blog (category: dayToday)
but can you tok the tok
My neighbors produce ungodly amounts of trash. Most of the time I curse them when I see the pile at the end of the driveway, but if there's something good, I'll curse them, then grab it.
Apparently, they didn't want this wok anymore. I didn't ask if they wanted the dinner I made with it tonight.
It sat on my living-room floor for a few weeks because I didn't know what to do about its stickiness and propensity to rust. A few short YouTube tutorials, though, and I learned how to properly wash and season it.
It makes a nice stir-fry. I wonder what they didn't like about it, or what they did to it... and if they have a hoak to go along with it.
myriad
There's an old man sitting in his car on my street. Lights off, engine not running, windows up, and club across his steering wheel. I dropped off the plastic plant pot in my driveway and u-turned to ride by again. I had to give a nod for looking at him, and he had to mouth some greeting.
My plastic mailbox had let some rainstorm in, which made my Bonus Eligibility Miles offer harder to tear in two. I had forgotten there was a hunk of cornbread left, and ate it with leftover stir-fry, then finished the fake ice cream that I was going to save for tomorrow's breakfast. I'm wondering, again, where these house flies are coming from. I was wondering the same thing before leaving the house this morning and before going to bed last night.
Sometimes ideas bounce around nicely as thoughts, but don't hold their shape when you take them out and stand the words up.
On the way home, I had reminded myself to look up "velodrome trackstand" videos and send one to Frank. So YouTube collected much of the waning evening. I guess that Google made some money for me doing that, but I don't know how.
I don't think the old man's out there anymore. I didn't want to walk too close to his car, in case he was there, (maybe for fear I'd have to nod again,) but I didn't see a head or any white hair. I looked stupid walking half a block and turning around. Maybe he got tired of feeling sorry for himself.
in chunks
- Made it to work today by bus(es) in just 25 minutes. The Euclid Corridor is quickening.
- A cop pulled me and my bicycle over on Saturday. That's twice this year.
- Felt a new and disconcerting snap in my knee while stretching (improperly) Sunday.
- Wrote WestSoy about the un-recyclability of their aseptic packaging a few weeks ago. They responded with a vacuous letter and coupons, (for more of same product & packaging,) to purchase my silent compliance
- My living room found a couch on a neighbor's curb. There were no back-cushions, but we're making do with replacements.
- Great email today from my supervisor at CleveMed: "I have a goal next year to reduce my needs for commercial software..."
I call them nature band-aids because there's a general idea in American that the remedy for mutilated urbanism is nature. And in fact the remedy for wounded and mutilated urbanism is good urbanism, good buildings. Not just flower beds, not just cartoons of the Sierra Nevada mountains...
-- James Howard Kunstler, The tragedy of suburbia (TED | Talks 2004)
wild and wonderful
Katie and Joel's wedding this past weekend in Helvetia/Belington was tremendous:
- The groom was far from the only one in jeans.
- No preacher, just stories.
- Half hour late for the un-ceremony did not matter a bit.
- We square danced to old-time music in tiny, gorgeous Helvetia -- til I could spin no more...
- I tried slacklining for the first time, and managed a couple steps.
- Sleeping out under the stars, farm food, wanders.
- Time alone when desired. Rest, regroup, recoup.
- Red, orange, yellow, green, brown!
The only letdown was finding that West Virginia changed it's slogan from "Wild and Wonderful" to "Open for Business." The public is not pleased.
rocky mtn white-out
This morning I hiked out from Bear Lake in Rocky Mtn. National Park. Out here -- up here -- winter's on.
The wind is snow's catalyst to life; stirring, swirling games and patterns. And that's about the only thing I've found alive out here. Half an hour in town and I saw twenty elk. Five hours in the alpine tundra: not one. I guess they've come to depend on the supermarket and Kind Coffee.
The wind gives me life too, and at over 10,000 feet I'm sucking for it.
The trail forks: drifted snow on the path I'd planned for, footprints on the other. Alone and without a few essentials for a night in the wilderness, I take the road more travelled.
