exhausted after a gig at a coffee shop; a long hard week with lots of term papers, about ten left over; putting ad for truck in craigslist finally; and the kind of weather i tolerate, but definitely don't enjoy. the terrible accident in mpls- the town i lived in before moving here- thirteen years ago, anyway, it shakes your faith in infrastructure, if not mindot. makes you wonder, what life would be like if i were on an i-35 bridge every evening at rush hour. i almost took that road, but veered off, to the intersection of illinois 13 & 51, where i occasionally turn left on oneways, at a red light, if there's no traffic, or maybe a train blocking the way down the hill. i loved mpls- almost took it on that summer- but things didnt' work out there and moved here at about this time, 1994. a friend's sister missed the disaster because of taking "an alternate route," which i was into at the time also. any of several bridges across the mississippi were alternate routes. the road to carbondale was kind of an alternate route, if you think about it.

daycare invited parents out to campus lake one day and i took them up on it...upon getting on the bicycle, outside faner hall, noticed all the kids, walking by, holding hands with each other, taking in the sauna/sweaty afternoon heat just like it was normal, which it would be, if you grew up here. tailed along with them until we got to the lake where we went out on a boat for a while. but then, they gave us fishing poles, and, sure enough, elias & i caught one, a little silver-dollar fish about the size of one's hand, greenish-colored. boy, that was a moment- made my day, reminded me of other adventures, other kids, the feeling one gets when something special happens. a guy deftly pulled the hook off the fish & threw him back in- god was smiling on the fish also. two other people were lucky- the worker in charge, who had never caught one, and a little girl, growing up with elias, with her mother. time stops in a small town. takes a picture of a collection of people, along a dock, on a very hot day. soon enough, we go back to grading papers, making batman costumes, turning left on main.

large dawg paws on the streets, as they begin to welcome freshmen to town- we call them 'clues,' being fans of blues clues' dog paw clues. got a clue?

want part of a folk tale contest? informal judges are just as good as the official ones, in that, the more opinions the better. i'm neutral, to tell you the truth, though i've already voted. the method is: distribute 20 pts. among the entries, any way you like, tell me. or, just tell me. it's part of a general campaign to get folk tales on the web, get them collected and organized, begin a process of making a kind of entertaining set of stories to read. i've actually been collecting them, off and on, more or less, for many years.

and, if you read a lot, try nine walmart stories (see template). i'm collecting opinions...other than opinions like, don't quit your day job. i want to remake these, make a book.

in my free time, of course