| in america volume 24 part 2 - 2011-2012 december-january | work & days: a lifetime journal project |
4 December 2011 Kasarova masterclass making me cry. She watches the young singer moving her own mouth and indeed her whole body. She demonstrates how to sing a phrase with more variation in the syllables: Das muss man in die Fahrbe finden. Also ... deswegen hab' ich gesacht, singen ist nicht nur, ich zeige jetst ich hab' eine Stimme, singen ist fühlen ... und was es geht ... stille ... das ist die Mozart, das ist die Handel, das ist Bellini, das ist Rossini. Goes to stand next to the singer moving with her. Ich höhre ein bischen ... du kannst besser ... sei nicht faul ... du kanst viel von Natur, wir sind die faulste, die von Natur viel haben, she says smiling, holding up two fingers. Ich hab' nicht immer blos so gesungen. Ich war immer eine Sängerin die mich so zu zagen viele Gedanken gemacht habe, wie ich meine Stimme benütze, ich habe in mein Leben auch ... meine künstlerische Leben ... zwei oder drei Sänger, mit dem ich gesungen habe, von den andere Generatzion, die eltere Generatzion ... gezeigt haben, diese Sänger, das sie buwust singen ... bewust, ist das richtige Wort. Stutze ..., demonstrates a supported tone, gestures that the student should do it. Genau. Weiter. Demonstrates unsupported voice, bearing down from the neck but trying to produce the sound contrariwise from the neck up. Stutze. Kompt so wie so, du bist jung, aber wenn du nicht lernst mit die Jahre kompt wek, das glaub' mir, habe viel erlebt, die nach zehn Jahre nicht mir singen konnen. Das nicht da singt [pats the underside of her chin], sonder [thumps her backside] ... das ist die Stutze. Darf ich eine C ... [to the pianist], then goes and plays it herself. Sings a high C with a posture like a spear thrower. Jetzt erkäre das aber ich war auch verwirrt, und nur meine Wille, meine Wille zu verstehen wirklich was ist das, und eigentlich, nachher wenn mann das kapirt es ist einfach zu singen, und mann hat das gefühl ... minendenst damals als wenn ich kapirt habe, alles war für mich ... es gab kein Swierigkeiten [beaming], jeden Ton kan ich singen. [Different young woman] Jetst denk' daran was wir gesprochen haben ... also geh' mit Musik, offne deine Seele, erlebe was du sagst ... lass das hier ... ich weis' nicht wer da ist ... singe fur dich ... ich muss verstehen was es geht ... The young woman sings. Bravo she says quietly. (There tears come.) [To the camera] Sind viele Komponenten ... das du streng bist zu diese Schüler, aber doch wieder immer sagst, Du bist da. Das ist Psychologie. Das kann nicht ... ich weis nicht ... es liegt an die Professor ... ausserdem, muss mann Menschen lieben. [New young woman] Du kanst besser. Du machts so ... sings a flabby version, then demonstrates a tauter version, all the time demonstrating with hands, face, whole body. Sonst gebst mit die Zeit tiefer ... weist du, weil du dich bequem machts ... must da immer arbeiten ... dein Gesicht must du ... du hast ein tolles Gesicht ... benutz es ... und das ist auch expressivo ... Leuten glamen an dich ... verstehst? [Young woman sings] Bravo. Bravo. Heir bleiben. Nicht bequem machen. [To the camera] Singen ist etwas zier intimes, deswegen ist für mich so gefühlvoll ... Fühlen. Fühlen. Fühlen. Aber andereseits, ich singe für die ... das ... das ... das. Ich will sagen, etwas mitteilen ... sie mussen sich öffnen. [Young woman singing something in Russian] Das sind Leute mit Intuitzion geboren ... die sind schon da die ... sind wie eine rohe Diamant ... da muss mann ... die brauchen nur ... [demonstrates polishing a diamond as big as an orange]. Bravo. [To the camera] Ich wünsche mir das sie ein bischen verstanden haben ... nicht unbedingt die Teknik ... aber was bedeutet Sänger zu sein ... was bedeutet diese Beruf. 5 Alright, Monday morning. Cold feet though the room is warm. The coldest it's been, I think. Note from Tia this morning. "My mom died last night. It's my 63rd BD." Have to figure out how to reply to Kirsten E. Here's my guess: marijuana is making her too thinky.
