Peregrination

Let's say you're out for a nice bike ride on a gorgeous Sunday evening in Methodistville, and the wind is a mild sou'wester. MacKenzie's First Law says that you would start out going southwest, against the wind, to get the tailwind on your way back. It's an ideal late-summer time to unwind, in the immortal words of Chuck Berry, with no particular place to go.

If you go west on Walnut and hang a left at the cemetery, then head down Knox and cut through the service department past the skateboard park, you get to Alum Creek bike trail and go south, under Schrock Road and I-270, past a row of condos to a little unofficial eroded pedestrian trail up the bank to Cooper Road.

Here it gets tricky for a minute, as you ride uphill a short distance north, looking out for traffic on the curving two-lane road, before turning left on Corporate Exchange, a wide connector through an sort of office park campus that wends its way up to Cleveland Ave. and comes out, lo and behold, at the Home Depot. This was my objective: to find a route to that corner. Success!

There's no bike rack at O'Charley's, which is not a surprise, only a mild disappointment, since I was secretly hoping to bicycle there to meet my posse later this week. However, at the back of the parking lot I notice an inconspicuous, heretofore unnotice driveway, like a call to adventure leading around a bend and over a small rise to the Xenos campus, which looks busy, well-organized, and wholesomely friendly, like a cross between the Hallmark Channel and the Sci-Fi Channel. Just past the well-marked Cafe in the rear of the the back building I spot a gap in the fence, squeeze through a narrow gate at the back corner, an almost hidden portal onto an out-of-the-way dead-end street that leads to the mainstream normalcy of Sharon Woods Blvd.

I love to discover these obscure connections between the public geography that's printed on the map and the places that the locals know only because they happen to live there. Sharon Woods winds south from Schrock about a mile through a suburban residential neighborhood not unlike my own, past Underfunded Public High School, and comes out on state highway 161, one of the ubiquitous commercial strips from hell so common in central Swingstate.

Crossing 161, the neighborhood changes, as they say, and for an old white guy it doesn't feel so familiar anymore. Since I'm macho in my backward Buckeye cap and cruising along in high gear on le Trek, I have no fear, but through the roundabout of Tamarack Circle I know I'm not in Kansas anymore. I get as far south as Morse Road and things get really strange.

I haven't been to what's left of Northland lately, and apparently no one else has either, because it's deserted save for the surrealistic movie fascade of a building labeled State of Ohio Department of Taxation. This is either some extreme irony or people actually work here, but it's Sunday so I can't really tell, and the sun is going down, and I don't want to turn into a pumpkin, so I definitely need to head back from whence I came.

With no buildings blocking the view it's easy to find my way through the uninhabited expanse of pavement to Karl Road and head north past familiar landmarks like Woodward Park Rec Center, Epworth Methodist Church, the Northside YMCA, and the Karl Road branch of Columbus Public Library, all of which are, in my insular world, bastions of civilization.

Karl turns residential again north of highway 161 revisited, and it would be a stretch to say that I'm on my own with no connection home like a complete unknown, though I was enjoying the indirect route I was riding not quite like a rolling stone. After turning right on Schrock, I happened to notice a gate left open at the very back corner of Sharon Woods Metropark where it ends at I-270, so I doubled back and snuck through the gate into the park and found the unexpected treat of a perfect curving path through protected woods and picnic tables back toward Methodistville.

Directly across from the park entrance is St. Ann's Hospital, which reveals itself as a kind of campus, too, as I coast downhill through a succession of parking lots leading back to Cooper Road, which takes me back to Alum Creek trail and up the hill to Otterbein, which really is a campus, back to Walnut Street and Om Shanty, where there is a cold Great Lakes Eliot Ness Amber Lager waiting for me. Pointless but satisfying nonetheless.

Yo Ho Ho

You can feel the change of seasons in the air. The maple tree outside the office window already shows a distinct splash of orange. We pull up the down comforter sometime during the night. Football season is underway across this great pigskin nation. That must mean it's time to switch from gin to rum.