Following one, another's, footsteps, sometimes thigh-deep. Trying to tread lightly, deftly -- not to trudge, tromp, trod -- legs are not wood posts. Ballet on the mountain.
Making up mantras.
If there were an uncovered rock I could sit and write a few, before lighthead loses them.
If I had a real camera and it weren't so white out, I could try to capture the whiteness.
If I had gators and good boots...
A couple hours out I met the man I'd been tracking -- on his way back -- and thanked him for his footprints. He had gators. And poles, and headphones. Listening to what? Not the creaking trees.
I turned back where he had: on an open ridge: element-exposed, wind blasting snow in volleys and sheets and war... We never made it to Odessa Lake.
I trudged/tromped/dogged most of the journey back down. On the return drive to town (to catnap at the Estes Park Hostel,) sky blue and clear, country colored (colorado!)
Hike lower country tomorrow: more colorado.
pantomime and palindrome
The road down to K & J's place in West Virginia was wet and winding, but hot soup and homebaked crackers were waiting when we arrived. The next day they baked bagels (breakfast), bread (lunch), and tortillas (dinner). I ground the beans for my morning coffee, with a mortar and pestle that J had carved. They live quality without question.
The mailman hefted two large boxes of seed to the back porch, and they hastened out to meet and greet. Out back they've already got two plots dug, one planted. Plans for grain behind the creek, vines, trees and bees. A place for boarders, the small schoolhouse could be a library...
Room to grow.
We explored local towns and wilderness, walked wordsmithery, were welcomed.
maybe tomorrow
Today I was doing it right, all right: some solid gold workaday and fine riding, got some top brass at the library, then good yoga class with some new itches knocked out the eye twitches.
On the way home considering my plans, as per a couple days ago, to straighten up. Dig myself out of some procrastination that's becoming increasingly apparent. I started ticking out some to-do's, then flicked the list and picked to stick to the present -- lick one thing at a time.
All the new stuff has become rote, but instead of finding more new and overloading and falling down/off, I need to keep pulling from the pack I've already slung on back.
But... I ended up futzing with housemate's Xbox trying to get his new wireless adapter to talk to our network. Nothing but frustr. We gave up and wired up and its been Halo2 oer the net til half-past westcoast midnight. Only we're not westcoast.
Work will be wow. Maybe tomorrow I'll remember my vow for Quality.
lazy weekend, rally-cap
I'm sitting on the living room couch, listening to the wind, thunder, last guttural raintricklings, and Pat Metheny on guitar, waving goodbye to another weekend.
This one was vastly unproductive compared to the previous. I did make my first trip to Cleveland's West Side Market, see my second Indians game, grill and gobble my first Walleye, (jowls, eyes and all,) and (got) bumped and clubbed at a couple night spots on the near West Side... but accomplished none of the things I'd set out to. Meh.
The bike shop sez the seatpost is stuck in the frame, which adds doubt to whether the thing is worth repairing, so there's a small blow to a piece of my current best-laid plans.
Small insects are feasting on my arms and lower back chauch.
I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on awaking; I drank and danced all night with Doubt, and found her a virgin in the morning.
-- Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies
Found at Ming the Mechanic and Future Hi
Tomorrow is another week. Actually, today is another week. Goodnight!
unlazy weekend, lazy recap
After a full weekend, I'm back to navigating cubicles, clutching coffeemug.
Friday night: good {food, wine, conversation} until all hours.
Saturday morning I spent some time renewing work on a small software project I've let slide. Threw some clothes on around noon and brought my old mountain-bike to Bicycle Boulevard for repairs and tune-up. I've been excited to start riding again -- to and from work, mainly -- but hesitant to bite the bullet and replace many of the broken components. In the afternoon I struggled through a run, gave myself a haircut, then played some poker, and finally out to the Tremont district on Cleveland's near-West side for another eat/drink/talk evening.
Sunday morning I woke early and headed to the Atma Center for my first structured Yoga (Satyananda) class -- free! Then, strawberry picking out east a bit, jammin' on the one in our soggy basement, and the nightcap, a sunset fishing outing on the edge of Lake Erie.