2014.09.07
This is our last morning at Lake Pomme de Terre and it is very pretty, sunny but cool, and I can hear the boats out on the water, which was one of my favorite sounds as a child. Should we return we will bring a kettle for boiling water, a good kitchen knife, a domino set, fishing tackle, beach towels, floatation devices, and a 50 gallon drum of bug spray. I walked by the water at dusk last night with the almost full-moon coming up. I stood on the dock for a while and reflected on how lucky I am to return to a place I enjoyed as a kid.
2014.09.08
I love the new Bob Mould record, best one in a long time. It has some aggressive, live-sounding tracks on it that are as vital as anything he's done since "Flip Your Wig" days. And it has some ballads and more mid-tempo stuff that I like as well. I basically want to listen to it all the time, which is an experience I have not had with a record in some time.
2014.09.09
If you take a look at pretty much anything in culture you can take a read on its usefulness, its triviality, its underlying animosity, or the self-regard of its maker. Nowadays I look at a lot of what we do and the message I see is "this is NOT happening! Sell more shoes!" The migratory patterns of North American birds are getting all fucked up. Many species won't survive the adjustment process. Sell more cars! The culture of denial, or whatever you want to call it. I don't believe in being a crank, unless you are a really, really, really good crank like H.L. Mencken or somebody like that. But we are messing everything up, big time. That's a weak way to put it.
2014.09.10
Later I dreamed Neil Young had a new lost album that required real estate developers to finish. It was a new Tonight's The Night type record, but apparently was all about sex. I was imagining the packaging of the sleeve and all of that. The music was supposedly really great.
2014.09.11
I have used journal writing for bloodletting more than once and you end up with writing that you feel you need to burn or throw away. I wrote it longhand in part to hide the negative commentary that might hurt someone else or make me look like an asshole. I guess the point is in relationships, whether at work or at home, imperatives and intuitions are there, it's not like you have to write them all down, especially if you are writing them down to get rid of them until they build up again with such force that you're struggling again. Better to just be present with whatever it is than to feed it, nurse it, drag it out in writing.
I was thinking I'd make eggplant parmesan tonight, then again I was thinking I might go to the Royals-Red Sox game at the K.
2014.09.15
Yesterday I broke my step record of 16K and got close to 18K--that was a good long walk and a bunch of hauling boxes and stuff out to the van and into the basement of the house. I was reviewing my journal entries and find that I have mentioned the step counter three or four times. This makes me wonder about Alzheimer's but also tells me that I really like having a step counter on my phone.
