listening to a tape of international teaching assistants who want to become teachers, but in some cases have no tone, or no pronunciation, you can't figure out what's going on. it's kind of like wandering around back streets, not really sure which direction you're going. or waking up in the middle of the night, for no reason, knowing you've had a strange dream, but forgetting it entirely, except that now you can't sleep again.

i'd actually like to get out of lubbock, but i don't know the area well, and have had almost no time to explore. there are lots of places out there, worthy of exploration, it's a wild country, and it stretches way down into mexico. full of prospectors these days, oilmen, filling up the motels, hauling in the money, i'm not sure what else they're doing. everyone needs to make a living, i guess, and in some ways it's better than sitting around. fracking is a regular discussion we have. in illinois it's considered a sin, my son says. here it's just an everyday thing. the question is, how much can we pull out of the ground, before we have no ground, and it all caves in? i'm not sure.

it's baseball season, and soccer season both, but a cold spell came down and it was below freezing, in may yet, last night and tonight. a late winter system, maybe? people were even talking about snow, though i haven't seen any. earlier the wind was blowing hard and dust was coming up. the dust, they're used to. but freezing in may? that's a little unusual.

got pictures coming. i see more than i used to, things look ironic, even when they're not. my son has an active creativity going. made me realize, it's not over yet. i can still do stuff. i can finish my novel. i can make a cd too. i can put pop art, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, all together in one piece. plenty of time!

it's a busy city, making money, staying alive. the sun is due to come out and splash, we'll bathe in it for a while, but it doesn't seem to slow down life much. i'm thinking of setting up the trains. make sure the air-con works, then hide in it. the hot asphalt fries, outside, the dirt gets baked up, and sometimes a bit of rain will pass across and a little will come down and sizzle on what's there. i might water the lawn, but i'm just pouring water on red dusty hot-baked dirt, and it doesn't amount to much. these days i water for myself, for the feeling it gives me, though i realize i'm just wasting money pouring it back into the earth from whence it came. the birds come around looking to see what might happen if there's a little water around. most of it evaporates before it even gets an inch below the surface. it's like a mirage, it's there, but only for a moment.