I spent half the day working on the 2nd level property tax appeal, so my soul is now dead. if I have to do the 3rd level appeal, it will have to be without a soul.
I’ll try a nap.

3rd level appeal is DC supreme court. not sure what that will look like. wigs.

in my sleeplessness I have made some executive decisions or not really decisions but something like the primordial stuff of decisions or disposition. I have some sight of them but they are unknown. something about, alertness. examine. something. being in the mind. people talk about being in the body but there is also being in the mind. being somewhere. unilocated. uniextensive. something like responsible but not responsible to anything except the particular.

I’m settling into this day, this thursday, a little while before it ends. better than nothing.

I found his blog and I see that today he interviewed maureen, adam and cathy. tomorrow he’ll be here and I have not warned him about the place. I’m talking about this project of steve mclaughlin, the national poetry interview bus tour he has underway. yes I haven’t told him he’ll be visiting a disaster zone. and I’ve had thoughts about how I might try to pass it off like it’s just my normal digs here right now, and not let on or say anything about the condition of the place. just see how long I can carry that. act a little puzzled or absent if he asks. tho I would have to hide the tools perhaps. aww hhhhhhhhhhhhhhHeck, Ill just be my self! yuk

keep forgetting to mention that last night I invented the nutella tostada. I could find no other substrate. necessity gave birth.

I recommend eating two. how to make a nutella tostada:

cook one or two tostada shells in a toaster oven. watch them. they should only cook long enough for some of the oil to sweat out of the shell. never brown your tostada shells. remove the oily shells from the toaster oven using a pancake turner or whatever. apply the nutella with a butter knife. I prefer a fairly thin coat but not micro thin.

tedious soul-destroying stuff about appealing property taxes.

tedious soul-destroying stuff about tedium and soul destruction.

my attitude below average.

things in the future are expected to occur.

I can’t tell if I have a life.

headaches.

too much exercise.

the feng shui is a bit off.

burnt.

but tomorrow is a show giving me cause to go out at night. I should remember ear plugs.

things are not as bad as my present attitude would indicate. maybe some cleaning. some moving around.

101 on saturday.

First ever New Atlantis free jazz festival.
Main events are in DC at the Fridge, an art gallery in Capitol Hill.

All proceeds go to the musicians.

NPR write-up with audio/video.
Full schedule w/ Baltimore events.

Poster for DC events follows…

slept well. I have an average attitude. may have a good attitude tomorrow if I sleep well tonight.
ran around last night in cleats.
I made my bed. I’m going to clean the tub today, pretty sure. probably some generalized cleaning this afternoon or night.

my sleep was crumby or not at all. I itched and was consternated.

on the plusitive side, work is busy and I’m doing a competent job with most of it. I’m less foggy than I expected to be today.

yesterday evening I tried an experiment out back. I brought a fan out and pointed it at me, to see if it would keep the mosquitos away. didn’t work. within a minute several of them made their way toward me via the still air on the side of my body opposite the fan. I think I would need four fans for it to work. two of the fans would blow in one direction, one high and one low. the other two would blow high and low but with their air stream at a 90-degree angle to the other two. or I will make a little screened-in hut next spring or get an apiarist suit.

I fought it. at times. I got a slightly above-average amount of work done but it required a way above-average amount of effort.

things were all the way real at times.

my grandmother calls me sometimes like some kind of weepy ghoul. how odd & real. as she did this morning. it sounded for all the world like she had called me by accident, but I don’t know. once she had me on the phone, though. no, it wasn’t an accident. just surprised at getting someone, she was. she is so old I can’t help but think of her as both dead and alive. I really feel as though she has moved on, like someone in a movie or play that dies but still gets to have one more dialogue with a living character. at the same time she is in ways perfectly alive, still living independently in her mid-90s, living alone but she has some neighbors who check in with her, including one who, apparently, calls her every morning and night. for at least a few years I have found it possible to be essentially straight with her in everything I say, as if I’m talking to no one. I have a voice that sounds like me when I talk to her. she often asks questions I can’t answer and I tell her I don’t know the answer, though I sometimes don’t volunteer things that are germane to what she’s asked. she has no idea what I do, though I’ve told her many times I do things with computers. she doesn’t understand what the internet is but she understands appliances, so I can tell her I work with an appliance called a computer and she knows there’s a thing that has both a tv and a typewriter built into it and that runs on electricity. really that’s it. she’s not generally a naive person, exactly. she’s at times comically manipulative, though it can be annoying and not so funny at other times. she’s a liar. she’s not a pathological liar but she sometimes says things that are untrue in an effort to get a particular reaction or because she thinks it will gain her some advantage.

it became night again. quiet.

more reading of chunks of the ginsberg biography which has made me laugh. his courtroom sincerity and chanting.