Gin and tonic is a summer drink, and on a warm summer evening, there's nothing quite like it, wedge of lime, thank you. Spring is for tequila, por supuesto. In a margarita, or with grenadine and OJ in a tequila sunrise, or all by itself, what the je. Viva agave! In winter it's vodka. Russian, Polish, Swedish, whatever. And from around Labor Day to New Year's Day, here roughly defined as 'fall', rum is the liquor of choice in my house. It's versatile, as refreshing in OJ as in tonic or, as a Christmas treat, egg nog.

Let's be clear. I am not advocating that anyone overindulge. Have one drink to take the edge off. If it's a seasonal libation, it becomes a little more celebratory, a little more connected to the four directions, the solstice and the equinox, the turning of the big wheel, with the cultural observance of winter, spring, summer, and fall. When I figure out the eight trigrams, the five elements, and the five flavors, you'll be the first to know.

Nine, nine, oh nine

My son Jessi was born 27 years ago today. Over the years, the numbers 9/9/82 have been kind of special for me, as well as an easy-to-remember PIN or lock combination.

The online Merriam Webster dictionary gave me this additional factoid this morning.

Did you know?

Since ancient times, various groups of people have considered nine to be a very special and sacred number. Legends and literature have long characterized groups of nine as having a special, in some cases magical, significance. Ancient Egyptians organized their gods into groups of nine; even today, their principal group of gods (headed by sun god Re-Atum) is called the "Great Ennead of Heliopolis." The "Ennead" English speakers use in that name traces to "ennea," the Greek word for "nine." "Ennead" is also used generally to refer to other groups of ancient gods. Furthermore, it is the name given to six sets of nine treatises by Greek philosopher Plotinus that were collected and organized by his 3rd-century disciple, Porphyry.

So there you go. Nine not just another number. Nine is out there. Dressed to the nines. The whole nine yards.

Everyone knows that 9 is super cool numerologically. If you add 9 to any digit (let's say 2 + 9 = 11), and then add the digits of the sum (1 + 1), you get the original digit (1 + 1 = 2). Oh wow!

Nine is very heavy in the Book of Changes (I Ching) too, indicating a strong yang element in any changing situation. Nine is all about creativity, mobility, and dragon-like power. Three in a row has to be auspicious.

So by the quirks of the base-10 numbering system and the Western calendar that has September (literally "seventh month") falling on the ninth month, September ninth in the ninth years of the current century kind of stands out. Three nines in a row, 9/9/09, makes 27.

Happy birthday, Jessi. You are a nine nine oh nine!

It's a Bean!

If you've been following the continuing story of our search for a car, the search is finally over. Thank goodness. It's been almost six weeks since the deer leaped into the path of Gven's Honda somewhere in western Pennsylvania, totalling both the car and the deer. The car made it home safely; the deer didn't.

In the meantime, we've been getting by on one vehicle, plus the Lincoln Town Car on loan from Gven's friend Kate. As Commander Cody said, "My pappy said son, you're gonna drive me to drinkin' if you don't stop drivin' that hot rod Lincoln." Now Kate can have her Town Car back, because Gven has bought a Toyota Echo named Bean. It's a cute little, dark red, kidney-shaped car, hence the name.

We test-drove Accords, CRVs, and Civics; Volvo S40s and XCs; a Subaru, a Land Rover, and a Sportage. Some came close, but none filled the bill. It's a good way to meet interesting people from the Middle East, Africa, Mexico, Ukraine, and Grove City. Long story short, car culture is vast and varied. Our research was less exhaustive than exhausting, and it seems to have worked out fine.

The Bean doesn't have power windows, a sunroof, all-wheel drive, or turbo. It isn't an SUV, station wagon, hybrid, or amphibious armored urban assault vehicle. It does have four wheels, an engine, air, and a CD player. It runs. It handles well, and it's great on gas. I think it will do, even without bells and whistles.

We'll have to see how Gven bonds with her car. It's doing well bopping around town, and soon we will take it on a road trip to see the parents. It's just good to have the car issue resolved for now.

It's a pergola!

After a prolonged gestation period, a new addition to our family has seen the light of day. This baby was first conceived about four years ago, and finally has been delivered unto us, a joyful addition indeed.



