bluster is a kind of common characteristic around here. one guy who fancies himself a political leader has taken to wearing cowboy outfits, staging a horseback ride to washington to support trump, and saying things that we might consider inappropriate. like, that there would be blood on the steps of the u.s. capitol.

well, of course he was there at that capitol, and of course the cameras got him and they came after him. but the problem is, he's not only county commissioner in my county, in rural southeast new mexico, but also popular enough that the commission elected him into some kind of postion of responsibility. he's a natural leader, he's kind of charismatic, and everyone likes him.

but if you go about saying you're about to lead an armed insurrection on the capitol, you could get yourself in a little bit of hot water. and that's what's happening. they are investigating 'cowboys for trump,' his official group, and finding out all kinds of things. one is that they are using the commission's grounds to make their movies.

ah so i expect this to get deeper and deeper, and not go away any time soon. his kind of behavior is perfectly normal under the circumstances, where almost everyone in the county agrees with him that it was a rigged election, and don't care much if that's a blatant lie, and don't mind a big staged pounce on the capitol, fully armed and all. it's just kind of the way they do things. oh and did i mention he's a racist too - he said things like 'they should go back to africa,' and has been disinvited from the apache reservation. now those are two unrelated events, mind you, but they point out several things about him: one, he's fairly free with his mouth, and is willing to say things, like that bit about blood, without really planning them out or worrying about their consequences. two, he's actually a little insular, in that most of the people he knows and represents are so far out here in ranch country, that it seems perfectly normal to be racist, and carry a cache of armament, and get all dressed up and blustery. it doesn't seem to have diminished his popularity at all, that he is under arrest and that he is abusing county venues for his own political purposes.

the only problem is, when you lead an armed insurrection against the government, you're a seditious traitor, and they'll probably get him for that one at least.

i've been reading a lot. mostly a lot of haiku (see post below) - i actually wrote a book, in about eight days, and then went about publishing it and making a thing up on the web and on the sites, and everywhere else. in other words i used the haiku to explore my feelings about the political situation and at the same time got refocused on marketing books of haiku which is almost impossible in the sense that people really don't read a whole lot of haiku. now actually i take the whole thing a little seriously - i have a kigo, i pay attention to nature, but i stick to the 5-7-5, and i'm proud of what i write. but nobody actually reads it, except for maybe the company spy, who wants to make sure it's not subversive or trying to bring down the government. it's not. it just documents that day, january 6. it just shows, from a physical and emotional standpoint, what it was like to be there on that day.

so as part of being an avid reader i've been reading all the old haiku and there really is quite a bit of it, but now that i'm looking at it having such things as "2018" and "2017" on there isn't helping it a bit, especially inasmuch as these books are not really about 2018, or 2017, in any meaningful kind of way. now the one about the epiphany coup was about 2021, and january 6 specifically, but the question has come up of what to do about the old e pluribus haiku series, and the answer is, maybe, put it all in one volume, and strike while the striking is hot.

now i have two other things going, one is my iowa novel which has finally picked up some steam, and the other is a book about the 1830's, with the cholera epidemic and the black hawk war, and the underground railroad as it moved from missouri back into illinois and from there up into canada and thereabouts. i really am trying to finish all this stuff, and will have to, one at a time, work to get it off and out and on its way out there in the world.

this place is so crazy, i've taken to wanting to stay home, not go out, not interact a whole lot with the neighbors. they all of course think this cowboy dude is just about right in representing them, well, maybe some of them would say, they don't agree with everything he's said and done, but it's kind of like trump, they think his straightforwardness and honesty are virtues. he's just expressing their general inclination to clear the deck with all this progressive stuff and go back maybe fifty or seventy years, to when most people were white and they were a lot more comfortable. true, people are struggling these days. we're having trouble making a cohesive, nurturing culture that makes it easy or possible to bring up our children. but hey, you just have to keep struggling with it. it doesn't get any easier.

Epiphany Coup Haiku

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tonight I sit by the computer watching georgia election returns come in. one race seems to be decided while the other still hangs in the balance. with 97% of the vote counted, it should be resolved in an hour or two. not sure i'll make it that long.

i jumped on my first freight train in georgia; it was going through the city of atlanta. i was trying to get home from work at the airport and my home was very tenuous, but in a different part of the city. the freight slowed down at the airport; i jumped on, and it went slowly through east point, a suburb near the city. this was in the middle of the night, and it was in january. it was quite pleasant outside. hard to hitchhike maybe, it being about five in the morning, but the train was good. it wasn't going too fast.

i jumped off it at some god-forsaken part of town where, by walking, i'd saved a few miles if nothing else. i didn't really know where i was, but it was about five in the morning, so i didn't especially feel uncomfortable. i jumped when the train was going its slowest, but even then i kind of landed in some weeds and had to brush myself off when i stood up.

i'm not sure people are still doing that, jumping on trains. it's one of those things like skinny dipping in a rock quarry, that if the owners find out they're not too happy for insurance reasons. mostly they just don't want you to die when they are responsible. you can understand their concern. but a depression's on. maybe it'll come back, as people get tired of spending actual money going places.

east point, a pretty little place. mighty quiet, at five in the morning. i felt like i was the only one awake, but i wasn't.

another new year come and gone. this one was about to be quiet; in fact, i went to bed right at about quarter to twelve; it had been so quiet, i just couldn't stay up. i thought, i'll take a shower, then it'll be midnight. but my shower was only about two minutes, so i jumped into bed. just as i was drifting off, the dog started barking loudly. maybe the kids had stepped outside with their dog - in any case, that was my new year.

got a kindle for christmas. that has changed my whole routine, because now i read more. i sit down, read and keep reading. it works. i like to hold it; i like the size of its fonts, i like picking it up and then letting it drift back to sleep when i'm done.

but i've been reading my own books, one at a time, i mean reading them, and i'm finding typos. it hacks me, since i'm a proofreader, and somehow i missed them the first time around. i don't like having books out there for sale, with little mistakes in them. comma then a capital letter. missing word in a sentence. worst, a character whosse name changes in the middle. maybe i decided to change the name, but didn't catch them all.

so that's my new year. i've stopped bogging temporarily - that was a huge time sink, though the best game on the internet - and i wake up actually wanting to read and write. in my writing i'm on the journey - i actually backed up to 1834 - and they're taking this wagon across from maine to illinois. it's wild. late at night i get started on it and just write away. i've divided a book about two different pioneers - father and son - into two different books, tentatively called pioneer leveretts and prairie leveretts. should be good reading for my descendants, i hope. it's what i'm totally involved in now.

we're having a cold year. day in, day out, down around ten at night or zero, water freezing if you leave it out, that kind of thing. i actually like walking in this weather, and do it sometimes, but in this jag of reading/writing, i'm doing less. clear skies as usual; you get used to that in new mexico. clear skies, dry as a bone. time to read and write.

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Narrated by Jordan Lewis