Warm months of the year Volcan Mountain Fall there and Cuyamacas for acorns Cold months lower valleys Desert for plant food, agave root baked in dug ovens, February Upper Sonoran (chaparral 1000-4000) and Transition (oak, pine, cedar, manzanita 2000-5000, overlaps) life zones Lower Sonoran is desert 0-500 Favored acorns: black oak, then coast live Engelmann not much used, hard to grind, not as oily. Chewing gum from exudate. Basket granaries Gathered after they drop - should be dry Shelled, papery sheath off, pounded a half hour. Washing acorn flour. Manzanita leaf tea for kidneys, berries for jelly. Wild oats eaten. Wild mustard eaten when young. Datura - toloache cult - boys initiation - Kroeber Ephedra tea Horsetail stems tea for high blood pressure Buckwheat flowers tea boiled for stomach Creosote for rheumatism soreness, soak in as hot as can bear Wild paeony - eat young leaves before flowers - boil - change water, boil again to remove bitterness Ferns - charm - rhizomes broken up and scattered around house to encourage friends to visit Coulter pine needles baskets White sage young stalks eaten raw Nettles - whip a sore joint with it until it feels fiery Yucca - young stalk eaten in spring, peeled, roasted Mice, deer, rabbits, geese Clay northwest of junction 79 and 76 - dig 3' down - hottest fire coast live oak 7 I went out to scatter peelings for the rabbits this morning and startled six turkeys who filed away unhurriedly toward the spot where the fence is down. - I have to think about taxes. What shd I do about the chunk of money from pension - borrow from Vancity to be able to tax shelter in the TFSA account? Call H&R Block my fireman tax preparer? Call Canadian tax advice? Call US tax advice? 8 Julian Pie Company, south window, half an hour till the bus comes in. Five crows this morning where I'd scattered the compost. Sycamores on the parking lot yellow and thinned out. Thinner on their eastern side. Shabby stringy tall eucalyptus across the road all leaning west. Desperado on the radio when I came in, a reminder who's arriving. This morning when the computer latched onto its little data stream there were two jpgs from Greg, me on the courthouse steps in Kingston, summer 1968, white shirt, pink and purple striped skirt I'd forgotten, a lot of dark hair, trying to hide my legs, and a scan of a note I'd left at his house one Saturday afternoon in autumn, same year.
4:05. The bus is in all those winding curves after Ramona. It's been thin country parking lot music. Bits of a bright wind in the sycamore. 10 Saturday morning just after 9. The room is warm, stove blowing hard, sun on the sill. A free day. Last letters sent. I'll go to the monograph soon but first will look at Tom's visit. I was waiting at the edge of the Dudley's lot. He crossed from the bus. My first thought was angry, he hasn't had the money to get a haircut. And on from there. He presses a clumsy kiss. I'm closed to him the whole 16 hours of the visit. He's affectionate. I show off my house arrangements, the monograph. He has brought my mail and things I asked him to buy, a pile of magazines from the thrift shop, books he liked. He has been missing me, he says. He is proud of what he's wearing. I don't say I don't like it. In the morning when he tries to put his arm under my head I say I'm mad at him because he isn't going to have enough money to come up for Christmas. We argue about whether or not he's leeched on me financially. He tries to get me to listen to his Youtube channel. I don't say most of it isn't worth listening to and I don't like the way he is always wanting me to join him in his substitute emotion. While I was ragging on him I was wondering whether I was picking a fight to have a reason to shut him out because he's not as good looking as he was in summer. When he was going back to imagining living here with me I felt flat refusal I didn't speak: I don't have to say I don't want it because it won't happen. He can't do it, he won't do it. I feel that with disgust. On and on the puzzle. I think you love me and don't know it he said. "When I'm with you I give you 80% of my energy and only keep 20% for myself." When he didn't have money for the phone and was out of touch for 6 days I was berserk with pain and yet when he was here I was in hidden contempt and most of the time didn't see him. I need a place to stay when I have to fly from San Diego. His phone calls keep me steady somehow. I'm not honest in this relation, I opened up into hope when he invited me to and he backed out. He lied to a direct question. I'm back where I was with him, shut down. He is what he is, he is what he is, he is what he is. I never come to terms with it. He was in good shape last summer and felt liking from me, went for it, but when I jumped in he backed out.
