The Back Stroke

Another weird day after a long night. Piper was up quite a bit with the coughing. Today Kimb felt pretty bad but had scheduled a meeting with people who had to come from Springfield, so she felt it necessary to go in. After that she had her physical where they talked about the role of stress in her history of migraine headaches. She's whipping right through the migraine meds.

I still have the cold, but it is mild in me, at this point. I finished the Cornwell book yesterday. Lords of the North, the third in his series of books set around the time of Alfred, the king of southern england that cut the deal with the Danes in the late 800s. The hero of these books, Uhtred, is a saxon who was raised by the Danes as a warrior. He's also not a xtian, hanging on to his Hammer amulet (for Thor, of course). We all like Uhtred, even though he's a rather brutal killing machine. But he's sensitive to the ladies. Reading the reviews on Amazon I suddenly understood that most of them were from women and that they all basically were fantasizing about Uhtred as an ideal mate! Seriously, there was a lot of remarks on the lines of "the ultimate alpha male". Well, I liked him too. But the book is way too much about the combat. It gets very tiring, all the descriptions of hand to hand. I've never been much for bloodsport, but it was a feature of viking life.

I, for instance, have never seen "Kill Bill." Though I suppose I will eventually have to view it. I was like that about "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." I resisted seeing it, knowing, as I did, that it had lots of gore. When I did eventually see it at Ross Hulvey's house on the first VCR that anyone I knew owned, I realized it was a satire of the form and really quite funny. But I never watched it again. Becky used it as a prop in a couple of her stories, the long scream of the one girl who survives the crazy family.

Food
Last night we were so wiped we ordered takeout from the Courier. I had a rubeun and it was fine. Kimb got what she always gets from the Courier, a Darcy Burger: blue cheese and mushrooms on ground sirloin.

I did cook when Paige was here for the weekend. Saturday night I made grilled shrimpies, served in flour tortillas with manchego cheese chunks and cilantro puree. I also made my famous guacamole and black beans. Sunday evening I grilled Salmon and made a bearnaise sauce for it. Scrumptious indeed. I think I made corn on the cob, but I can't quite remember. I should try and blog on a little more regular basis.

Well, call this the back stroke then. I feel out of touch with the world. Part of that is reading the old notebooks which are full of people and contact and folks writing books and stories and poems and most of all letters to me. And of course for me that was an excuse to write to them. Something I did pretty much constantly for about fifteen years. Now I don't even much get emails. Times have seriously changed, and not necessarily for the better. Though what would I do without the internet?

And have you heard the theory that what has happened to the bees (their disappearance and death) is probably attributable to the spread of cell phones. What else are we destroying in our quest for gratification? Only the Lady knows.

Lady A., I know You have shown me extraordinary mercy. I am grateful for this life and for the amazing grace You show me every day. Help me find my truth and face it.

Treading Water

Here it is Tuesday and I've quite a headache. I think all three of us have something of a cold. Piper is waking in the night, coughing very hard.

Paige was here for the weekend. She seems well and we had some fun. We also worked on our yard, cleaning out and replanting the herb garden. I cleaned out the gutters. Something I should have done some months ago.

Meanwhile our neighbors' have an enormous hole in their backyard where their pool will eventually be. And there is a great mound of dirt beside the hole.

Kimb's dad is back in the hospital. We are not sure what is happening and they are running tests. Arlene told me he was looking better today. We are cautiously optimistic, as the phrase goes. Good medicine in this time, anyway.

I'm reading another Bernard Cornwell book. He's not too deep, but it's fun spending time in the tenth century. Cornwell is mainly obsessed with battle scenes and general combat. But he does it pretty well. And I can skip anything that runs on too long.

Meanwhile the scandals of the Bushies run long and deep, but they are still in power, still fucking things up, and hurting people. Will this nightmare never end? Will there ever be a swing back to the values of my youth? You know, tolerance, and the courage to explore the world. I am pretty sick of those parts of America who are eager to tell me how to live my life. They can rot in their "heaven" with all the other fascists who try and run the world.

Food
I made some nice baby back ribs last night, with mashed taters and a cole slaw I invented on the spot; onions, carrots, raisins. The usual, dressed with white vinegar and some fruity vinegar and some mayo (Hellman's two grams). It turned out okay.

Let's all hope the great silver wheel keeps turning today. I for one am not ready to confront all that is true at one time.

