trying to copy some of my writing to my computer so that I can print it out, but that doesn't work for some reason.
I can "copy" it but it won't "paste"
Guess I'll have to copy it from the site with a pencil then type it out.

THEN, I noticed this morning thatthe ukulele I glued the bridge and fingerboard on and finished yesterday was all wonky and misaligned.
Neck is warping or something.

I thought it was done.

THEN THEN I spent more than an hour pushing buttons on line trying to upload videos.
Accidentally got Youtube to take the violin concerto vids, so although I now know it's possible, I still don't know what the difference was, or still is for that matter.

So anyway, the vids are on Youtube but Reverbnation says the URl that I copied off the U2b site is "invalid".

So anyotherway, walked down to the library with M this morning to keep an eye on the place during it's week long closure (part of her volunteer work for that noble institution).
That was nice.
I think I'll go outside again soon just to soak up as much Vitamin D as I can before the snows fall, trapping us in the cabin for the duration of the winter.

Tonight, tonight, (at 8:00) won't be just any night.

violins

Tonight is the premier (and most likely, last) performance of my sonata for violin and piano called "eightball in the side pocket" or was called, anyway.
Now I'm thinking of calling it "Domestic dilemma".
The violin portrays a sullen girl sulking in a romance induced funk while a parent, daddy for this performance, but written for Mom (or MmoooOOOoooM!! as she is wont to pronounce it), attempts to console, tease, or reason her out of it but ultimately fails and the girl is left to float away into her romantic reverie.

Sorry I don't have a picture of a piano, you'll just have to use your imagination.
Hint, it's a big black box with teeth.

The solos, both the piano and the violin, sounded great to me at rehearsal, but the duet parts might need work.
It's hard to write conflict so that it works both as confusion and as music.
Hard for me, anyhow.
I have no trouble with confusion.

Chaos is the natural state of life, the universe, and everything.

We'll see tonight.

Hear, actually, we'll hear tonight.

Hear is what you do to music whenever you're unable to avoid it.

Or, at least, that's a reasonable survival technique.

*_____________________________*

It is really annoying for this site to constantly be telling me that it can't save my post because an HTML code is wrong because I haven't finished writing it yet.
Is it really necessary to automatically save every 20 seconds?

HuH?

Is it?

Really!

Am I really supposed to think of this random nattering is so friggin' important that I can't afford to lose a single mindless word?

hUh?

Especially since the world would probably be better off if I would just shut up in the first place.

And, in the second place, I will do that very thing NOW!

Humph!

Hubris

I was young -

And would move the world
with my own brilliant hand

But I  had to sell my lever

To rent a place to stand