12 Woke up and worked today, 8 hours? on the web monograph consolidating layers, learning styles, checking para styles, and then the easier evals. 13 [notes on IRAs] Older cultural horizon Earlier cremation Land of the dead to the south Soul hovers 3 days Evil shaman can enter an owl body Coyote crying in daytime or close to the house is bad luck Have to cut hair and burn it when mourning Shamans use rock crystal, dangerous to others, "like a radio," can send badness to victim through it - Monograph this morning, business calls - organizing jpgs into folders, relinking - shd work on taxes tomorrow to figure out what else I can do to shelter the pension. 15 dealing with people who have no habits of strategic thinking 16 Friday morning. Sun has been behind a high pewter-colored mist. There were a few flakes of snow past the window, maybe a dozen. Now the sky has dissolved open and there's light shadow flickering on the page. Reasons for joy. The chimney sweeps came yesterday and the stove is burning hot and clean. The electric bill was only $46 when I feared $200. Note from Logan. I'm close to finishing the web monograph, love working on it, see it refining. Bran muffins yesterday, their round soft smell in the house. Two full months ahead! "Few can achieve and maintain their best performance on their own." Coaching. Trying out adding We made this pages most of the day. A still and a comment, 16 pages. Finding a conjunction that isn't obvious or mawkish. More visual than thematic sometimes. 17 It's Luke's birthday and he isn't answering, which likely means he is depressed. He's 41. I'm mad at Louie, disgusted with Louie because she is offended by the fact that strangers are making remarks on my Facebook page. I've defriended her. I'm disgusted with Tom because he's back to having no money and not doing anything about it. Otherwise am walking around this house all day contented. I like cooking once or twice a day, baking sometimes. Carpet sweeping the rug. Making and unmaking the bed. I wear the same thing every day and have only done a laundry twice since I'm here. I understand the stove now. I have a system for the garbage bags, put them in the garage until I can take them to the bins at the supermarket in Ramona. Have a lot of library books but don't want to read them. The great pleasure of the day is the hours at the big monitor. Please let that continue every day. When I sit in hot water in the dark every night I seem to think about work. It is eleven on a Saturday morning. There's patchy sun. Snow on the mountains. Stew cooking on low in the kitchen. Cup of tea next to me. 18 What about hiring? I like open-ended questions ... you get to choose anything you want to talk about. If you reach down and talk about something not intending to impress me as a future employer, that's what I care about. I look for people who are supremely self-confident but also profoundly interested in other people. How curious are they about other people, and about new things outside their own area of specialization. I look for people who are strong enough to be critical of things that are not very good. They have to have the capacity to tell people that. I look for signs that they are ambitious. Some ambition to do more than they are doing. - From next February onward for a whole decade and a half. No more will you ever say, "I'm not fulfilled." - Looking at We made this materials today thinking I could do a workshop on it, and maybe one on Deborah Love? 100,000 years in a place. What are humans in a place. Displacement. 20 rumored to have set fire to the rotund form of the butler, Mr Laker.
b.1792 - A silence, it seems frivolous to say anything but I do need to think. Luke saying he wouldn't tell me how bad it had been last year, it would hurt me, wd be cruel. I didn't understand that, but then I did. Are you talking about suicide? He was. He'd started to, he said. Since then I'm holding the thought of it, what it would mean, how it would be. It's a gaping hole in the air. It would be my fault. Not only mine but more mine. More important than fault though is whether there is something I should do now. He can't sleep, isn't eating, doesn't answer the phone, he says. Should I send him a ticket?