Small World

Piper was sick today and Kimb stayed home with her. When she heard that around the country people were wearing orange and maroon, in sympathy with Virginia Tech's Hokies she found something for herself and she went to find something for Piper to put on. What she found was a small t-shirt, too small for Piper at this point, that her cousin, Nicole had sent her some years ago. It was orange, and when Kimb looked at it, there was the maroon logo of Virginia Tech and the word Hokies. Quite a moment, as you can imagine.

Nicole originally attended Virginia Tech, in 2003. She didn't stay too long, too far from home and all. But she was there long enough to send Piper this shirt. It gave us both kind of a start today. Small world, isn't it?

May the Lady embrace those who passed into the higher realm. May She smile on them, in love and in mercy. May the shooter face his own lies and find some courage to take responsibility for all that he did. May we all live in peace, coping with our own violence and dissatisfactions. Revenge never helps you.

Close to Home

Briefly, I came by a new box for the house, a 666 mghz pentium iii. It's not fast, but quite adequate for an internet point of use and so here I am, on a thursday in April. I have eaten beef (barbecued short ribs with a honey bbq sauce and a salad with lots of roquefort cheese in it, dressed with newman's raspberry vainegrette [awesome] [really, for a dressing from a bottle it rocked pretty good]), I have had some pretty good vodka (three olives) with lemonade, and I am feeling okay.

It's been a tough week. The tragedy in Virginia is a little close to home. I have several college age friends, including my wonderful number one daughter. She is coming tomorrow night and we are pretty wired up for the event. In any case, I know people in college, I work in a college town. I have known many people who lived in the Roanoke area. I have friends in that neck of the woods today. But, nevermind the specific connections; I am John Donne about this. Every person's death that I know about affects me in some emotional manner. Maybe I am a big woos. I don't care. Existence is always an act of art, and taking someone's existence from them is an act of evilness, no matter what it issues from. Yes, I understand that it has to happen. That there are choices. But not like in Virginia. That is just an ego exercising itself. Sad, pitiful twit. Talk about your shortdick syndrome. That guy had it in spades.

I wonder, from looking at his work, if he had been abused as a child. That would not be an excuse for me. But it would be something I could see the direct connection. Still, ego is a powerful force, and the slighted ego is a devil walking. I know that from my own life, where I have often fought my own ego to refrain from trying to revenge myself on the people that have deliberately sought to damage (hi Jessica). I don't do it, though because I know that it only comes back on your own self. Deal with yourself, not with the sad bastards that try to take you down. They must deal with themselves.

Speaking of which I saw Gonzales, our attorney general, on tv on PBS just now. And what a pathetic and weak man he is. Considering how the latino culture is supposedly about macho, I think he gives the lie to that. He is clearly a puppet, a woos, a true loser. He comes across so weaselly. If I were of the chicano community not only would I not support him I would call the motherfucker out. He is damaging his entire culture and he doesn't give a rat's ass about anything but Alberto.

Yet another short dick brother, sneaking away to masturbate in peace, probably looking at a picture of George W. who he wishes he was.

Food
Has been iffy of late. I ate so little last week I lost ten pounds and actually dreamed about food. I admit that it is rare I dream about food. But Paige is coming tomorrow and there will be guacamole and all sorts of rare treats. Can't wait to see the Darling Daughter. She is almost my favorite of all time people, along with her Big Bro and Little Sis, and that Faery Child in Oregon.

I am still looking at old notebooks. Nobody has written me in many weeks. It's not like in the 70s when people wrote letters constantly. Emails are rarely responded. I have posted another interesting poem (and dirty) that comes from the work surrounding Stones Out of Time, a novel I wrote in the 1974-75. It's at Homage & Apology, should anyone give a rat's ass.

Thanks to the Lady for this marvelous existence. I am pleased by the breathing of the planet. The humans suck, but so much else is graceful and exciting. You are the Best.

Violent Death

What I fear the most this day are the copycat acts of other sad and fucked-up men on american college campuses. It is easy for me to relate to the families in Virginia today who are devastated by the loss of their 18 and 19 year old children, lyind dead in classrooms on the second floor of Norris Hall at V Tech. That could be my child. So I am cold with my anger and hot with my tears.

