Zuihitsu

(...)

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » December 3rd, 2019, 11:21 am

5:56 am - Standing at the foot of the bed and barking out the window, dog pulls me out of the half-sleep I've been drifting in. Outside, a rumbling and flashing yellow light tell me Dave has returned to finish the job he started yesterday. But he seems to finish a lot sooner than I would have expected. I rise, take a leak, then peek outside.

Another 8" or so had fallen overnight, and all he's done is create two huge piles alongside the two he created yesterday. There's barely enough room for me to park the car up here, and none to turn around. And the only way to get to the narrow pathway he's carved is to wade through 15 or 20 feet of knee-deep snow.

I'm going to have to dig it out all by hand, and that could take me days.

I can't hide my disappointment when the dog and I clamber over the mountains piled in front of the entry at the start of our morning walk, and I can't deny the nasty flash of envy at my neighbors' neatly snow-blown driveways. I'll be lucky to finish cleanup by the end of the week. Fuck.

9:28 - am. Breakfast is done, and I'm sufficiently caffeinated to consider tackling the Sysiphean task ahead of me. I pull on my boots, attach the cleats, and from the closet grab a lighter-weight jacket than the one I wore yesterday. I'm pulling on my gloves when I hear the rumbling again. Once again, I peek outside.

It's Dave, making a 3rd visit, but this time he's at the helm of a significantly heavier-duty truck, possibly an 8- or 9-ton F550 or 650. In seconds he's pushed two of the piles off into the woods to the west; then he backs down the driveway, backs into the space he's just created, and shoves the other two off into the woods to the east. He goes back and forth once or twice more, then is off to service his next customer.

I open the door to reevaluate the situation. This last visit has left me with a whole lot less work to do. At $30 per visit, cleanup from this storm is going to run me $90 plus my own sweat equity - but to me, it's worth it. At 9:27 am, I was convinced that I was going to start out the winter with a plowed lot the size it sometimes shrinks to by March.

Still gotta dig out the car & mailbox again, but shit, that'll only take me an hour or so.
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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the mingo
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by the mingo » December 4th, 2019, 6:34 am

Hey ya ol' coot why don't you have a snowblower???? If I lived in New Hampshire I'd have a snowblower and jam my ass off with it every snowstorm !
You fire that thing up dress in your Carhartt's fire up the machine and go blow the driveway and the mailbox while singing verses from Quinn the Eskimo - become a blower poet with technique comes along only once in a lifetime - Hell yeah, Mongolia !!
Doll, you may have found a place of rest but I'm still on the trail.

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » December 4th, 2019, 10:09 am

the mingo wrote:
December 4th, 2019, 6:34 am
Hey ya ol' coot why don't you have a snowblower???? If I lived in New Hampshire I'd have a snowblower and jam my ass off with it every snowstorm !
You fire that thing up dress in your Carhartt's fire up the machine and go blow the driveway and the mailbox while singing verses from Quinn the Eskimo - become a blower poet with technique comes along only once in a lifetime - Hell yeah, Mongolia !!
Got no way to get one here - no place to store it - nor the tools or wherewithall to replace all the shear pins I'd go through clearing a stony, stick-littered, unpaved driveway. No, I'll hire someone to do the heavy lifting. I don't mind tidying up around the edges myself - kind of enjoy it, actually, the rare housecleaning task whose progress is plainly visible. Unlike, say, dusting or vacuuming. ("Did I already vacuum this rug? Dust this counter top?...") No ambiguity about whether or not a walkway's been shoveled!
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » December 12th, 2019, 7:59 am

Cold night, bright moon - driveway crisscrossed by tree shadows. Dry powdery snow crunches under my feet. The dog trots off towards the woods where he likes to tend to business, and, unfortunately, begin his unauthorized treks over the wall. I switch on the flashlight to keep him in sight.

Suddenly a noise - unidentified, jarring, out of place. A police siren? A fire truck? I look towards the road, but there's only darkness, no headlights. The dog stops dead, listening. The sound then seques into one I know - a barred owl, close, probably not 50 feet off, its haunting cry echoing through the woods. The eerie wailing seems to have evaporated the dog's wanderlust. Rather than venture out into the brush, he pees right there in the driveway, and when he's finished, wastes no time returning to the house.

