mid-january ramble

almost done with my novel, which is a kind of who-dun-it set in rural illinois/st. louis, tells an odd story about love, illusions, sports, & murder. i'm definitely a novice. i have to go back and check my facts, fill out the characters, see what still doesn't make sense. so, while i'm almost done with the plot part, i'm not nearly done with the novel itself. it's got a ways to go.

then, i have to say, my wife admitted today that i have almost totally won over her dog's heart, and this is true, as i take her outside and throw the stick once in a while, and she lives for the stick. she chases it with the intently focused fanaticism only a black lab can have for a stick. and she loves me dearly in return, she waits for me, she sleeps near me, she finds me when i come home. i don't take her for walks though. my wife claims i should and that she's no trouble out on the street. no, the trouble really is with me, when i was a teenager i had a dog and i hated the leash so much i took it off all the time, and the neighbors got mad at me and also my parents, for allowing me to be such a miscreant teenager. it was a bad memory all the way around. and the dog got out one time, truly out, way out, got hit by a car and ended up way in a corner where two busy roads, far away, came together. poor dog, was never the same again. this was in that vast territory between buffalo and niagara falls, i went and found my high school reunion, and there was almost nobody i could friend or stay in touch with, it all felt pretty far from my heart.

iowa, on the other hand, has stepped forward in my memories, i guess i just got tired of missing illinois so much, i might as well miss iowa too, add some variety to my nostalgia. i actually had lots of very close friends there; some won't friend me, due to being ignored for what, thirty years, others friended me right away, some seem to have disappeared. i kept thinking of more as i scrolled through and saw what happened. their kids seemed to be like my kids and went out into the world doing their things. my own son is telling his own story; i'm extremely proud of him; there's nothing more difficult than laying it on the table for everyone to see, and this is something i haven't totally done myself, for me, not to mention, my own version of all the stuff that has happened. you get a partial version here, dear reader, you may never know what it's really like out there, but i come back home, back from my walk around our little park, a full moon out tonight, wind, some stars, cool, and i'm glad to be home, the dog settling in and waiting for me, the last one, to go to bed. there's a tenuous balance between the way you want yourself seen in public, reining in the true you, who is the center of the universe, who, in a pure form, has no use for clothes, leashes, brakes...i may, someday, put some of this in a novel, or i may be too busy, who knows, and it may go unwritten. I have learned a bit in this world, and i may use it one way or the other, but it would be a shame to take this gathered-up skill set, this accumulated knowledge, and let it blow away in the wind, like the spring dust-transfers that are picking up around here and threaten to dry out virtually everything still holding on in the worthless dirt.

happy king day everyone, i wish you a moment's peace in this world, and then to carry on, and do the kind of stuff that will make the world better.