It's a big one, about 20 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 9 feet high. Roughly speaking, since all measurements are just a bit off. It has been an interesting project, you might say, from a vague idea to a vivid daydream, through some initial sketches and multiple design changes, pacing off the length at least a hundred times, right down to what I'm tentatively calling "completion."



If I was a carpenter, and you were a lady, would you marry me anyway, would have my pergola?

Burn or frostbite, take your pick

"There's more than one way to skin a cat," said the dermatologist.

No kidding, he really said that. Dr. Quillin, as in quills, plucked feathers, porcupines, sharp pointed instruments, dipped in ink and scratching on paper. Maybe he does tattoos on his day off. At least his name isn't Hyde, as in Jekyl.

This was toward the end of the appointment, after he perfunctorily apologized for making me wait all day, then went about the business of checking my epidermal surface from head to toe. Turn to the left, turn to the right, stand up, sit down, fight fight fight.

The Enderson side of the Golly family has a proclivity toward spots, and my Mom periodically reminds me to have them checked out. My last dermatological checkup was four years ago, so I was due. So far, so good, nothing malignant, just a minor annoyance on the neck or back that can either be ignored or removed with the right tools. Enter Dr. Quills.

Rather than scheduling another appointment, Dr. Quills obligingly went ahead and applied the tools of his trade to a few "irregular growths." That's the generic term, irregular growths, which includes spots, moles, lesions, and skin tags.

He can burn them off with a shiny stainless steel electrical pointer thingy, or he can freeze them off, with a cotton swab dipped in liquid nitrogen, a safe way of getting frostbitten. Either way, extreme heat or extreme cold will kill those pesky irregular cells. Or he can cut them off with a thin blade and send them to the lab for biopsy, and the report comes back saying it's benign.

Dali / Dolly / Dalai

She was our family dog. We spotted her at the shelter in a cage with several other puppies, and she was the cutest and calmest, so we chose her and took her home. It was February, right around Valentine's Day. It turned out that she was sick, not calm, and when she was healthy she had all the typical puppy energy and behavior issues. But she was still the cutest of the litter.

The shelter people (no, not Leon Russell and his friends, the other shelter people) said she was a Dalmatian-Lab mix. Someone throught she might have been part beagle. One self-appointed expert said no, definitely a German shorthaired pointer. Whatever.

Gven and the kids, who were 11 and 13 at the time, bonded with Dali right away. I somehow acquired the naming rights, but it took me a little longer to bond, being the alpha dog in our pack and slightly less enamored of the whole having-a-dog experience, but I came around eventually. I think when I started walking her regularly, getting used to the leash and plastic bag routine, and seeing Dali respond so well to that time together, I started to get with the program.

She was trained. I was trained. You are your own dog.

When I attempted a comeback as a runner several years ago, Dali became my running buddy. Every night we would hit the streets of Methodistville, and both of us got a workout, since her short-legged gait matched my shortened 50-something stride. She was happy as a clam as we got to know the neighborhood. My athletic comeback was short-lived, so our nightly run eventually became a nightly walk. She was okay with that.

Jessi and Zelda grew up, went off to college, came back, got their own places, came back some more, and Dali/Dolly/Dalai was always - ALWAYS - tickled to see them. Of course. She was their dog. They were her humans. They raised her from a pup, and she faithfully protected their home.

In her last years, Dali still eagerly went for walks with Gven, usually with Gven's friend Kate and her dog Sadie. Dali and Sadie enjoyed many play-dates and became close friends and confidantes. Sadie's pack dog-sat for Dali when we were out of town, and we dog-sat for Sadie when her pack was out of town. It's good to have neighbors you like and trust.

Dali developed a hip problem and slowed down quite a bit. She had always run slightly sideways, and at age 14 that odd gait became a pronounced limp. Going up stairs has been difficult for the last year or so, and toward the end she had trouble getting up on the couch. She recently lost the use of her larynx so she couldn't bark. Her energy waned, and she rarely went out in the yard by herself. Toward the end she didn't wag her tail very often and lost the gleam in her eye.

On Friday morning, Gven let her out and Dali lay down in her favorite spot under the redbud tree near the back door. When Gven returned a few minutes later, Dali wasn't breathing. I know she wasn't happy, and I'd like to think she went peacefully, knowing she was loved. We buried Dali that night in the back corner of the yard, next to her buddy Gus, the cat.