[San Diego - London Heathrow nonstop British Airways 11 hrs] - 10,000 yrs - 100,000? Innovations in this time bow and arrow, ceramic vessels, mortar and pestle Over the hills at Mesa Grande, eleven miles from Santa Ysabel, a three days' fiesta was to be held to include August 4th. Two colors of milkweed fiber, white and "a beautiful shade of old rose". 21 Note from Media City inviting me to a festival in Ghent in late March. Jeremy and Oona taking a program of the history of Canadian exptl film. 22 Dream of a small wooden hut on the side of the road halfway up Hill Sixty. South side. It's my work studio for the summer. I'm looking out onto bright very early morning light. Runners and bikers are passing and I'm thinking the country has changed. - I sat down to phone Luke because I had things left to say. When he didn't answer either his home phone or his cell I had ice in my heart. I've sometimes been nervous about Luke and suicide, twenty years of that, but lately I'd been feeling he's alright now, he's not in danger. I was contented, evened out and now there's drastic true fear. - They drew out of the harbour at just after two in the afternoon of 8 July 1822 and hoisted full sail to make with all speed to Lerici. The storm came up rapidly from the south-west and broke at about half past six. One of the Italian captains reported having sighted the Don Juan in heavy seas. "... seeing that they could not long contend with such tremendous waves, bore down upon them and offered to take them on board .... The waves were running mountains high - a tremendous surf dashed over the boat which to his astonishment was still crowded with sail. 'If you will not come on board for God's sake reef your sails or you are lost,' cried a sailor through the speaking trumpet." The Don Juan went down into the Gulf of Spezia, some ten miles west of Viareggio, under full sail. Then days after the storm Shelley washed up, "arms and face had been entirely eaten away. Hunt's copy of Keats' poems doubled back in the jacket pocket." 24 I didn't want to talk to Tom last night. I'm reproaching him this morning. disgusted that he kept insisting he could come for Christmas, disgusted he's so passive about money. - onset between 20 and 30, later peak between 30 and 40 unclear whether or not medication affects the risk of suicide monomines, serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine like chronic medical conditions such as diabetes insomnia 80% serotonin transporter gene those with loss of enjoyment norepinephrine and dopamine-enhancing drugs level of brain-derived neurotrophic factor is 3-fold less in depressed melancholic depression increases when temperature and sunlight are low early morning waking, weight loss, guilt preventive programs with a competence-enhancing component, Coping with depression course CWD physical exercise for mild but insignificant for major teaches clients to challenge self-defeating but enduring ways of thinking, change counterproductive behaviors antidepressives not useful for mild but significant in chronic major, it can take 6-8 weeks Zoloft, continue for 4-6 months fish oil supplements median duration 23 weeks outpatients, nearly all recover liftime risk of suicide 7% for men leading cause of 'disease burden' in developed countries increased risk of cardiac diseases Freud romantic breakup, predisposed by early life experience Samuel Johnson the black dog 25 Borrego Springs I liked yesterday. I liked deciding to come and I liked the drive though I was worried about Luke and slipping into reproaching Tom. I liked that a bald black man smiled at me in the grocery store. The silly adventure of going to a carol service at St Barnabas. But today I'm lost and hiding. I so, so, so need something hard and specific to do. I need to want to do something. Now I'm crying.
