January 27, 2011

J:





Also, I wrote an abysmal little bit of prose on the train today, finishing it in awkward places while waiting here or there or driving up and down main street in the snow. It was like the end times, buses sliding off the road, the police only stopping for the most desperate cases. I'll show you some exciting portions of it, but my thoughts were all smashed together - along with my limbs - as we bumped along home, heading into the coming plague of ice, snow, slush and roving bands of barbaric pirates, fighting over the last scraps of food and hunting in packs:


"Now it is the hour of the four wheel drive, and everyone who has got their suv bounds proudly, daring anyone to affront them with emission guilt, certain, with good reason, that the man swishing sideways uphill in his hybrid is filled with jealous helplessness.

I am one of those proud four wheeled mountain goat men, torn between demanding tribute from the victims of sunny day efficiency and the desire to go out like a man who owns a boat, rescuing swimmers from the storm. Now I am the schoolmaster, the superior one. "Maybe if you'd planned ahead," I say, sternly. By ten the roads are littered with abandoned cars, carapaces that document the bold and the foolish with indifference. Even the sure footed trucks are swishing about as though they were steered by rudders. The buses are out of commission; the police are all busy.

Once I make it home, blue lightning, more like a live atmospheric charge hums and crackles in the air, a buzz just inside your ear. The power blinks off in terified response, and then it is dark, and cold, everything cast back a century in a second. We light the gas stove with a match and bring out candles, books, my guitar.

Our neighbor is pregnant, and we meet out on the street. We hardly ever talk, but we exchange phone numbers and offer to drive her to the hospital if it comes to that the blue and humming flashes haunt us all night, and I fall asleep, senseless of the time and certain only of how much seems to have changed."


Also, tragedy! As you can see above, the power went out, and we were pioneers again. You may not be aware of this, but you can't read books published after 1923 by candlelight. Go and try it in your bathroom right now if you don't believe me. But, because of this I couldn't sent my interview questions in to Leodegraunce, or sign my contract with them. So, like a pioneer, who could hew a tree down and build a door with leather hinges, I whipped out my blackberry and clicked SEND on my draft email. I promptly lost 3g coverage. So, roving about with the blackberry held up like a torch, I looked for coverage, finding it, clicking SEND, losing it and wandering around more. Finally it went, and I checked to see if it was in my SENT folder. It was! Hooray! Wait...so were five other copies of the email. Now the editor of Leodegraunce probably assumes I am dangerous and should be avoided. But she is publishing my story anyway.





R:


I knitted today. Actually, I was almost blown up by a power line, but after surviving that I sat at home and knitted, drank a glass of wine, and watched the Art of the Steal (a documentary about the Barnes Foundation that I will probably blog about sometime soon over at Spoon).