they say there's a new cottage industry in taking things off the net that people originally put on because of their childish foolishness, thinking, who else but my friends is going to see this? everyone, it turns out. it's all published, out there for the whole world & they'll come, sooner or later, looking for scraps to use against you, maybe. under those circumstances i'm embarrassed, a little, that i was so quick to tell my whole story (italics, below), yet, it was kind of not doing too well pent up inside me anyway. the more i write, the more of it comes back- the long days in mexico, the trip up from guatemala, the androscoggin, the cardboard box factory in san francisco, the bears, even many days in a jones county of mystic beauty & almost no tourists, or even interlopers, whatsoever...i'm not only not done, i haven't even begun to start. but i wonder if i won't be coming back around, sweeping out the cat litter, protecting myself from my own stink. rules of the small town: the better you know someone, the more hesitant you are to reveal the most intimate details, meaning that some stranger sitting next to you on a greyhound bus is as likely to hear your true feelings, sometimes, as the person you've seen every day for ten years. now i've known people who are offended by that law, but that's because they suspect people are containing all kinds of stuff, and maybe they're right. it's a good time for me now- i'm producing lots of good stuff, even the reading quizzes are poetry, the three boys at home are giving me lots to do & think about, the older two are coming home, and i've got lots of time, riding the bike & swimming, to plan the rest of it, if not do it. have not heard from the unitarians about the play, which, upon reflection & good input from my friend larry, i realize is flawed. but a play is like a song. when someone else does it, you expect it to be different, not how you'd do it- and that's how it should be, because that means they put something of themselves into it. but the question is, if it's a little too much for the readers of this blog, which is generally my own children & parents, should i then just weave it into the fiction? let them wonder? sit on it for another 35 years? the fact is, it wasn't that bad, you wouldn't even get arrested for it nowadays....and, to me, one of the more interesting laws of nature is, information wants to be free. it's almost like it has a life of its own. like it gets ornery bound up in your pocket, and you figure, if people care enough to get into the archives, let 'em have it. one son defines 'history' as a place you go to find places other people know about and you don't- he's mastered google images and can't even read. now i thought hissssstory was the punchline of a joke: what do you call a snake in the road?