26 The St Barnabas carol service was at 6. I arrived when the parking lot was full. There were white paper bags along the path with candles flickering in them. At the open door was a tall woman in episcopal robes, white and to the ground, with some sort of broad black band arranged down the front. Short grey hair. Mid-fifties maybe, a wide fish-face. Held out a weak narrow hand to me, "I'm Linda." An oldish man with a violin was leading the congregation in carols, one verse of each so we could get through all of them. It was a carol pre-service. When the service proper was going to begin the priest processed up the aisle from behind us. She was led by an odd person loping slowly pumping a large white candle up and down. She had silver hair cut in a tight cap, thin shoulders under a long cream linen choir robe, and a tight angry little face with a narrow red nose. The priest, I saw as she passed, was wearing maroon lipstick. That startled me, I'd assumed she was a lesbian. She turned on the platform and welcomed us with such exaggerated enthusiasm that I started to laugh. Various congregants got up to read passages in a banal modern translation. The choir was no better than the congregation, and elderly. The priest stood singing with faked continuous joy. At the end of the service we were led to the courtyard to sing Silent night together. That was a good idea but not well executed because the priest's little group began before people had assembled. Overhead were brilliant stars in a completely black sky. I went back to the motel and flipped through TV channels all displaying human stupidity. It's Monday morning. Delicious steak and rye toast at Kendall's and now I'll go home. [main street Boxing Day morning] [Hacienda del Sol] 27 A blue mushroom at the back door. Lactarius indigo. Boletus bicolor, quite a few. I'm under the oak. Mid morning. Breeeze from the southeast. Branches in front of me are wriggling some. Crow was quarking. Helicopter drone - I think there's a medevac route east of here. Deep blue sky across the north. Touches of yellow down there along the road, willows. The nearest fold of hillslope is showing a pink underlayer. It's that little weedy plant - I'll look it up. Further down in the crease that goes past the west side of the house a line of sycamores has gone a dry rusty orange. Oaks a dull khaki. Woodpecker knocking briefly. Mountain bluebird dropping from a branch. I can see cars in the bit of road before Norm Feigel's, bright glints. Greg has been reading Frank after and wanted to know if I still think the 30 years between Frank and Tom were nothing. I'd said they were nothing to love woman and now I don't remember what I meant. The moment kissing Tom from head to foot? A kind of love with mortal compassion in it? I'm not remembering it because Tom disappoints me? That blasted-open feeling of this is my man? I've been wondering - not exactly wondering, touching on the thought - since I refuse to love Tom because 1. he doesn't get money to be able to be with me 2. he doesn't acknowledge hard facts, tries to involve me in delusion 3. he lies outright 4. he doesn't take care of himself so I can have the pleasure of a good-looking boyfriend 5. he is coasting, trying to get by on charity with least stress possible 6. he isn't able to be interested in me - could I love him despite those? What wd be good reasons to? 1. Loving is better for me than withholding 2. he has persisted 3. we enjoy our adventures 4. he has buoyancy and energy and likes my fight 5. he comes through with a sharp purview sometimes that's satisfying to me. When I list the bad things I decide one way and when I list the good things I decide the other. Long cirrus feathers brilliant as angels coming on slowly from the south and dissolving above me. Threads of warmed pine in the air. A hawk at eye level down by the curve in the lane. What it's like coming through that stretch from Yaqui Pass to the start of the downslope into the Anza Borrego. I always feel its unspeakableness but it's more like unseeableness. I want to take it in, grasp it, something, and can't. There is a remote bare ridge, very high, a wall, almost one color but not at all one color, colors unresolveable, pale, glittering. I say the texture of the light changes and it does, though I don't know exactly what that means. Yesterday I stopped on the verge for a while and tried to look at the rocky slopes on either side of the road, which are orange to oxblood there, with blue-greens of agave and barrel cactus. I wanted to be with it somehow and couldn't. Maybe someone who grows up with it could. - Maybe the thing to pay most attention to is the tone of resentful complaint I go into, the reproach state that says I have to go away. It's a state in which I have gone away isn't it. - Look, a yard-long line of spider thread flowing straight out from the little scrub oak. A squirrel standing up on the log. Tom doesn't do that thing I do. He doesn't reproach in his head, and threaten himself with leaving. He keeps me in his head as affection. But he evades without having to feel himself doing it. He's not a whiney person, he's a dodger. Louie is a whiney person too. 2011 - what was it. Moving here. LA and the Biltmore and Jerry, Montreal. Constant corresponding with Greg. Pension. Money from David. Learning FCP and InDesign, Soundtrack Pro and Motion4, getting the software, first little movie. 