i'm sitting in my chair by the window, which is different from what it had been for a couple of years. basically i've moved upstairs. i type in my room. i look out at an intense canopy so that i'm going to watch slowly as the leaves turn.

i basically moved upstairs because a son was staying downstairs for almost a week, and we have frequent visitors down there. my little mess - notebooks, books, kindle, pens, etc., was ok for them but i virtually had to move it up in order to keep functioning, and while i was up here i noticed a couple more things: i'm slightly more productive when the chair is not as comfortable, and i'm also encouraged to get out of it more often. also, i'm much less distracted. the dog knows where to find me, and so does everyone else, but i'm less likely to be drawn into random dramas that i want no part of.

upstairs i have a small, less comfortable chair, but i have a small bookshelf that i look directly at, that has my favorite of all-time books, just a few. inspirational poetry, quaker things, a baseball almanac, cartoons, a fine selection. it's wonderful and i'll keep the shelf dusted. to my side i have my books, or what i've managed to collect of them. i've invested in my own books. they are my inheritance. i like to be able to see them as i sit here.

i sit here waiting to go to iowa, basically. in iowa they put in a cochlear implant two weeks ago, and today they'll turn it on. they'll give me a cat scan too to make sure my head is functioning right. people get all excited about 'activation day.' i am just eager to get on with the show - if i'm going to get any hearing out of this, i want it to start as soon as possible. in peace i sit here in my new corner, out my right eye, the courtyard canopy, with all the trees on the little front-porch roof that i look out on; on my left, my own books, and straight ahead my little bookshelf. i now have my quilt makings near me, and also my quaker-pamphlet makings, which needless to say, i often neglect. life is balance; i need to get these things integrated into my life.

but i have a lot more going on. for one, i've found my life work - writing on language as a self-organizing system - and now i want to work on it every day, consistently, a chapter a day. i also have some shorter more creative works i'd like to crank out. i have my marketing more regularized, more consistent, though usually it doesn't get much in the way of results. and finally, i get on the consumer-survey situation, so i have gift cards to invest in my books. i tell them what i think of their logos and how likely i would be to buy their product, and in return they throw me a few pennies of amazon gift card that go directly into putting a book on my shelf.

my dashing has become intense at night. two and a half hours a night, and i make anywhere from about forty to about fifty. sometimes less maybe, especially as fall falls, i'm not sure of the factors, but summer was jumping and it may not stay that way. no problem on the dwindling income. most of this is now house budget problems, and i am more than willing to turn over the money and worry a little less about how my wife can redesign the kitchen or keep our son fed with all his various hungers. he is slowly coming to realize that, as a normal nineteen-year-old, he should be feeding them himself. but i let her remind him. when i do it, that triggers him.

time to go. it's a wonderful, beautiful road up to iowa. you start out in western illinois cornfield; you turn west in the quad cities, crossing the river in a place that is stunningly beautiful. iowa itself is very busy, trucks all over the place. perhaps they have all found that world's biggest truck stop and go out of their way to come and go from it. but iowa city, ah, iowa city, my old friend, now incredibly hustle-bustle, but still with many many of my old friends whom i dearly love. slowly, one at a time, i'll reconnect. i look forward to it.