lookin' kind of ominous out there, overcast, with thunder and rainstorms passing through the area. we've all been kind of on edge, hoping for rain, as we generally don't get much this time of year, not until maybe july, so the sheer dryness of everything is kind of driving everyone crazy. people snip at each other over whether it's ok to fire guns randomly at this time of year; firecrackers are a huge issue, as they are generally banned altogether, though some people insist on firing them off anyway. just about anything that burns can pretty much catch the whole mountaintop on fire, so we're especially wary of tourists, or people who don't read signs, or in some cases, people who are both at once. but the locals are probably just as likely to endanger us as anyone.

an elk hit my truck last night; i was driving slowly, windows down, on a mountain road coming into town near big daddy's. someone was coming from town and rustled this elk out of their eastbound lane and right into my driver's door. he put a dent in it but didn't ruin it or make it so it wouldn't shut. the guys in the other car stopped to check it out and said the door could probably be popped back in place; having figured out that we (i) in the truck were ok, and the elk was gone (he bounded off, wounded as he was), the guys left; they were mountain kids, vaguely familiar, respectful. it was our surprise that the elk had hit me, that i hadn't hit it; but, that's the way it was.

nothing worse than having a kid that goes off his meds, maybe because he thinks he doesn't need them, or just because his life is in such a place where he doesn't care. people love him, and know, even from a distance, that things are disjointed, not right, all is not well. one can read it in his posts, which have an edge, but no grammar, no complete thought. just the edge. the hard edge, the raw feelings untempered. that's the kind of feelings that can get you in a fight, get you beat up, ruin you. of course we're all out here going, take your meds, take your meds. get this back under control. nothing worse, than being so powerless, sit way out here, hope your kid gets his head back.

we can feel the rain coming; it's come up over the valley now, and there's thunderous sounds of imminent water. there's been no rain to speak of for months, maybe a few drops here and there. i brought in what i could but a huge sheet of plywood remains up on the road; i'd brought it from the country, to make sure we could get the refrigerator down the steps and past the place where the plumber, in desperate fury, tore up the walk trying to find the leaky water main. the water main busted because we put a huge wall in, to keep the road from caving in toward the house. it's all a big one-thing-after-another kind of drama that might take up my whole summer.

started putting my haiku up on twitter randomly, just whichever one had an edge, whichever one might catch someone's eye. one day i'd do idaho, another georgia, and after the haiku i'd link to the haiku site which of course now has about sixty for each state. most tweets fall randomly into the sea of extra words but i thought maybe the visual nature of haiku would be like a stone in a pond, it would make a blip, maybe somebody would notice. turns out, new jersey noticed. on that site, where it tracks visitors, it got over a hundred on that day.

such is life; it goes on, and we wait for the rain.