I am a very emotional person when it comes to death. I know that death is a natural fact, an important aspect of life on the wheel, but violent death, the violent death of children upsets me far more than anything else in this screwed up world. I suppose it is because of my cousins' deaths in 1971 while they were attending Rice University. Their friend (their friend!) shot them to death because they wouldn't do what he wanted with their lives. He killed them, my beautiful sweet twin cousins whom I loved. I grew up with those two good people, Larry and Leslie. They were identical twins. No, that just doesn't describe it at all; they were great classic midwestern boys, boy scouts, rock band, football, student council, national merit scholarship boys. They were just two pretty normal boys of their time, listening to beach boys and cream and bob dylan. They were handsome and decent. People liked them. And them some self-righteous spoiled child of a human being who couldn't have the world his way took their existence from them, as if that made his world better. Maybe it assuaged his damaged ego, but it is the worst kind of deceit to claim that ending someone else's life will make your's better.

Okay. I need to get off that pony. Some wounds really do never actually heal. My memory is pretty good too, so I can call back many good times with these people who were denied their lives for the pettiest of reasons. Not that I think there is a good reason to take anyone's life. Frankly, I don't. I oppose death on principal.

So what happened in Virginia? Some poor sorry stupid boy got his feelings hurt and reacted by getting his penis lengthener, well two of them actually, and going out and fucking as many people as he could. As if that would ever help him. Nothing helps you less than trying to give your pain away. When are people going to learn that? And why don't we teach that in our schools?

And people, when your romantic partner becomes violent, dumpt their sorry asses and tell them to stay away. Forever. No exceptions.

Meanwhile, I still feel sick and the doctor's office hasn't called me back. I'm not too happy about that.

Maybe tomorrow things will seem better. I hope so.

Lady please, send me a fragrant breeze.

Another Gastrointestinal Adventure

I been sick. Friday night around 11:30 Piper woke up, throwing up like a college student. She continued to do this for about four hours, but ultimately we all returned to bed. Saturday morning I awoke at 8:30, and went into the living room. I wasn't feeling well, lay down on the couch and proceeded to stay either there or in the bedroom for the next twenty odd hours, interrupted with numerous trips to the can. It was seriously no fun and I was bitter that the child's version seemed to last only a few hours, whereas mine went on for f-cking ever.

So Sunday I have felt better, but still am a little rocky. It makes me think about being really old and feeble. You can begin to understand how the flu can kill people. It's hard to come back from these sorts of debilitating attacks on the body. Hopefully in the a.m. I will feel okay and have a normal day at the job.

I hope so. I really need to work on cleaning the house up this week. Paige is coming for the weekend and bringing her friend, Jenny. And I'd like it to be a good visit, good food and fun times. Perhaps we will take Piper to that Robisnon's movie again. I think Paige would really like it. But, we shall see.

Poltiics
Meanwhile, Tuesday is the day to look forward to politically. Gonzales, the AG, goes to congress and tries to shuffle his way out of a looming scandal. People may not understand it, but it amounts to hijacking the justice system for petty political power. It has Karl Rove's name all over it. Good luck on that, Al. I hope he falls apart and tells us the actual truth. Wouldn't that be a change?

And the Imus story was all over the sunday shows today. Do I feel sorry for Imus? Not at all. I always thought he was a dick, and about as liberal as Joe Lieberman. That is to say, not liberal at all, but willing to suck up to the ascendant players. He's pushed McCain for years, so it is only fitting that as McCain swirls down the toilet bowl of life, Imus gets to go on the ride.

As for what took him down, I think it was the fact that those young ladies of Rutgers (Kimb's a Rutger's alum you know) were a class act. You just shouldn't do these things. I am for free speech, and I am for free marketplace. And that is what is happening here. The sponsors pulled out and then there was no money in the Imus machine, so the networks dumped him off. Pure business, if you ask me. Those Rutgers ladies looked good, and they didn't look like they were exploiting their "victim" status, as so many rightwing black commentators have tried to make out. It is interesting how anything can be turned around by those folks.

I also think it is interesting that the Duke rape case came to naught at the same time. Most people don't know, but the major reasons this case was forced apart came from african americans: the cab driver who alibied the one kid, and the assistant da who started talking about lack of evidence. Some people are about justice. Of course all black folk were hurt bad in the eyes of the white public after that stupid OJ verdict. I often wonder if those women that set him free have regrets and whether they really believe he didn't do it. But race and justice are very screwed up in this land.

And did you catch what Snoop Dogg had to say about Imus? Basically he said it was a question of context. When he calls a girl a "ho" he means she's been gaming him and he has no respect for her. That she is giving him sex for bling, that sort of thing. Of course he doesn't acknowledge his role in the transaction. Maybe we should all start calling him Snoop John Dogg. He's the "John" there, isn't he?

Well, I still feel like crap, so will fold the tent for this evening. I don't know if I am spitting into the wind with this, but I guess I'll keep doing it. I truly enjoy reading my own journals. As Woody Allen said about masturbation, "Don't knock it, it's sex with someone I love."