28 29 Applied for CPP online this morning. Yesterday had a burst of cleaning - soaked and washed the window plants. In a minute will go to the table and work on We made this. 30 What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east - 31 Hutto is my age. Joe Hutto 1995 Illuminations in the flatwoods: a season living among the wild turkey Lyons In 1991 he was 47, May-August 1991. These young turkeys are always exuberant and completely devoted to the moment. He spends his days walking with them and writes up the things 'we' did. Hammock, hummock, thickly wooded tract of fertile ground, often elevated. It is very difficult to become a wild turkey. spend more and more time in a state characterized by a lack of any language-based thought process. Wild turkey speed is that speed beyond which an organism becomes stupid ... a constant condition of sustenance through inquiry and discovery. These graceful creatures become in every way my superior. More alert, sensitive, and aware, they are vastly more conscious than I. They are in many ways, in fact, simply more intelligent. He talked to the eggs to imprint the poults to his voice. Putt, yelp, purr. For a moment the little wild turkey lies motionless and helpless, striving to catch his breath. I remember to make a sound. Speaking very softly, just above a whisper, I make a feeble attempt to console him in what seems to be a desperate and confusing moment. Instantly, he raises his shaking wet head and looks me square in the eyes. In that brief moment I see a sudden and unmistakeable flash of recognition in the little bird. I am completely disarmed as the little creature struggles across the towel, never interrupting his gaze, and eventually presses himself against my face, which awaits him at the edge of the shelf. Gradually he makes himself comfortable, his peeps and trills subside ... . Joe gets imprinted. - [Researching question of what fonts to use with Optima] Optima Zapf Humanist sans-serif with slight serif swelling, he also designed Palatino. Use the two of them together? 'Same era,' similar shapes for instance of the lower case e. Letterforms proportionally similar. Callisto, Minion, Baskerville, Garamond, Bodoni. - Dreamed last night that I was looking across at Rhoda's window and saw she was moving out. Put my head out my window and asked where she was moving to. She said she wasn't sure, maybe 'the Heights.' I was thinking she meant the height of land, the ridge above False Creek. Her place was dark so I thought I'd go have a look at it empty. Turned on a light and went upstairs. Found I'd disturbed two people sleeping in a single bed. As I write this dimly remembering there have been other dreams that Trudy and Rhoda have moved away from next door. 1 January 2012 Emilee's book almost done. Was working on Favor's last night.
Utilities are less than I thought they'd be and I'm seeing that if I'm careful maybe I can stay here.
- There my Mac Pro won't boot up. I try things, read online forums. After an hour I am on the floor poking at the main connection to the monitor. It's a fiddly plug. I see there's another socket like it. Try that one. The screen comes on. Now I'm backing up software. - Seeds parched and ground for mush: sages: white, black, carduacea, chia; buckwheat 15-18' circle white powdered soapstone across it a broad white line, Milky Way, sky's backbone sun and full moon disks red oxide of iron, sun near horizon, moon in center new moon northern half near east end of MW, last quarter opposite it, crescents, red oxide Pleiades in southern half near E Orion and Mountain Sheep just east of it Buzzard Altair Principal mountains, at Santa Ysabel San Jacinto, mountains in the ocean and one southward in the desert, at Mesa Grande San Bernardino in the north, white topped, and 3 Cuyamacas peaks Coyote, wolf, bear, tarantula, raven Associated with awik jimson weed cult Light and dark rattlesnake, diamond back Gopher snake, grass snake or blue garter, red racer When people are careless the snake is always waiting to destroy them. A little depression boys spit into, covered after 2 Roasting the girls - face down steaming in a pit filled with white sage, thistle sage and ragweed - a week at least, sagebrush piled over - fragrant steam - ensure their health after - warmed crescent shaped stone place between their legs up against the body. N red, S blue/green, E white, W black - Second movt of Rachmaninoff 2nd piano - new