Unnatural habitat

The backyard of Om Shanty on Summit Street in Methodistville was abuzz with biotic activity on an unquiet evening in late July. Not only was amplified music blaring from the Fourth Friday Uptown Commercefest, but birds, bees, squirrels, insects, flowers, vegetables, and other carbon-based lifeforms are out force. I blame it on the weather.

I can't begin to name the species of birds that make this quarter-acre their home and/or feeding ground. Some are flying solo, some with a partner nearby, some in competition with a rival for a partner, and some in a collective wave of mass movement from one tree to another. A squirrel was attacked by a nest of yellowjackets, the unintended consequences of foraging for its own nesting material, and you should have seen him jump sideways when he got stung by those aggressive little beasts. None of your beeswax!

I wouldn't call it a feeding frenzy exactly, but it is the dinner hour after all, the end of a workweek, and the din was frenetic. I did my part, inadvertently helping the houseflies reproduce by watering indoor plants from the rainbarrel, so lots of tiny wiggling larvae were given a sheltered place to incubate and hatch. Now the tolerable outdoor insect population has colonized the back room of the house, where they have become intolerable. I spent hours on Saturday swatting and disposing of the gross little piles of fly carcasses, depositing them in the compost where they could at last fulfill their destiny and do some good.

The flies were especially thick around the night-blooming cereus on the corner table in the den, where the long, curving stem drapes over a lampshade, keeping the leathery leaves from hanging down to the floor. Just this week little tassels began to appear on the tips of three or four leaves as the cereus began to bloom. I was careful not to swat flies too close and ruin everything.

While I stayed home alone for the weekend, Gven and her sister Nyet went to a small family reunion near the Antietam battlefield in Maryland. There had been some years of estrangement in their youth between the sisters and their father, and it has taken the better part of a lifetime to make up for lost time. Some things are still unresolved, unsaid, and unacknowledged. He made some life choices as a relatively young father, and it seems as though others have suffered the consequences. The small, casual weekend gathering with their half-siblings seems to have gone well. With no aunts and uncles and cousins by the dozens to make it into a Big Event, they achieved a comfort level where they could speak and be heard more openly.

Sunday was a long, emotionally exhausting day for Gven. I am grateful that Nyet was there to keep her big sister company, bear witness, and provide support. They got a late start coming home, so it was dark by the time they got to western Pennsylvania and collided with a deer that leaped across two lanes of I-70 in front of the white Honda, bounced off the hood and right-front fender, and fell into the ditch. Gven slowed down and pulled over to the shoulder while other cars steered around the flying deer. A witness stopped and called the police, who did not issue a report because it was an Act of Nature.

No humans were injured, but Gven was pretty upset. The car was drivable, so Nyet drove the rest of the way home to central Swingstate. I was in touch by phone but largely uninvolved. I came home from work the next day and pulled weeds in the side bed along Plum Street that get neglected until it begins to look like nobody lives there. Gven and Nyet spent more quality time together processing their weekend with their half-family, discussing the deer incident and how close they had come to a much worse ending.

What to do about the car would ultimately rest with the insurance claims department, and it was taking State Farm and their friends at Collision One several days to come up with an estimate of the damage, repair costs, and the fate of the Honda. Nyet caught her flight home to Atlanta on Wednesday. Gven returned to her regular work schedule while we traded off the use of one vehicle. Good bicycling weather made that easier.

I took a vacation day on Friday, so I was out in the yard holding a shovel when Gven gave me the news that the Honda was totalled. Okay, if that's what the number crunchers say, then that's what it is. It had been a good, reliable car for a little over five years, and Gven was somewhat attached to it, even more so after it warded off a big deer from crashing through the windshield, punctured a radiator and battery, and still made it home in one piece.

While we pondered our options regarding a new car, I was busy transplanting lamb's ear from a crowded border in back to a bare strip in front, pulled a few weeds, and mowed the little trapezoid of grass. When I bumped a railroad tie between the lawn and the bed with the mower, I disturbed the nest of yellowjackets, and they were on me within seconds. I backed away swatting, but they kept coming, persistent little buggers.

