Fish

Here I sit, making typo after typo. We had a good day. I went for a run after Amy stretched my spine and popped that one little tiny bugger that had caused the crick these two days. Man, I am tired of being sick or injured. After a year of plantar fasciaitis, it is good to have only minor hurts, but still. I want to be in shape. I was almost there before February stated, then came a back injury, and a cold, then the crick.
I went for a run today. I felt good cardio-wise, but my legs have lost their snap. And I applied for the track job…again. I am not sure that I want it, but then it would be nice to have the money, and I like to work with kids, especially with running. If I don’t get the job, then I will run out there sometimes, especially on Wednesdays, and then do some more horse shoeing (trimming mostly) with Monte.
I want to write down a few snatches of things that might be relevant: Lonely barns, that barn, tin buckets on fence posts, mourning doves in elm trees, rain on late winter weekends, bland sunsets in late February, the River, dang, always the River.
When my mom lived on Serpentine, sometimes I would look out at the river and see a cacophony of fishes. I assume that it was fish. I always wanted to rush down to the river to see what was happening out there to cause such thrashing and turbulence, but of course, as I knew then, I would not be able to get down there quickly enough, nor did I have a boat. I wonder at what they were doing.

Dear diary (I hate spelling!)

Today, I went for a hike. It was very similar to taking an xc ski, up KAGO hill, but there was no getting tangled up in the brush. Two to four inches of snow lay on the ground, underneath a solid base of one to five inches. Snowshoe tracks paralleled my course, on the way down. I walked fine without them.

I went so that I could have a break from the girls, who have been...challenging this week. I frequent KAGO hill, on foot, running and hiking, on mtn. bike and on xc ski, when conditions allow (not so much this year, which has been a disappointment). Today, it was hiking. Also, surreptitiously, I looked for birds, as it is bird count weekend. Most notably, I saw a cassin's finch. That took the longest to identify, partially, or mostly, because, it is not so big. I had to walk most of the way around the bush that it sat upon before I could reasonably identify it. Also, Canada geese, house finches (30+) common ravens, golden-crowned sparrows, Oregon juncos, and possibly an immature bald eagle, though it was too far away for me to be sure.

I'm not sure what I want to write about. I suppose it is about my health as that has been on my mind for the last 10+ months. I stopped taking the statin that I was prescribed. I do not like how it made me feel, psychologically and physically. I am still taking niacin and O3 pills to try to control the darn cholesterol. BP is as BP does. I feel guilty for drinking too much especially since I saw my doctor at the pizza parlor tonight. I am working on it! At the same time, I am tired of feeling guilty for what I put into my mouth. I am trying to exercise and eat better, but man! I have been in this habit for a long time. Realistically, don't you think, it will take awhile to change.

-J

Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson

#1 I would like to report that I read 46 books last year, the most since I have started keeping a book journal (if you are not keeping a book journal, I urge you to start now).

A recent book that I finished (not the most recent, that is another (again) Arryhay Otterpay (it is just nice to be in that world for awhile)) (and now I would like to report that the cat was unsuccessful at deleting this post...and now he his trying (and failing) again) was "Conversations With Hunter S. Thompson" edited by Beef Torrey and Kevin Simonson.

Is this Hunter's best work laid out for all to see? No. Is it sometimes repetitive and derivative? Well, yes. Are the interviewers always on top of it? Are they trying to hard to be "Gonzo" sometimes? Is it a good read for fans of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "The Curse of Lono"? Yes. (It also helps a great deal to have read "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" and "Hell's Angels").

I read it through, mostly laying on the couch. New information? Not so much. Inhabiting Hunter's world? Sometimes. Does it make me want to be a Gonzo journalist? Not like Fear and Loathing (then I faint away from imaging too many drugs and alcohol (what a pansy)).

Happy Trails...

