a couple of wild and abrupt developments in my routine life. first, i've started walking to work, since half a swim three days a week isn't quite doing it for me, so i find myself reacquainted with some old friends: arena parking lot, highway-shoulder prairie, a small stream in a little patch of woods. but now it's daytime; it's steamy; it's a little different.

second, and more dramatic, is this. as you know, the path coming back to the office from the pool (in the clocktower building) comes up beside the japanese garden, where they are blasting out the library up to the right, raising dust and making a huge racket in a large construction zone, even as irises, bamboo and other exotic plants bloom in the garden. This would be enough of a sensory experience, but the grass, immediately across from the garden, separated off by the fence, is now going uncut- being part of the construction territory, but not being used for anything. Nature picks up on such things right away- the grass goes to seed; clover blossoms, wildlife moves in- all basically because of an oversight. I admire and respect the univ. grounds crew- who are usually right on top of anything in their territory- but this is really no longer their territory. and as long as they're blasting away at the library (part of which collapsed on them a while back), they may not be paying much attention to this new little prairie...

meanwhile the steamy sauna summer descends...i'm putting my stories (below) in italics, and in the template; hope to provide more. i hope also- to finish the play, to play some music, to get back to some poetry. the stories, by the way, are true, to the best of my knowledge; the haiku versions are not. same journey, different perspectives, i guess...