Is it because of the dog days of summer? Later that afternoon I was weeding a bed of daylilies near the house and disturbed another nest of yellowjackets. This time one of them got me good, a direct hit in the meaty part of the base of the thumb, and within minutes my hand was swelling halfway up the wrist in a perfect rectangle of puffy flesh. I wrapped it in a cold pack, took some ibuprofen, and sat down in the rocker for a nap. Weeds or no weeds, it was clearly time to retreat on that front.

campin'

Gven Golly and I have been camping before, so it was a minor challenge to set up the tent after dark in a light rain. We're not "serious" outdoor people, and we haven't done any hard-core wilderness survival training, but in most settings we kind of know what to do. Many factors contributed to our getting a late start on our journey from Methodistville, Ohio, to Mancelona, Michigan. We chose to stop for supper at the little restaurant at the Waters exit off I-75 just as it was getting dark. The hot pork sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy was worth the short delay.

We had breakfast at the nearby golf course restaurant/pro shop/bar by special arrangement, since we had slept late and missed the 11:00 cutoff time. They were happy to waive the restriction when we made it clear we were hoping for a real breakfast, and the ham and cheese omelet hit the spot. The lunchtime clientele was a study in Michigan contrasts: Republican retirees at their laptops complaining about how Obama wants to tax their capital gains and give it to the illegal immigrants; middle-aged biker chicks in leather leggings and plunging necklines blaring music on their iPhones; wholesome young families from Ludington on vacation up north in their school sweatshirts; and us, a couple of immigrants from Ohio figuring out what to do instead of bicycling and canoing when it's 55 and rainy.

The drizzle continued most of the day, so we checked on the property that Grandma and Grandpa Golly gave us, just to see what it looks like in July, and collected a little semi-dry firewood while we were there. We drove over to Lake Lapiz, one of our favorite spots, but it was too cold and damp to swim or canoe, so we bought a few supplies at the little store in Alba and looked for tie-downs at the hardware store in Mancelona to try to upgrade our roped-down canoe-carrying setup, but without success. If ropes is what we've got, then ropes will have to do. They turned out to be perfectly adequate, even though tying and untying repeatedly was a bit of a task - grumble grumble #&@%$!*.

Perhaps the best decision of the day was to go ahead and put the canoe in the water, rain or no rain. As soon as we started to float out the cove past the lily pads onto the lake, I knew it was the right thing to do, even as we paddled against a brisk wind across the lake - why? - to get to the other side, of course. It was instructive to see up close what people have tastefully done - and not done - with their lakefront property to keep it clean and unspoiled. The slow, steady paddling warmed us up and lifted our spirits; there's nothing like floating in a little boat to change your perspective on things.

Thus revived, it was time for dinner, so we got a fire going with a little help from self-starting charcoal - which is cheating, you know, but what the hell, it's raining - and in no time had pasta with pesto, sweet red peppers, cherry tomatoes, Jarlsberg cheese, and red wine. The cooking fire morphed into a long-lasting campfire, which gave us something to poke while listing all the places we have camped over the years.

There was Hillsville, Virginia, 1976; Strawberry Mountain Farm, Georgia, 1977, in the tent that Gven sewed herself. There was Zion, Illinois, 1978; Door County, Wisconsin, and Marquette, Michigan, 1980; Cade's Cove, Tennessee, 1981; Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina, 1982; Walker County, Georgia, 1983; and Newberry, South Carolina, 1984. Then not so much when the kids were little; Cade's Cove again with the preteens Jessi and Zelda, 1995; John Bryan State Park, Ohio, with Jessi, 1997; then Antrim County, Michigan, 2007, 2008, 2009, and counting.

You'd think we'd have it down by now. You'd think. But no, we're still improvising and experimenting in a long-term quest to find the most difficult way to do the simplest things with the least possible preparation and minimal equipment. Sleeping on cots this year, instead of on the ground, is a major concession to modernity.