I wish I'd known to bring the Tascam with me! The sound was so much more nuanced, more immediate than that recorded here: http://studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31804
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » December 31st, 2019, 1:29 pm

Another storm, less virulent than the last, but more persistent - two or more days of sleet alternating with freezing rain. Nothing like a little variety to break the monotony of winter.

The windrow left by the town plows is only a few inches deep, but a Honda Fit wearing only all-season radials ain't gonna get through, so I need to clear it out. My snow shovel becomes a Vegematic - chop chop chop parallel slices, then chop chop chop at right angles to those. Snow - especially the powdery stuff - is mostly air. This shit is mostly water. It's dense and heavy, but loose, like shoveling lead shot. Too heavy to toss, I have to transport each shovelful across the road, where I can just dump it at the edge.

But most of the labor is spent standing in one spot chopping - the most taxing part is pushing the shovel under the loosened granules and balancing the load long enough to carry if off. In due time I clear a path for the car, and continue on to unearth the mail and paper boxes. My neighbors are all toiling somewhere else at their respective jobs, so I have the road to myself - or do until Dave, my plowman, arrives. With only two inches of accumulation, he isn't sure I even want to enlist his services today, but I assure him I do - this stuff is a lot more formidable than snow, and the effort it takes him to carve a path to my house bears this out. $30 well spent, I think.
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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jackofnightmares
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by jackofnightmares » January 1st, 2020, 8:30 am

mingo wrote:
do I want to reach 83?
I will let you know in 2023


"the action precedent to seeing".[4]
For months I've been looking at the food splatter in my microwave oven, Jackson pollock comes to mind where are the commas and periods when I need them?

and one-day last week I saw my microwave, I was seeing it for the first time. And then I cleaned it.

mingo wrote:
I have white countertops in my kitchen. When I pour coffee and some drops spill I leave them to dry. I get refills throughout the day. I let the drops gather. I like the patterns that happen. When I wipe them clean at the end of the day it is like a loss. However, knowing there will be new patterns tomorrow lets me keep true to the good stuff.
Weather to whether
Homesick for Cascade weather

to the south lies the mountain a glory to behold

just another day in paradise here in the republic of desire
longing
fresh ground coffe, five thirty AM 50 degrees
A Yankee winter would be the death of me
"Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect" Santayana The Idea of Christ in the Gospels

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » January 1st, 2020, 11:50 am

I just read somewhere that Betelgeuse, the red giant star in the upper-left corner of the constellation Orion, is on the verge of going supernova. "On the verge" means anytime in the next few hundred years - could be next week or not until 2251. Or, since it's 6- or 7-hundred light-years away, it may already have happened, and we just haven't gotten the memo yet. In any case, it could be the astronomical event of a lifetime - they say it could be bright enough to cast shadows by night and be visible by day! "Watch the skies, watch the skies..."

For the last half hour, I haven't been able to dislodge the theme from Captain Kangaroo from my skull. Earlier this morning it was "Stairway to Heaven". I think I'd rather hear Jimmy Page than the Captain unlocking the door of the Treasure House.

Speaking of the Captain - even as a kid, I thought Grandfather Clock was creepy as fuck. ("...1...2...3... Grandfather!"). And thought Bunny Rabbit was kinda psycho, and what was up with Mister Moose's ping-pong ball fetish??

I watched too much tv growing up. TV's life lessons seemed primarily about becoming docile, devoted consumers, and that good intentions always win in the end.
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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judih
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by judih » January 1st, 2020, 11:28 pm

speaking of those weird characters featured on Captain Kangaroo - it made slightly more sense when i found out that my uncle wrote for the show. But only a tinge. And now I'd rather not picture Grandfather Clock.

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » January 2nd, 2020, 11:45 am

I had a few uncles like that myself - and a couple of cousins, too. DNA of unknown provenance......
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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jackofnightmares
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by jackofnightmares » January 2nd, 2020, 3:21 pm

Would Kaptain Kangaroo™ where a Rolex?
Yes, a Gold Vulcan Criccket™
At 15 I was more interested in girls than kid's TV shows
I got no regrets about the Kaptain, but I wish I had grown up with Big Bird™

spooky is as spooky does
the spiritu of jamminess
entangled up perpetuity
"Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect" Santayana The Idea of Christ in the Gospels

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » January 4th, 2020, 12:34 pm

Yeah, my hormones were running high at 15, too. Hell, I can remember feeling a peculiar tenderness towards a couple of girls as far back as first grade - for a chubby little brunette with banana curls named Rebecca, and a slender little blonde named Gail, with a page boy haircut and warts on her fingers. I liked sitting beside them and helping them during open reading sessions.