May the Lady Arianrhod look upon this sad, delusional world and offer us a way to reach Her grace and Her love.

The great cook makes the best meal he can out of what is on hand.—Anthony Bourdain

My other computer is currently down. I think I may have burned out the power supply while we were gone to Mississippi. The upshot of that is that I have no scanner for the time being, so my notebook blog is on hold. It's a weird experimental reality in any case. One of the best things about delving into the seventies notebooks is recalling the vast quantities of cards I played, mainly bridge and poker, over those same years. These days I know nobody who plays cards, so haven't indulged that pleasure in many a long sunday.

I put up three more pieces on the poetry blog this afternoon. I think a real purpose is served, exposing all those old raw nerves. Like Duane in McMurtry's books I am clearly trying to understand how the heck I got into the emotional situation that I occupied at that time and that still has some sad resonance in my mind. My dreamstate has, of late, been dwelling in the 1960s and early 1970s, before the time on Scarritt with all the wannabe writers of that group.

So I will dish out these strange psuedo-poems for awhile as I sort through what they meant in terms of my development as a writer. Life is a strange journey and my life has been one of many sidetrips.

I would, as always, appreciate any feedback whatsoever. One of these days I'm going to start publishing the dirty stuff, if only to get a comment.

Thanks to the Lady for not having silenced me so far. This is certainly a gift of time. That I know.

The DOJ of GOD and Other Rants

Deep in the darkness that is our time: It turns out that the Bushies have loaded the Justice Department with religious school graduates with no actual time spent in the courts system. This accounts for the slow to non-existent indictments brought for political corruption. Why you may ask? Because for the religiously trained these crimes are not the significant ones. The religiously trained litigators are far more interested in who screwed who and why they should all be held accountable for it.

The Monica Goodling who resigned her Justice post, trying to avoid the congressional oversight committee that is already after her boss, turns out to have been graduated from Falwell's phony institution of learning. She is on the run, but it doesn't matter. She will pay for her manipulation of the truth when she crosses over. You'd think these people would understand the concept of personal responsibility. But of course they have lied to themselves that whatever they do it is for the greater good.

The old end justifies the means. That's why we torture, you know. Just check out 24, any episode. We aren't the bad guys, except that in the eyes of most humans now alive, we are the bad guys.

How did that happen? Thank your republican friends for that one. That has been their gift to what used the be the freedom-loving Republic of the United States of America.

Meanwhile it is in the air whether we will take out Iran. Probably George wants to, to psych up the war mentality of the NASCAR set. But we couldn't win it, either. And we'd look ever weaker in the eyes of the world. That is what George has accomplished. He has pointed out that the USA, which used to be a shining city on the hill, is nothing more than another banana republic, owned by the money boys and manipulated strictly for their needs. Torture? Invasion? Lies? Propaganda? These are the every day actions of this government. Thanks again, Republicans. You did this to us. And you knew you were doing it, no matter how in denial you were. It lived right there at the edge of consciousness in the 2004 elections. Yet you let him go on, destroying our country.

And will we live to the next administration? And if it is McCain or Guiliani, will they expand the war and turn us all into soldiers for the CEOs? Probably. Better get off your asses people, there is little time left to change the outcome.

Thanks to the Lady for the consciousness that allows the courage of the truth to shine through the bullshit of ego and greed.

Larry McMurtry: When the Light Goes

I know I haven't posted all week. Been sick and trying to keep working. Need the cash, of course, to pay the daycare. In any case, it has been an odd week here. We are still getting past the heart disease in the Britton family. Learning to deal more aggresively with the cholesterol-raising foods common to this present time. Still, ya gotta eat something, says the man who bought some oscar mayer bacon at the store an hour ago.

Meanwhile, it is easter weekend. We don't do the passover/resurrection jive stuff from the OT/NT gang. But we do like the fecund rabbit and the egg theme. Of course it is the sugar and chocolate drug aspect of the holiday that is feeding the four year old's frame of reference. Piper is wired up for this easter stuff. We went to an egg hunt at one of the Champaign Park District's sites today. I note that the Park District is who I am working for these days. So far so good.

That which affected me the most this week is that I finished reading Larry McMurtry's latest novel, When The Light Goes. This book concerns his character, Duane, who showed up as a teenager in The Last Picture Show, and was shown in his middle years in Texasville. Later McMurtry made Duane the center of a book that was clearly about McM's own breakdown in his late fifties, Duane's Depressed. From that piece I thin we can assume that Duane is a lot like Larry. This latest book is short, and is comprised of short sections. In it Duane discovers he has some serious heart trouble; he needs a triple bypass and has 90% blockages in his arteries. For quite awhile it really seems as if Duane is just going to let himself go gently into that good night.

