I Awake, I Endure Disillusionment, I Put on My Shoes

I had too much to drink, I do that sometimes. I don’t do it often. I do it just enough to remind me not to do it again. I do it maybe once a year. Go over the top. Martin and Sandy had come in just as I was leaving. Of course I had to stop and talk and have another beer – one too many. The Spaarten Optimator was the beer of the day and a Bud Lite it was not. Then the two Erics came in and I had to stay a little longer and converse with them. How many times did I tell Sandy that I liked her red hair. Sandy had been a blond. After annoying the interns from the immersion academy I left. I got to my truck and clicked the locks. Then everything went blank. I fell on a patch of ice. How long were you out, Joe asked? I don’t know. How can you tell? I managed to regain my feet and get into the vehicle. It was a tough drive home and there was black ice. I was having tunnel and blurred vision. Was it the result of the drink or a concession from my fall? There was a big bump on the back of my head but otherwise I was OK, I thought. The drive home and the time before I got to bed is hazy. I didn’t leave my keys and wallet and glasses where I normally do. I had a hard time finding my shoes the next morning. There is still a bump on the back of my head a week later. I thought I had lost my keys but they were on the ground beside the truck the next morning. Maybe I shouldn't have driven home. When you shouldn't drive you aren't in shape to make an intellegent decision - that's what impaired means.

What makes a word a word is its meaning what makes an experience an experience is also its meaning – V N Volosinov –Marxism and the Philosophy of Language p26

The largest gypsum cave in the world (with guided tours) – Massive boulders of alabaster in varied colors of pink, white and even black plus five species of bats: cave myotis, Western big-ear, Eastern piprestrelle, Western big brown and Mexican free-tail. Unlike birds bats ‘swim’ though the air – reaching forward and curving their wings around a parcel of air, pulling its body past. All the bones of a hand are contained in a bat wing except for the thumb.

I am a mystic and I believe it is true / that my body survives as long as I do – Michael McClure – Star Poems, 1978 p21

The new knowledge turns Nature into the historical description of the probability of its own becoming

In order to picture to itself an unknown situation, the imagination borrows elements that are already familiar, and, for that reason, cannot picture it – Marcel Proust – The Fugitive p9

The Automobile is the main predator of deer – accounting for 80% of the reported out-of-season mortality

The comedy of life is a play that can be entertaining only so long as it’s basic illusions is kept up. To strip away disguises ruins the play and leads only to disillusionment, futility, despair, or even suicide - - Clarence H Miller – The Praise of Folly, Introduction, 1979

I awoke with a boom – it seemed kind of gloomy – I shut my eyes again and went back to sleep – a flash and then a boom again – rain – it quickly passed. The dog and I proceed with our walk. The lady a the end of the lane was already gone – having taken her son to school – She and I passed on the hill again – she coming back and I headed out. It was thirty minutes later than the time that we had passed the day before in the same spot.

Man is the creature who cannot escape from himself, who knows other people only in himself, and when he asserts the contrary, he is lying – Marcel Proust – The Fugitive p37

Cranes flocking

Crop dusters swooping

Hedge apples plopping

Cottonwoods rustling
Cockleburs adhering

The lake rippling

Leaves falling

Crickets hopping

Flies buzzing

Age after ages shall be / As age after age has been, / (From man’s changeless heart their way they win) – Herman Melville – Battle-pieces and Aspect of the War, 2001 p56

Those individual worlds that become interrelated form the basis of a ‘culture’ to the extent that they share symbols. This interrelationship between ones’ world and the world of another fixes the limit at which understanding becomes self-deception.

It is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture… Another spirit may be given by another time, and it is then a new building – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from his writings, 1963 p135