things are beginning to cool off for the easter weekend. well, not exactly cool, but i can sense people backing off, leaving town, giving up,and i include myself in that. it's odd here, they give the children good friday off, but the university doesn't take good friday off; my wife and i have to work. however, on monday, they give the university off, so that people can drive back to it, whereas, the children are already here, so they just stick them back in school. monday is a golden day, children busy, parents sleep in, whereas today, childcare nightmare, parents have obligations in two places or more, at once.
naturally spring is busting out all over. cherry trees, purple flowers and vines, just about everything imaginable. All the big trucks are out in full force too. I always imagine that when they are making their extra noise, they are making their statement about something, something unseen, or perhaps me. they go a little too fast through the intersection, or they seem to intentionally blow exhaust my way, and i infer that somehow, they've got this big truck, with enormous outsize wheels, and they're still a little unhappy that i'm walking along the street on a gorgeous spring day with a smug smile on my face. actually it's probably a whole lot more random than that. they figure if they make a little extra noise, all over town, eventually the right girl will notice them, and then their problems will be over, and they'll have a reason to live. i just happen to be there in the process, and there's nothing i can do about it.
last friday of the month, and i'm heading out to the golf club to play music with every bluegrass picker in west texas, which makes the last friday pretty much the best day in the month. this month, we lost one of our own, an old guy who came to listen regularly, and always wore cardinal baseball things, being, perhaps, from saint louis. didn't know him much better than that, but i liked him, and i'll miss him. almost all the bluegrass fans are older than i am, and i'm almost retired, they look at me with that look retired people have for those of us who work, and the only thing i dread about the kind of life they're living, is that there is probably too much cnn or fox news in it. i already have way too much of that in my life already, and i look at it all indirectly, through the computer on the following day, and i already rue the fact that the entire american political system has boiled down to a kind of sick television reality show. but if i had nothing else to worry about, this would be especially aggravating.
so one of the guys i tutored today was kind of jarring. he was clearly smart, driven, and intent. however, he couldn't finish a sentence without getting other ideas tangled up into it. And those ideas would lead to other ideas, which would, in turn, get the reader to forget what the paragraph was about. it was maddening trying to lead him through what a paragraph should do, because every word i said set him off into a new territory. he gladly followed my guidance. but he was so actively a-d-d that there was almost no way to get anything done. in the process of working with him, i finally realized how hard i have to control myself, to keep from having this happen when i write. look at the previous paragraph. when i write this blog, i let go of my own controls; when i want to say something, i just say it. if i start out talking about bluegrass and end up talking about the american political system boiling down into a reality television show, i relax, and let myself do it. well, this guy was like that, only ten times as bad. and he wanted to make things right. the poor kid; his family had probably never heard of a-d-d.
speaking of a-d-d, i finished a story recently, and that gave me a burst of energy, which i now hope to use finishing 1) e pluribus haiku 2016, 2) just passing through, which has a subtitle, true stories from out there; 3) the lady in red, which i might rename, on advice to my wife, who says that if she was a feminist, lady might be the wrong word for her; and, 4) interference, my novel about sports and dreamers, and in particular, saint louis. actually i would be happy to finish any of them.
naturally spring is busting out all over. cherry trees, purple flowers and vines, just about everything imaginable. All the big trucks are out in full force too. I always imagine that when they are making their extra noise, they are making their statement about something, something unseen, or perhaps me. they go a little too fast through the intersection, or they seem to intentionally blow exhaust my way, and i infer that somehow, they've got this big truck, with enormous outsize wheels, and they're still a little unhappy that i'm walking along the street on a gorgeous spring day with a smug smile on my face. actually it's probably a whole lot more random than that. they figure if they make a little extra noise, all over town, eventually the right girl will notice them, and then their problems will be over, and they'll have a reason to live. i just happen to be there in the process, and there's nothing i can do about it.
last friday of the month, and i'm heading out to the golf club to play music with every bluegrass picker in west texas, which makes the last friday pretty much the best day in the month. this month, we lost one of our own, an old guy who came to listen regularly, and always wore cardinal baseball things, being, perhaps, from saint louis. didn't know him much better than that, but i liked him, and i'll miss him. almost all the bluegrass fans are older than i am, and i'm almost retired, they look at me with that look retired people have for those of us who work, and the only thing i dread about the kind of life they're living, is that there is probably too much cnn or fox news in it. i already have way too much of that in my life already, and i look at it all indirectly, through the computer on the following day, and i already rue the fact that the entire american political system has boiled down to a kind of sick television reality show. but if i had nothing else to worry about, this would be especially aggravating.
so one of the guys i tutored today was kind of jarring. he was clearly smart, driven, and intent. however, he couldn't finish a sentence without getting other ideas tangled up into it. And those ideas would lead to other ideas, which would, in turn, get the reader to forget what the paragraph was about. it was maddening trying to lead him through what a paragraph should do, because every word i said set him off into a new territory. he gladly followed my guidance. but he was so actively a-d-d that there was almost no way to get anything done. in the process of working with him, i finally realized how hard i have to control myself, to keep from having this happen when i write. look at the previous paragraph. when i write this blog, i let go of my own controls; when i want to say something, i just say it. if i start out talking about bluegrass and end up talking about the american political system boiling down into a reality television show, i relax, and let myself do it. well, this guy was like that, only ten times as bad. and he wanted to make things right. the poor kid; his family had probably never heard of a-d-d.
speaking of a-d-d, i finished a story recently, and that gave me a burst of energy, which i now hope to use finishing 1) e pluribus haiku 2016, 2) just passing through, which has a subtitle, true stories from out there; 3) the lady in red, which i might rename, on advice to my wife, who says that if she was a feminist, lady might be the wrong word for her; and, 4) interference, my novel about sports and dreamers, and in particular, saint louis. actually i would be happy to finish any of them.
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