My dad changed jobs several times in those years, so we moved around a lot before he settled down. As a result I don't remember much about 2nd or 3rd grade, since I spent them in three different schools. But I do remember a freckle-faced little redhead from 5th or 6th grade, appropriately named Donna Fox, for whom my buddy Brian and I found ourselves in competition. He found a ring in the schoolyard one recess and triumpantly presented it to her, like a crow extending a shiny object to a potential mate, one-upping me in the process. But by then I was befriending a little brunette, Bev Benware, with whom I could actually talk - about stuff we liked (including our favorite TV show of the time, "The Aquanauts"), and about stuff we didn't like (including an obnoxious school bully, Freddie Wells). She awakened in me the first sleepy beginnings of real-life feelings towards the opposite sex.

But Dad changed jobs again, requiring us to move to yet another school district, and I never saw her - or Brian or Donna or Freddie - again. But there were girls in my new school, too....

Thanks for jarring those old memories loose, Jack - those were sweeter, gentler times.
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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jackofnightmares
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by jackofnightmares » January 5th, 2020, 11:08 am

thinking about her again, Saint Sylvia and her bitter fame

was going to put this somewhere else but here it is, :arrow:

Post to asylum as the silent woman? Word of the day is Icky. While watching an old Randolph Scott western —pretty blonde cowgirl, with delightful cleavage and undressing her with my eyes, imagining her brassier and the way the straps go over her shoulders— Flip™ says the devil made him do it but I know it's me. My body has a mind of its own, and my mind has another mind that thinks it is apart from my body, delusional I have two minds one is mine one is my bodies which I call the beast, the meat machine, its mind is the monster from the id
Yes yes a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways

the dark sea within me
the spirit moves over the face of the water
yes watch the sky
in the nine-pound universe
beneath the dome of my skull skull
don't mind me compadres
cold clear morning 37 degrees at sun up
that was two hours ago
and the temp is up to 45F already
going to be 74 today
Sitting in the sunshine looking up at the sun high in the sky
my brain bombarded by its rays

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds
Hell yeah magnolias
Last edited by jackofnightmares on January 10th, 2020, 10:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect" Santayana The Idea of Christ in the Gospels

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sasha
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by sasha » January 6th, 2020, 11:50 am

So tomorrow I go in for surgery, to get wired for sound - to have a heart monitor implanted under my skin. No big deal, I guess - it's an outpatient procedure. I should be home by noon. The cardiologist thinks that an episode of acute atrial fibrillation might have precipitated the stroke, even though the monitor I wore for two weeks afterwards showed no signs of AF. I suppose each specialist has his own ideas of what might have caused it. The cardiologist blames a heart murmur. The hematologist might blame it on a platelet disorder; the neurologist, a cerebral hemorrhage. No doubt the gastroenterologist would attribute it to an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, or fragment of underdone potato.

Maybe I'm just pregnant.

Big orange bucktet trucks (BOBTs) have been blocking the road for a few days, now - the tree service hired by the power utility has been trimming trees threatening the transmission lines. During a storm shortly after Thanksgiving, a dead pine near the end of my driveway broke off about 4 ft above the ground, and has gotten itself snagged on another; but when (not if) it finally breaks free, it'll come down right on the wires. I reported it to the utility as soon as I noticed it, but the BOBTs don't seem interested, only in the small stuff. So I guess I have to wait for the inevitable outage before anything gets done about it. Proactive, my ass. And all the neighbors will know it was me who knocked out their power for a day.
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

saw
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by saw » January 6th, 2020, 12:50 pm

good luck tomorrow sasha
I'm sure all will work out for the best
but I will keep you in the light nonetheless
I suppose the doctor wants to be safe
by taking an ounce of prevention
too bad the tree guys don't feel the same way
If you do not change your direction
you may end up where you are heading

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wylde
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Re: Zuihitsu

Post by wylde » January 6th, 2020, 4:07 pm

sasha. i echo saw.
you'll be in my (very) by-passed heart's thoughts.

power on brother in alms.
💥
.homesick. but homeless.

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