The weather broke on Sunday, so after breakfast (campfire oatmeal, fruit, coffee) we decided to go to Traverse City and up the Leelanau Peninsula. I hadn't been there in many years, and Gven was oohing and aahing half the way there, and it's true, it is a picturesque drive up M-22 along the rim of Grand Traverse Bay. There were a few sailboats out on the water, but a lot of people were just lounging on their boats sitting in the harbor and enjoying the sunshine. It's been a cool year so far. We stopped for a picnic lunch in Northport and headed back by way of Sutton's Bay. Since we were in the neighborhood, we decided to find the winery that a couple of high school friends recently bought, but as luck would have it, closing time on Sunday is 5:00 and we got there at 5:02.

I knocked on the door anyway, and who should open it but my friend Heron Sherrick, who remarkably recognized me right away and invited us in to join a wine tasting party already in progress. We met the other workers and sampled a few of the sparkling wines that are their specialty. Heron called her husband Lou Stang, also a Groves Falcon, class of '69, and Lou showed us around the place while we caught up on the last 40 years while sipping their product. It was all an unexpected pleasure, and their hospitality at the end of a long workday was almost an embarrassment of riches.

Heron and Lou recommended Apache Trout Grill, so that was our next stop for dinner. We had a view of the water from our cocktail table by the bar, which beats an hour and a half wait, and the walleye with garlic mashed potatoes was excellent. It was also fun eavesdropping on the conversations of golfers and tourists from Green Bay sharing Packers lore and other lies. We had some time to kill and were in no hurry to get back to camp, so we walked up Front Street and found a decent bookstore with a cafe and, briefly, a piano player.

In spite of our new cots, sleeping was still a challenge, more due to the well-ventilated tent than anything else. It was chilly at night, so we had to wear layers and burrow down into our mummy bags, and this is July! We also had to get an early start Monday morning for the trip home, so we decamped at first light and hit the road - but not before a ritual dip in Lake Lapiz, which was completely refreshing and made the rest of the seven-hour drive bearable. We got home just in time for me to make it to my 6:00 class in the park. Although I looked a little the worse for wear, I felt renewed and invigorated after a couple of days away.

Stuff

In my ongoing quest to amass more material possessions, I have made great strides of late, acquiring a used bike from a guy in Pickerington, a truck cap from a guy in Jersey, a new pair of shoes at a little store near the mall, new glasses from my new optometrist, and a new belt tensioner from Joe's Service in Methodistville. WOO HOO! This is exciting stuff.

Each of these purchases deserves its own unique story, and each narrative of happy economic exchange unfolded in a peculiar, unpredictable way that's beyond my storytelling ability. For a nonshopper like myself, it's a freaking revelation to observe the minute details of seeking and finding just the right item, and I can only begin to sense the adrenaline that must course through the veins of a serious consumer stalking the wild commodity in the great Amerikan marketplace.

There was one day last week when a Vonnegut-esque chronosynclastic infundibulum occurred right on State Street in uptown Methodistville. I had dropped off Hank, my truck, at Joe's Service to have the mechanic fix the annoying whine from the serpentine belt, which had been getting worse for months and I couldn't tolerate anymore, and he diagnosed the problem as a worn-out tensioner just below the nonfunctioning air conditioner. I had put my lovely new dark-green Trek in the back of the truck and rode it the rest of the way to work, already feeling a bit of the materialist magic.

When Joe called me at work and said the truck was ready, I rode le Trek back to the shop, paid the bill, and drove the quiet truck up the street in air-conditioned comfort wearing my brand new German-made, cork-insoled, not-yet-broken-in, Zirkon-encrusted size 45s, feeling like a pretty cool customer let me tell you. To top it all off, due to exquisite timing I had an appointment to pick up my new glasses from my new eye doctor at the corner of Maxtown and State. My new "progressive" lenses were waiting for me, and I picked up a new fake leather case to put them in, just for good measure, dark-green to match the handsome new/used bike.

I'm here today to bear witness to the power of the greatest recreational drug of all, consuming goods in the marketplace. Can I get an amen?

Character development

One of the things I like about getting out once in a while - out of the house, out of the cubicle, out of the everyday rut - is the opportunity to run into characters like Ali. I talked to a guy named Ali - he pronounced it like Ollie - the other day while drinking green tea downtown. He quoted Milan Kundera as saying that the three most important things in life are eating, reproducing, and eliminating. You have to eat to live, so obviously it's worth paying attention to. Most people, for widely different reasons, would agree that maintaining the human species is a high priority; some are more actively engaged in that endeavor than others, while many are deeply involved in either increasing or decreasing the probability that they personally cause the birth rate to rise. What is easily ignored, forgotten, or denied is the excretory imperative, but it causes havoc when it ceases to function, shall we say, smoothly.