downloader. It's 80 degrees, window open in the kitchen, door open into the sunroom for a breeze. Woke this morning and went to look for a place page format - did it because yesterday I'd been hearing the reproach voice whenever I wasn't caught in something else. It is as if formulating a declaration. I don't believe myself in that voice now. Don't have to declare anything, don't have to decide anything, can suspend all of that uselessness and do something else. The format I want shd be a simple frame with good mechanics - white, big images, big video, audio, a spine with side pages, immaculate. [trying various domain names] Big images all the same size. Colored links not underline. Want short well-written pieces. It's about place in a broad way. It's called Here but the url has to be different. It's about senses. Place broadly allows remembered place. Houseplans? Paragraphs from other work. The Mesa - turkeys, shaman, Engelmann oaks, Peninsular Range, rabbits, Orion and the Swan, reading, roasting the girls, how I found it, the Olson place and Helmer Dolemno, Oma's house, the Tofteland house, Pound's Pisan cantos, Saturna, a lifetime's places, mortal presence, distant view, wet day 4 Dreamed I was watching a thick basket roof being fitted onto a tent. They were getting it ready for winter, deep snow. It was at the bend of the creek on Peter Epp's land. I saw that my parents were preparing a house not big enough for us children - Rudy maybe could fit into it with them but we'd have to find somewhere else. I was saying to Judie and Paul, we'll have our own Christmas. I reproached my dad. There he was, his younger thin dark face. He was casual, yes that's what they were doing. The three of us were standing by the road saying maybe not Grande Prairie, Hythe? We could see columns of ice, icicles, that reached from the electric wires to the ground. I was lying in the dark feeling this dream, thinking it's this time of life, when the parents have shut us out and we're on our own. The ground is gone. I was remembering moments on the beach when I was standing at the edge of the water and a wave pulling out would dissolve the sand from under my feet - the way it would run forward in a dazzling sheet away from me, sensation of holes forming under my soles. I'd be subtly falling. It's about Tom not coming for Christmas too, and how badly I take it. Haven't spoken to him for two weeks. Last Friday - I didn't do this on purpose - I was parked at Dudley's when the bus he wasn't on came in. He could have come. A bit after 2. I made my place page this morning. I'm in love with it - - Little rabbits at sunset yesterday - one would rush the other, jumping straight up. 6 Ramona day. A whole list. 1. Get bike fixed. 2. Recycling to the depot, including water jugs for cash. 3. Month of garbage snuck into mall bins. 4. Supermarket, including a decaff latte. 5. Library to print sheets for CPP and Hughes refund, and pick up the last two seasons of The West Wing. 6. Pott Belly to buy another 25 sacks of pellets and load half of them. 7. Organic food store for this and that. 8. Goodwill to check for an outdoor table and bench or something they could be made from. Is that it? No, one more thing, 9. K-Mart for a 25' phone cord to replace the one that got shredded under the door or else by a rodent. Then Don's Market on the way home to buy stuff I didn't want sitting in the hot car. Then check the mailbox on the way home. Then back up to the garage door and unload bike, empty cardboard boxes, groceries, library books, water and thirteen 40-lb sacks of pellets. Then put everything away. Something about walking around the supermarket wrecks my L ankle so I hobble through the rest of what I have to do. Must fix that, figure it out. It's hurting now, the whole chain, hip, knee, ankle. Wrists at moments. Groceries were down to almost zero. The phone rang dimly in the back room before I'd put in the new cord. It was 5:30. Could be or not. Will I answer it. What wd I say. It stopped as I was opening the door. Jangled me though. 7 We are, on average, about 99.5 percent similar to each other genetically. To put what may seem like miniscule differences in perspective, we are somewhere around 98.5 percent similar (maybe more so) to chimpanzees, our nearest evolutionary relatives. The genetic differences among us reveal a species with a propensity to form small and relatively isolated groups on which natural selection has often acted strongly to promote genetic adaptations to particular environments. Mark Pagel in What have you changed your mind about? 2009 Harper Perennial 8 A particular kind of sincere and tender quality in his fiction, which happens to be familiar to us. Murikami on Ishiguru Two hours with Luke in the tiny chat box this morning. I was listening to music he'd posted, had just started. 7:01 am:
I jumped in. Then overlapped jumpy talk often out of phase, exhausting and consequential.
