pressed for time, i barely stop when posting at work, to explain how i wish i could have made an entire post, out of any given project that i can barely mention. lots going on- lots to learn, lots to do, lots happening there. yet my personal life is busy too. a 2-yr-old learns to talk & tells me what for. a 6-yr-old has a birthday party and reads old batman comix. a 20-yr-old writes from france; one comes from washington state, another rides a bicycle way across town twice a day, a kind of chronic traveller himself. my wife has been sick; so has a cat; the dog has lost track of when exactly he last went out. but, on top of it all, the indians are winning, constantly, joyously, careening toward the world serious, and one has to stop and watch for at least a minute. years in which the indians made it this far are etched firmly in our memories- baseball at its finest, when teams get really good, and are all determined to win. these indians just might...

fall has been inordinately hot and dry- as if the moisture has been sucked down into the southeast's major drought. we must never forget how closely our weather system is tied to that of the whole gulf basin, whatever gets blown into what we call the "south," or what doesn't...it doesn't just roll gently down from the west here. and, now, the area is parched; we may lose our home-planted christmas tree.

no luck selling the truck, but, another round of trying is coming. what can one do? i can't really use it well; somebody can, i'm sure. in carterville, a small town, some surprise, maybe, at a kind of folk music, some people passing through, playing music to bounce off old walls in the town's center, not far from a haunted house set up for the kids. that was our audience- at least they were around; they heard it, they know who we are. carterville is across a large lake from here; in the center of southern illinois, more of a dead center, culturally and geographically. as a region, though, we aren't dead yet. my kids, i always thought, would come back someday to a boomtown, a boom area, carterville as its center, i figure, and they'd look around, land prices high, jobs all over the place, and they'd say, i'm from around here. and i'm not sure, exactly, what kind of imprint that kind of experience would have, on a kid's character. i'll find out, i guess.