I don't recall what prompted this exchange or the ensuing conversation about politics and publishing and what not to believe, but it was an unexpected pleasure. Ali had seen me around, and I had seen him around, but we had never met or had occasion to talk. Now I know a little bit about his literary tastes, his politics, his sense of humor, and even his journalistic standards. He's about my age but has probably been many more places, and he strikes me as nobody's fool. My personal narrative has been increased and enriched by one additional flesh-and-blood character. Besides that, it gives me something to write about.

This in turn provides me with a means to practice what I think of as the Natalie Goldberg-David Martin School of Creative Writing, which can succinctly be summarized as follows: Write something every day. That's it. You don't have to show it to anyone, publish it, polish it, edit, hone, dress it up, or endlessly redraft your precious piece of art. You don't even have to read it yourself (lucky you) or ask your friends to read it (lucky them). It doesn't have to meet your own or anyone else's high critical standards, stylistic preconceptions, or baseless expectations of what constitutes "important" content. Consequently you don't need to have anything to say. You just have to know how to operate a pen, pencil, or keyboard.

What happens in the process - and I'm assuming that something happens - is that writing something - writing anything - changes the writer, regardless of what else happens to the ink stains on the page or pixels on the screen. Let's not even think about changing anyone else's mind, reaching out to our fellow Amerikans, or, pardon the expression, making a difference in the world. Writing as a practice, as opposed to writing strictly to produce a certain outcome, works on the mind of the writer. That's all it is, and that's enough, and that's what makes it a practice rather than a project. It's probably better if you don't know ahead of time what will come of it. Mostly likely nothing much.

fanfare for the common sweat beetle

In the great Amerikan tradition of making work out of play, this Independence Day weekend is an appropriate time to analyze the shit out of another great Amerikan tradition, the proper use of leisure time. And what better, mind-numbingly reductionistic way to weight one's everyday life choices than to make a balance sheet of what's right and what's wrong in my world?

RIGHT

1. The geraniums look glorious in their hanging baskets and window boxes.
2. The weather today is fabulous.
3. My knees don't hurt.

WRONG

1. This Gevalia mail-order coffee is the worst dreck I've ever tasted.
2. Messes in laundry room and kitchen refuse to clean themselves up.

RIGHT

4. My pocket knife got the old beach umbrella on the patio table unstuck, so it will both open and close.
5. Cardinals, chickadees, robins, bluejays, swallows, and crows coexist in this humble but verdant quarter acre. What's wrong with them, don't they have any ideology?

WRONG

3. The weeds I have tolerated, overlooked, or ignored are taking over the flowerbeds.
4. My Michigan vacation pipedream isn't going to happen this year or this lifetime.

RIGHT

6. Isabel the old cat takes a nap on the patio next to an old-fashioned steel lawn chair with spring-like tubular arms and legs.
7. Behold the daylilies of the back bed by the garage, trumpeting their existence in joyous yellow and orange.
8. Tendrils of bean plants have located the poles and know what to do.
9. I can choose which columnist to talk to at the cocktail party that is the Sunday New York Times.

WRONG

5. This peace will be broken tomorrow by well-intentioned crowds, parades, bad music, traffic, explosions, jingoistic rituals and self-congratulatory rhetoric.
6. I screwed up some early measurements of a project I'm working on, so nothing is truly square.
7. In the corners of my consciousness are shadows of problems that I will never solve.

RIGHT

10. I have the good sense to buy new lumber instead of making do with some scraps I had lying around, then I find some cheap little brackets at Home Depot that will secure a 2x6 firmly to a 2x8 at a right angle and save my bacon.
11. A simple flour tortilla, warmed on cast iron, with hummous and cherry tomatoes, with a cool Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald handcrafted porter tastes mighty good at the end of the day.

It's official: Right beats Wrong 11-7. I guess it was a good day.