Zuihitsu

[sasha]

The dog bounds ahead, apparently excited by the novelty of stepping off the familiar plane of the dirt road and bushwhacking along the old skidder trail. I've only taken this detour because the ice sheet coating the road here has receded, and I'd rather not cover the 100 yards or so of bare dirt while wearing my Yak-Trax - a few of the springs have already broken, and I'd like to finish out the season before replacing them.

Still, I welcome the change, and the snow/rain/cold cycles we've had for the past few weeks have rendered the snow pack nearly hard enough to walk atop without breaking through. Nearly.

Now I need to cross a little seep, and I hesitate. I can hear the water trickling underneath, and even see open water on either side of a little ice bridge; but already I've lost sight of the dog, and I know when he's under the influence of The Rapture that his ears are no longer connected to his brain. I need to get across, so gingerly ease out onto the bridge.

It holds - until I reach the other side. It's basic physics, really: Pressure = Force (e.g. weight) divided by Area. As long as my weight was distributed across the soles of both feet, the flimsy structure held. But once I raised one foot to place it on the bank, the other bore my full weight. Half the Area, twice the Pressure. My right leg punches through the ice like a toothpick into an olive, and I plunge up to my knee in icy mud-water. "Fuck!"

And the hike is only half over - we need to retrace our way back to the car.

But the sun has warmed the air to the mid 20s, my wool socks keep my right foot only slightly colder than the left, and the situation isn't without humor. I should be pissed, but for some reason I'm not.

[the mingo]

There's always something goin' on at the farm.

Woke up at three, back stiff, still had a few glowing coals in the stove -added some kindling - fire flared right up - "yawning, the dinosaurs died"

Not fully awake making coffee - I looked out the window into the dark - things enter life - things leave life - across the road the landlord's yard light is on, lights up his big black van and the deteriorating cement deer on his hilltop display -

I've always thought the world a lot less solid than it seems - those with more wit than me think otherwise

Got the bike out yesterday and went on a jaunt - end of January, temps high 30's - stopped at the rail crossing for a short rest, a vape, and a drink of water -
I mounted back up & headed out but had not gone far when I heard the whistle of a train approaching the crossing - I turned around immediately and dashed back to the crossing - it's a gift to me to be at a rail crossing when the trains pass - due to the graffiti on the cars the trains are a living breathing art show - all of it for free - then the train was gone, heading south - I turned back to the direction I had been going, I was headed east -

the dinosaurs didn't have trains
the dinosaurs didn't have graffiti
"yawning, the dinosaurs died"

Later, on the way home, I was coming off a ridge - I know the stretch well - the drop is not abrupt but you gather a good deal of velocity on the way down - at the bottom, you enter a kind of mini-valley between the ridges - the road is not straight there but consists of a weave of long curvings in such a way that the land ahead is revealed to a rider moment-by-moment - regardless of all rhetoric to the contrary most folks are not interested in the journey
but only time & destinations - we rob ourselves of so much - it took a bicycle to show me just how much of a thief I was to myself, and a man, Henry David Thoreau, to point out how much wealth was contained in a single day -

When I came to the next crossroads I too turned south in the direction of the long gone freight train - at a further crossroads, I would turn west back towards the river and home - arriving there I would put my bike back in the lean-to off the garage - it's dark in there even during the day - it's somehow
a strange juxtaposition that a machine that has taken me so many places and shown me so many things should choose to wait for me, so obediently,
in the dark.

[sasha]

Windy days seem to bring out the wolf in my yellow lab.

Instead of roaming around with his nose to the ground, looking either for a place to pee or some fine, delectable, fermented turd to eat, he stands taut, nose raised high, reading the rich scents blowing in from the surrounding forests.

Another 4-5" fell overnight, my plowman doesn't bother unless there's at least 6, and I want to clear in front of the house before the projected rains and cold turn the powder into another solidified mass. At some point during my labor, I'm dimly aware that the dog has disappeared - again - but I have work to do, and can't get it done if I spend all my time chasing after him.

An hour or so later, I've unearthed the car, cleared a spot large enough to turn it around, and removed the ridge at the end of the driveway left behind by the town plows. There's still no sign of the dog, not even the metallic jingling of his tags to assure me he's somewhere nearby. Knowing it's futile, I call for him a few times, but the only sound I get in reply is the groan of two trees rubbing together in the wind. "Sonofabitch," I mutter.