His beloved wife, Karla (played by Annie Potts in the movie of Texasville) has died in a headon car crash two years before this book. He is in love with his therapist, but she is a lesbian and has a serious love affair going on with a woman on the east coast. His children and grandchildren have all left Thalia, Texas behind and are now living in more metro areas (Fort Worth, Dallas). Duane doesn't seem like he has much left to live for. Early in this book, Ruth Popper, the coach's wife from The Last Picture Show, keels over dead after using the "f word" repeatedly to her old enemy, Bobby Lee. Cloris Leachman played this character in Bogdanovich's excellent movie. I believe she got an academy award for supporting actress. In any case, Ruth was a great character and her death is just one of many losses that inhabit Duane's current reality.

But, lo, into this reality comes the geologist Anne Cameron, hired by Duane's son, Bobby, to figure out which old oil wells can still be squeezed for the black gold. She's 24 and seems pretty fast to Duane at first. Of course she ultimately is revealed to be the classic McMurtry heroine: kind of an innocent doofus, trying to get by on bravado, but afraid she might be as fucked up as she thinks she is.

There is a great deal more sex in this book than there is in any other McM book. Not that Larry is normally reticent about the subject. But in this book the sex is detailed in some detail. And it is fascinating. Duane's therapist does sleep with him after her lover dies unexpectedly. Duane's semen is rust-colored. This scares him, but she tells him it means he isn't having enough sex. At one point in this particular episode we learn that Duane has come six times that day. Wish I could come six times in a day, but perhaps he had saved it up for a couple of years.

I won't say what happens, but it isn't exactly what you think it will be, and it doesn't answer the question you think it will. I do wonder if this isn't something really about Larry's relationship with Diana Ossana, the Arizona woman who apparently kept him together after his collapse some years ago. They wrote a couple of books together, and numerous screenplays, including Brokeback Mountain. She got Larry writing again, so she has my vote, that's for sure.

This was a beautiful piece, clearly autobigraphical. It doesn't try and make sense of his life. It just tries to see how we all fit together and why we keep on living. It sort of rises above the life needs goal meme we live with in our culture. Although I suppose it does sort of support the idea that you need love to live. I think that is true. I don't really know how well I'd be doing without Kimberly right now.

I love Larry McMurtry and think he is easily the best novelist in my lifetime. I read all of his books, even the slight ones. And I read the essays he publishes. Part of this is that I think he sounds like me, or I sound like him. Whichever it is, I honor his respect for his characters and for all the fucked up people in the universe. He is forgiving, and for me that is a huge thing. I need to learn to be more forgiving.

Paige called this afternoon and we talked for most of an hour. She is doing okay with this college thing. I ended up telling her all sorts of tales from my fucked up life. I don't know how useful it might be for her, but I don't hold with having secrets. The only things I haven't told her are things I think her mother, Becky Bradway, should be the one to tell her. I doubt if BB ever will; she's a secretive, strange little person. But it is not my place.

I find that is a big problem for me. Much of what I would like to talk about publicly, I can't because somebody might be hurt by it. At least one of my friends is always warning me about talking publicly about his life. And since some information might confuse some of the people he works with, what can you do? I know my ex-wives would object to my publishing my knowledge of their lives. Yet so much of what I know and have done and said has this kind of informatin inherent in it. I guess that is why I spent so much time trying to write fiction.

Kerouac wrote about his friends in his fictions, but they seemed to be able to deal with it. I guess I came from a different reality, closer to that fear of the culture camp. I have had that fear myself, but anymore I feel like Duane, ready to tell anybody anything they might want to know about me. It just doesn't seem important to keep things hidden anymore. I believe it is all known when you cross over anyway. That's just me, though. What is important is that you struggle to be truthful, even when you aren't allowed to tell the whole truth. I keep pretty close to that line.

I also finished the final book of the Melendy family series. I picked up the set (four books) on ebay for about $15 and have been reading them for the past two weeks. They were written by Elizabeth Enright who's father was a great illustrator and who's uncle was Frank Loyd Wright. She grew up in Chicago and became an illustrator. Then she started writing children's novels right about the time of wwii. The Melendy family consists of a father, four children, a housekeeper, a handyman and a dog. Along the way they add another dog and a boy who is abandoned by his cruel cousin.