9 Orion located on the celestial equator [labeled] M42 just below and to the left of the belt one of the closest stellar nurseries - it's in our arm of the Milky Way Horsehead in the belt, just south of Zeta Orion, the easternmost - emission and reflection nebulae (blue) Trapezium - open cluster of stars in M42, center of Orion Nebula, young, includes brown dwarfs Interstellar dust fine needle-shaped grains of carbon Upper left cool red supergiant Betelgeuse, Alpha Orionis - 600 ly, 1000x larger than sun Lower right Rigel blue supergiant Proplyds - disks of gas and dust forming planetary systems M42 is "so vast that even the measured miniscule production rate creates enough water to fill Earth's oceans 60 times over every day ... . The water that composes comets, the oceans of Earth, and even humans may have been created in a cloud like the Orion Nebula." Immense interstellar molecular cloud Orion complex 1500 ly distant Alnitak - easternmost star of the belt, shines into the Flame Nebula Orion molecular cloud complex includes Horsehead, will slowly disperse over the next 100,000 years Witchhead Nebula near Rigel The stars of Orion shine brightly in northern winter skies Variable star V380 Orionis center of reflection nebula NGC1999 Winds from the star appear to have created the surrounding billows of gas. Jets shoot from dozens of young stars creating glowing compressed shock waves, eg Waterfall M78 reflection nebula belongs to Orion molecular cloud (contains M42 Great Nebula and Horsehead) just north of the belt Epsilon Eridani - near belt of O, nearest planet orbits it, 10 ly Also HD38529 has a planet Lanes of hot gas Bow shock half a light year across created as wind from the young star LL Orionis collides with Orion Nebula flow - young variable star - fast stellar wind runs into slow-moving gas flowing away from the Trapezium Orion always comes up sideways. Bellatrix his L shoulder Saiph his R foot Belt is L to R Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka - 3 blue supergiants Orion deep field Running Man cluster of reflection nebulae just left of M42 Horsehead just R of Alnitak Sirius 20x brighter than sun 8.7 ly Pleiades young star cluster - M45 Milky Way's Orion arm - we're in Bernard's Loop emission nebula around the belt Orion Nebula is the middle star of the sword Standing next to the River Eridanus with his two dogs fighting Taurus The belt stars have been called the Three Stars or the Three Sisters, Las Tres Marias in Spain and Latin America. Nov-Feb In countries close to the equator appears overhead in December around midnight, February evening Extend the line of the belt to Sirius and Aldebaron Eastward across the shoulders, to his right, to Procyon Line from Rigel to Betelgeuse to Castor and Pollox Rigel part of the Winter Circle, Dec-March [diagram showing counterclockwise Sirius in Canus Major, Rigel in Orion, Aldebaron in Taurus, Capella in Auriga, Castor/Pollus in Gemini, Procyon in Canus Minor] Portion of Milky Way opposite galactic center Winter Triangle Betelgeuse, Sirius, Procyon "three of the ten brightest objects" Mentioned in Homer Odyssey and Illiad, Virgil Aeneid faint wisps and sheets of dust and gas stellar jets and outflows push through the surrounding material at speeds of hundreds of km/sec gaseous wisps and dust-laden filaments wisps and sheets of dust and gas Orionid meteors flowing from the constellation mid-Oct, the radiant is just above the belt Nebulae field, Orion-Eridanus superbubble Seagull California Seen upside down in December in Australia 10 This house. The other night I heard quite heavy footsteps and went through all the rooms checking even the closets. There are usually little scratchings and gnawings after I've turned out the lights. Heavier thumps in the northeast corner of this room quite high up, maybe in the wall, maybe on the roof. Loud flumping of the water heater for minutes after I've used hot water. Something I like is the way when I get into bed in the dark and start arranging myself there's a flurry of white lightening in the pillows and sheets.
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