I drive up and down the road with the windows down, calling to him. I drive all the way to the lake where we walk most mornings, but he's nowhere to be seen. But when I pull back into the driveway, there he is waiting for me on the front steps. My anger and irritation dissolve in a rush of relief. Instead of scolding him, I give him a hug and plant a kiss on is big cold, wet nose.

"You're a Bad Dog," I coo. "A bad, bad dog." He wags his tail, recognizing the tone of my voice as anything but censure.
 

[judih]

the larger the worry
the greater the relief
still alive!

[the mingo]

"A man waits his whole life for a vision ..." - Walter Crowhorse - Thunderheart

Just got a strange beep from my keyboard when I pressed the Shift key - never happened before - message from Mars? the Beyond? Jack Kerouac?
Dead presidents? Valley Forge, here I come! Roses are to pornography as the Constitution is to freedom -

Lots of snow outside my windows - fucking February - fuck you, February!

{ set of earphones
no head between them }

Outside - 32 degrees
Inside - 73 degrees

[sasha]

Sometimes while tramping along these hidden, unpaved back roads, we'll meet battered old pickup trucks driven slowly by battered old men - grizzled, unkempt, and white bearded - their sole companion a large dog riding shotgun.

As they rumble past, we'll usually acknowledge each other with a wave.

The thought occurs that I must appear to them as they to me... that I am one of them.

[the mingo]

that I am one of them.

... now there's a piece of truth - might as well enjoy it though because, like youth, you're only old once -

[stilltrucking]

sometimes I am one
other times I am scattered

only once
so I got to go for the gusto
my life is a beer commercial

not the getting old
not the dying even
just a lust for life
I will be a Buddhist yet even if I have to die trying
as of now my Zen practice consists of vegging out on black and white TV shows from the fifties and early sixties
while smoking cheap Cuban cigars, and drinking Diet Dr Pepper™

I still feel like a kid, but I am not fooling my molecules

[the mingo]

Got another six inches of snow overnight. The sun trying to shine pale today through overcast. Big flake lake effect snow falling at the same time. The snow falls slow-slow, undisturbed by any wind. Like it's comatose, the only reason it falls is because it has nowhere else to go.

[the mingo]

talkin' to the route birds
who speak to their lucky rolls
they say to us, unprotect our summoned flowers
innovate our sweet stink
and our screaming milk
with three names that dazzle
touch our teeth in such a way
as to re-remind us
why some of our names
are engraved in stone
and others left to the winds

[the mingo]

snowing outside snowing inside fuck that introspective shit it ain't ever put a single dime in anyone's pocket or delivered a single kiss to anyone's lips saw some video from last year's salmon run local fishermen pulling pregnant salmon from the streams throwing them on the ground immediately plunging a knife into them and splitting them wide open from gill to fin thousands of eggs falling to the ground go ahead introspect that - sometimes I wish I could hover like a helicopter raise both feet off the ground bent at the knee and float all around - what a kick that would be

[the mingo]

snowing snowing snowing - can't ride my bike - trying to be satisfied with watching bike porn on Youtube - the fuck -
February, the crazy month - crazy snow crazy cold crazy in-the-house-too-much

[the mingo]

hippo-bottom-us

[sasha]

I think I have the world's worst timing. I'm always arriving just before disaster strikes, or just after something fortuitous has occurred.

There were a few women at my workplace I had a bit of a crush on. I'd always try timing my visit to the coffee urn in the caff to coincide with theirs - but inevitably, they were just leaving as I got there, or arriving as I left.

My morning walks with the dog take me along a mostly unpaved road which in one spot passes through a narrow cut with no shoulder. Guess where we usually meet the schoolbus.

Breakfast for me is usually a poached egg on an English muffin. I've learned empirically when to start the water heating, when to put the muffin into the toaster, and when to slide the egg into the water. It's a rare exception to my ineptness with multi-tasking. This morning the dog provided the necessary disruption by vomiting on the rug just as the toaster oven dinged and the egg needed to be removed without overcooking.

If I were a drummer, I couldn't even bang out an oompah 2/4.

[stilltrucking]

for a couple of weeks I been noticing a scrap of paper with the words "psalm 23" written on it in my hand. I know it is in reference to something I had read that I liked or found interesting and could not recall, or maybe it was in reference to something I would read today

my enemies
your enemies
our enemies
an enemy of the state
is a friend of mine

Thinking about Edmund Husserl at the tender age of 80 he was deemed an enemy of the state