The books start with The Saturdays. The family lives in NYC in a house in Manhatten and the kids pool their allowances and take each Saturday one at a time. So that they have enough money for one of them to do something really cool. They each have a turn, even the little boy, Oliver who is six. There are various adventures in the book, and a lot of interesting information about NYC in the forties. The war is already on and there are references to it. We never do find out how mother died, but we do know she did.

The second book is The Four Story Mistake, about moving to the country in upstate NY into a house that was supposed to have four stories but doesn't quite. Country living and the war effort are all over this book. Then There Were Five also takes place in the country, at the house, and they find and become friends with the boy who is ultimately rescued and added to their family. A very sweet book indeed.

The final Melendy family book is Spiderweb for Two. The older children, Mona and Ross and the addition, Mark, have all gone off to school in their teens and left Randy (Miranda) and Oliver home alone. They discover clues hidden around the property, in verse, that lead to other clues and that take the entire school year to find and solve. Of course it is their siblings who have set the whole thing up. This is also a charming, sweet book.

I read these books as a child, and I have read them on and off again over the years. There is love and a truly liberal attitude at work in them. I know I would like to have been friends with Enright. They are not sentimental and they are full of questions of ethics and identity, just the sort of thing that you grapply with as you grow-up. I highly recommend these books to anyone.

Politics
There is a lot more to the attorneys scandals than has come out. I think it is quite possible there is information there that could bring down the president and his gang. I think the next year will be damn creepy and the war in Iraq will get really weird.

But the good news is that Obama is the real thing. I strongly support him and have sent money. Part of that 25 million dollars that has scared Hillary and her gang. She may insist on the nomination, but I don't think she can win, depending on the Repugnants nominee. Obama wins going away. You'll see. Go to his website and send him money. It's the right thing to do if you care about recovering this country from the last twenty years of republican extremism.

And Bush looks more helpless all the time.

But the Lady gives me hope today, and really, every day, when I look around myself and see this world. And when I look at Piper, my charming daughter and talk to Paige, my wonderful daughter. And when Kimberly gets in my car every evening at five and we drive home. Her smile is like the Lady, offering me mercy.

And that is exactly what I need.

In Mississippi, April

Here in Mississippi, surrounded by beautiful expensive new houses outside of Madison proper. We rode down into Jackson yesterday to go to the zoo. That neighborhood was full of marvelous old homes boarded up and falling apart. All the folks with the wherewithall to keep them up have moved out of town to neighborhoods like the one I am in. You can't blame folks. But of course it is all predicated on the automobile and cheap gasoline. It will be interesting to see how the coming years change the face of this weird country.

We went to see the new disney movie, At Home with the Robinsons, this afternoon. Piper's first movie in an actual theatre. She liked it, though she was scared of some things. The movie itself was a lot better than I thought it would be. It's a time travel story and clearly based on the sort of time travel stories that were written by sf writers in the fifties and sixties. That can be a good thing, and in this case it was a good thing. Now we are all waiting for Shrek 3, due in theatres in mid May. Can't wait. There's a big poster for it at this theatre, with just the top of Shrek's head showing and Piper knew immediately who it was.

We are having a good visit. Bob seems pretty well for a man who had some serious surgery last week. He's downstiars playing his violin right now. We've played some pool on the ancient table that they had refurbished this last year. Very nice. The only down thing is Piper has had a fairly serious cold and the coldmedicine brings out the ogre in her. Last night was very long and grueling.

Food
As for food we've been to a remarkable old timey barbecue place, with a live bluegrass group (the fiddle player for has been giving Bob lessons). We've also been to a really good pizza/calzone place that had locally brewed ales. Great stuff, with a lot of depth and character, both the food and the drink. I made guacamole.

Tonight we are going to have a bit of a birthday party for Ms. Piper. She will be officially four years old on the 28th of this month. She is a remarkable little person, creating the world every minute of her life. Even dreaming she gets very detailed. She talks in her sleep enough to understand the movie she is running inside. And it is funny and weird, as you might expect.

I don't know what is happening in the political world, but I am not going to consider it today. I just hope no major blunders are made in the next couple of years. We have to have that dimwit as pres for quite awhile longer.

May we all understand that we are here only with Her mercy and that we are all personally responsible for our lives and our truths and falsehoods. Time to be real people. Remember, there is no set path to the Lady. There are many ways to find happiness and peace, none of them are ever exclusive. When someone says their way is exclusive, that means it doesn't work. Remember that.