(I realize that I posted this on the wrong blog. What a loser :-(

Older

I’m scared, and I hate that. I read Hunter and think that probably, I am invulnerable, immortal. Then I look at my dead father laying on the ski slope and realize that I am more than mortal: my genetics tell me that I could die any day. Fuck! I want to drink and eat and double-shit!
I like my new desk. It overlooks the stairway and the window to outside, birds and all (why the obsession?), overlooking the stairs (I feel a little giddy in my gut (beer rests on the guard rail)).
I am now officially on drugs: Lisonopril, statins. I feel one hundred years old, trapped in the body of someone who wants to be so much younger and not informed. Goddamnit! I am super-pissed at my dad for having these genes, then giving them to me. I feel that I can do what I have been doing and live eight more years (he died at 46) or change and maybe live longer; always, the axe is hanging over my head. (Won’t that shorten my life as well?)
I realize that I am gripping the desk. What the fuck!? How did it come to this? Probably it is because I am a runner and so pay attention to my body and what affects it, and what I put in it. I try to eat well, though at times, I have to “live” as my doctor puts it. Tonight, I am drinking too much and have eaten an hamburger. Remember when hamburgers were the norm, not the exception. It wasn’t a fast-food hamburger, but it wasn’t exactly a super-lean burger either. It was tasty, I can say that, and the salad with it was good too, though a little oniony. (There is the gut clench when I put the beer back on the rail over the stairs.)
And then, I went out and did something that I was meant to do. Taught. Shoed horses. Wrote. Made furniture. Made jewelry (the latest interest). I am a man who loves hobbies and would like nothing better than to succeed at everything while only having to do one thing every now and then. My life is caring for the kids. My passion is? My mom once said something like, You have to live with your choices. I resisted that for many, many moons but here I am, a product of my choices. Yet, still, I can’t imagine myself anywhere else…
I’m looking at the music list, trying to conjure something different, but I listen to music so rarely, that I cannot stop it. Now: Sympathy for the Devil. I am closing my eyes, having another sip…

Twelve Minutes of Scribbling

It is snowy. It has snowed. The snow fell, in great quantities. Our
roads are white. White roads trap four wheel drive vehicles in
intersections. Fifteen minutes now, he has been stuck, much engine
noise, a little shoveling: at least he has a shovel.

Black silhouette, the cat stares out at the snow, the dreaded snow. I
feel for him. I wouldn't want to pee out there either. I shoveled a
path for him up to the backyard, but he still has to squat in six
inches of white under the tree. Usually the ground under the cedar
stays snow free, but this year, so much snow has fallen that we can't
see the ground. It lays at least two feet deep, even in broad sun, not
that we have seen much sun for the last week, week and a half.
Yesterday, and today, the sun shone, brilliant blue sky a counterpoint
to the blank whiteness of the snow.

That four wheel drive pickup made it out, with a little help. I would
have gone to help, but I really don't think that I would have been any
help. It was a big pickup. I would not have been able to swing the back
end around like I have been doing so often these days. The secret is to
dig out the drive tires on the downhill side. Have the person turn the
front wheels to point up hill, put it in reverse, then give it some
gas. As the drive tires spin, you push it down hill: push on the front
for front wheel drive, and on the back for rear wheel drive.

So far, we have been lucky and have not gotten stuck. I try to drive
without hubris, however. Getting older has made me more careful.
Yesterday, I tried to dig a snow-cave in one of our giant piles of snow
for my daughter. I didn't get very far, because I got nervous. I could
see what would happen if it were to collapse. I can picture a
seventeen-year-old boy digging and digging and nothing ever possibly
going wrong. It wasn't taking a chance, back then. It was digging a
hole in the snow fully possessed of the belief that nothing could
possibly go wrong.

One Day on the Willamette

One Day on the Willamette

Throw it all in! Jumping from
Knickerbocker Bridge
crashing, splashing into the water
exploding like pop bottles filled with
dry ice and water. We drowned but
lived bringing up a loaded gun.

Hollering with joy we pulled
the trigger: the gun went off in our heads
(truly, it was rusted shut and dead,
a moribund killer in the hands of children):
I blew our heads off and cackled into the night.

Journal

I am writing in a journal. I have to: it is on the schedule! We have
tried to schedule our chores and since I want to write in a journal,
but have not been able to force myself to do so, I put it on the chore
schedule (we do schedule other things also, such as dinner dates, and
horseshoeing).

It is hard to think because there is music playing too loudly outside.
In many ways, this is not the best neighborhood in Klamath Falls
(actually it probably is the best, but it could be greatly improved)
but in other ways, it is rather nice, and we really do love our house
and would not trade it for anything (that's probably not actually true,
but we like to think it anyway).

The last couple of days (Sunday and Monday nights) we spent in
Brookings. We really haven't spent much time in Brookings, just a few
hours here and there --when I was writing an article about Kalmiopsis
Wilderness comes to mind-- but we found that it is pretty nice. We
camped in Harris Beach State Park. State Parks are great for families:
showers, nice sites, clean restrooms...but they are crowded. We had
many people around us, though when 10 rolled around, all was quiet.
That was nice.

As for Brookings, we found a great restaurant, the Chetco Seafood
Company in Harbor, right down on the Harbor. I had some of the best
clam strips ever, and Amy's Halibut was tender and delicious.

We spent quite some time on the beach as Zoe likes the sand. We also
explored the tidepools at Harris Beach and also at Lone Ranch. Mostly
Zoe wanted to "hold the snails". Also, a hermit crab squirted water at
her and that was quiet funny for all.